Why homeschooling is different from public school-at-home and quarantine schooling
Recently, it seems there’s lots of misconceptions about homeschooling, as most families who are forced to do public school-at-home as a result of COVID 19 school closures, are considered as ‘homeschooling’. There is a big difference between homeschooling and public school-at- home. There is even a huge difference between homeschooling and quarantine schooling, which most families who homeschool, including us, are currently doing.
The reason I wanted to clarify what homeschooling really is, is so that potential homeschooling families don’t shy away from homeschooling in case their public school-at-home experience was not the best. As there is uncertainty about reopening schools next academic year, I wanted to list the advantages of homeschooling in case anyone wants to consider it in place of public school-at-home/virtual school.
So let’s look at what these mean.
Public school-at-home, which is what the families who were sending kids to public school, and having to school at home during the quarantine are doing, is basically doing the lessons and work sent by the school teacher, and doing it at home instead of in school. It is essentially the same work that is generalized for the whole class, that instead of doing at school, is done at home. Even though the kids are at home, they are still following the lessons given by the teacher, and continue to follow the pace of the class.
Quarantine schooling is what most of us are doing now, with being stuck at home. Even those who homeschool are quarantine schooling now, as most of the things that homeschooling families do on a very regular basis or even on a daily level, are not available now. This includes field trips, library trips, social gatherings with other homeschool families (both age based and family based), co-ops, extracurricular activities, sports, etc just to name a few. Quarantine schooling is new to all of us, in these unprecedented times. Simply put, I guess it will be homeschooling minus all the outside involvements.
Homeschooling is the education of children at home or a variety of places. Here, the parents set the standards and choose or put together the curriculum and take the driver seat in terms of teaching, facilitating, and mentoring. They take charge of their kids education. Though called ‘home’schooling, learning can happen not only at home, but any time and any place. In fact, the ‘world is their classroom’.
Homeschooling is very different than the above 2 mentioned schooling. Let’s explore a little deeper into what homeschooling actually is and its proven benefits. I had mentioned a little about how homeschooling is more than just academics in my post here. To expand on that, I’ll try to bring out some key points.
First let’s see what homeschooling is NOT:
1)Homeschooling is NOT equal to school-at-home. The purpose of homeschooling is not to try to replicate the traditional school. Although there are some minority of homeschoolers who follow a very traditional approach, majority of homeschoolers develop their own style of homeschooling, by adapting from a variety of educational philosophies, homeschooling methods and learning styles. (You can read more about that in this post here).
This brings us to the next point..
2) Homeschooling is NOT a one size fits all endeavor. Homeschooling becomes most effective when we think outside the box, and adapt/customize curriculum to meet the needs of the children. Kids, especially younger kids can develop an aversion to learning when they are forced to learn something they aren’t yet interested in or through a method they find cumbersome. Just an example from our house; at one point I was introduced to the concept of lap booking, which requires writing notes related to specific questions in small booklets of different deisgns, and then cutting and pasting these booklets on file folders, to make a ‘lapbook’. It is a rather tedious process, but something liked by kids who are more hands on. My oldest daughter enjoyed making these for science, during her elementary years, as she is a more hands on/ crafty type person. My oldest son, didn’t like it at all from the beginning. So I allowed him to write or type up his personal notes instead. If I had required him to continue doing it, it would have really produced the opposite result, as in his case, it was more of busywork and not necessarily enhancing learning. As she approached middle school, my daughter also thought it was too time consuming, and stopped doing it. The beauty with homeschooling is this flexibility and adaptability of curriculum to meet their learning style. This is not necessarily possible in a traditional school setting, where kids are required to do busywork, whether they like it or not. And considering that one teacher has to engage 20-30 kids, there is no way out than by providing some busywork, which unfortunately doesn’t resonate with most kids. Another way to customize is to let them decide which topic to ‘major’ in the following year. Eg, for science or history I sometimes allow them to choose between few topics they want to go deeper in, depending on what their current interests are. A different way is to bring in characters or themes(eg Legos, Star Wars, soccer players) into the learning by incorporating into different subjects in creative ways.
If the student has mastered a concept he can easily move onto the next chapter without having to wait for the rest of the class to catch up. Also, a struggling learner can take his time to master the subject. In a traditional school setting however, with the very high teacher student ratio, this is not possible. This means that students who have already mastered the topic have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up instead of being able to advance at his pace. Also the child who has struggles with learning will have to move on without mastering the subject and therefore might lag behind. Research has shown over and over that homeschooled kids outperform their public and private schooled peers on standardized tests, for which this may be one of the reasons.
3) Homeschooling is NOT only about academics. Learning via homeschooling includes not only academic learning but also integrating learning with real life experiences. Through various hands-on approaches, learning comes to life. For example, when a child plants a seed outside in the backyard, not only is he learning the different stages of the lifecycle of the plant but also he is being emotionally engaged by being directly involved in planting something in his own backyard. Similarly when a child bakes, not only is he happy with the final result of being able to make something delicious, but also he is learning science and math in the process. Most homeschoolers involve their kids in various activities including their home businesses, household projects, farms, household work and other activities. Through all these, real life learning happens and not only that, it boosts their self-confidence and enables them to develop important lifeskills that are essential for independent life later. As most homeschool families are on top of having their children do daily chores, they are able to incorporate these major lifeskills into their life on a daily basis.
Now lets look at the benefits of homeschooling:
- The problem with society today is not necessarily that no one has knowledge (in fact, we have too much knowledge now with the information explosion), but more so, that we are unaware of how to live. Christ taught us the truth and the way of life. Sadly, in the US, the public schools have taken God out of the system and thus have very secular and even anti-Christian content that is interweaved into the system. With homeschooling, parents decide the curriculum to follow, so they can take out what doesn’t fit in with their moral or religious views, and replace with what foundation they want to build their childrens education on. They also have the opportunity to include good character traits, virtues and discipline, which is not so much a focus in society today.
- As mentioned above, the ability to customize curriculum to suit the needs of the child, instead of a one size fits all approach that is rendered in traditional classrooms, and public school-at-home, is one of the major distinctions of homeschooling and this certainly has academic benefits, as well as the one-on-one attention.
- It is a much more efficient method of learning. Homeschooled kids are able to finish their lessons in a fraction of the time a kid spends behind the walls of a traditional school. Since there is no downtime waiting for the whole class to settle down, as well as no administrative downtime, kids can get straight to their lessons and be done when they are done with the lesson, instead of having to wait again for the whole class to complete the assignment. So they have way much more time to pursue their hobbies and passions and other pursuits, as well as household projects.
- Real Life Learning. Most homeschooled kids are involved in family projects, family businesses, or other kong term projects. This real life learning helps build critical thinking skills and problem-solving capabilities.
- Allows children to learn at their own pace. With the one on one attention, they can move at their own pace. Thus this method of learning accommodates to the childs natural learning curve. This is an advantage to both the gifted and struggling learner.
- Homeschooling provides a safe environment conducive to learning. No fear of bullying or peer pressure. So they can tap into their full potential and express themselves freely, without wearing too many masks.
- Flexibility. When real life happens, or there is a discipline issue that needs to be addressed first, there is flexibility to put away academics for a day or two. There is also flexibility with family vacations. Also if some opportunity comes up, there is flexibility to partake, without having to look at set school times.
- Homeschoolers, contrary to popular belief, are well socialized as they interact with a wide variety of ages on a daily basis as opposed to the same aged peers for majority of the day.
- Most homeschoolers are independent learners. One of the main roles of homeschool parents is teaching kids to teach themselves. After all, the real purpose of education should be to be able to ‘educate’ yourself. Homeschooling definitely helps in igniting that spark for lifelong learning.
Thus, homeschooling is not just doing ‘school’ at home, but a lot more!
I will be posting a series of 4 posts in the coming weeks to help with homeschool planning for the next year. So stay tuned!