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Why do people homeschool?
Parents choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons. These include a desire to strengthen family bonds, freedom to design individualized curriculum, moral and religious reasons, and dissatisfaction with the public school system.
Homeschooling parents spend a great deal of time working with and guiding their children. These families often feel that the fast pace of modern life is destroying family closeness. Family activities such as games, shared chores, and group projects are a regular part of the homeschooling plan. These families enjoy the extra time they spend together. They feel that homeschooling strengthens the family unit and allows their children to make choices for themselves without regard to peer pressure.
Parents have a unique understanding of their children and can plan their learning program to accomodate individual interests. For example, a child who is intrigued by frogs may be assigned the task of researching and writing a report that describes a certain type of frog, it’s life cycle, and what part of the world it lives in. The child may also be asked to explain why the study of frogs is important to scientists. If the child then becomes interested in space exploration, the learning program can be altered to meet that interest. Since the child is always studying something he or she is interested in, the learning has more impact and meaning. This type of interest-led learning is not possible in a classroom where teachers must design lesson plans for many children at once.
Homeschooling also allows parents to tailor the curriculum to meet their child’s individual learning needs. Children who need to spend extra time developing their math or English skills can be given that time. Parents can achieve this by decreasing the amount of time spent on other subjects in order to encourage a child to spend more time working in a weak area. This type of flexibility is available in a homeschooling environment.
The same flexibility allows parents to tailor curriculum to meet their child’s learning styles. While some children learn best through reading, others must hear to remember, and others are primarily hands-on, or tactile, learners. Homeschooling allows children to explore topics in the way they learn best.
Moral and religious reasons motivate many parents to choose homeschooling. These parents want their moral and religious beliefs to be included in their child’s education and are able to choose or design curriculum that integrates their beliefs.
Finally, many parents choose to homeschool because of dissatisfaction with the public school system. They may feel that their children are being either held back or pushed too hard. They often disagree with an educational philosophy that groups children solely according to age and wish to provide their children with an opportunity to learn at their own ideal pace in every subject. Their child may be unhappy in school or, in some cases, their own memory of an unhappy public school experience motivates them to choose homeschooling.
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