College Essay Example - Pros and Cons of Homeschooling

Introduction

Homeschooling is a type of home education where learning of children takes place inside the home. The parents have the authority to control the teaching of children and decide what to teach, how to teach and when to teach their kids.

Generally, Homeschooling is different from general education being provided in classrooms where one teacher teaches to many children (one –to- many) rather students get personalized instructions and much attention from the educator or parents.

For example, if a student is not improving reading and writing, parents can work on the task or writing until students get mastery over the concepts. However, in traditional classrooms where instructions are pre-determined with a structured and rigid curriculum and specified time to achieve the outcome.

Thus, Homeschooling has a very flexible curriculum and methods which ensures a successful product. Home-based education is all about providing one-on-one learning opportunities to students.

With the ever-increasing popularity of Homeschooling, parents are considering Homeschooling as an alternative option for their children’s education. There are several reasons given by many families in favour of Homeschooling that drive them to decide to homeschool their children.

Majority of families showed concern about bullying in schools, children’s educational needs are not being met through traditional schools, desire to instil specific world view in their children, flexibility for children to peruse their passion, and concerns over school safety.

Parents can decide based on the advantages and disadvantages of Homeschooling. So, here is a list of pros and cons that help them to decide on their children’s schooling.

Pros of Homeschooling

1. Flexibility of Learning

Parents choose Homeschooling because of the flexibility of learning for their children. In home-based education, children have freedom of learning what they want to learn and when they want to learn as per their wish.

Students’ progress through their own pace of learning that depends upon their level of interest, ability and maturity. Moreover, parents have complete freedom on the choice of curriculum and instructions.

If the children have a particular interest, parents can help them to follow their passion until children can develop it. They can design their curriculum to meet the special needs of their children.

2. Physical Freedom

In Homeschooling, parents and children have greater freedom from strict rules of traditional schools. They are free from long school hours, school calendar and homework. It gives freedom whenever and wherever one plan for family vacations, visit museums and parks during the week and live their life according to their wishes.

3. Emotional Stability

Children face bullies, peer pressure, competition and boredom in current schools. This can lead to a decrease in the self-esteem of children. On the other hand, children who are perusing home-based education cannot face such issues.

Children have more freedom to dress, act, and think in their way without fear of ridicules. They follow their style of living without taking dictation from elders.

4. Freedom of Religious Practices

The families are more concerned about their religion and spiritual beliefs and want their children to learn religion. So, Homeschooling is providing the opportunity for parents to practice the belief in their lives and transfer it to the next generation.

5. Closer Relationship-building

Homeschooling plays a very significant role in building closer family relationships. Children have ample time for fostering loving ties between family members.

Young children can take benefits of Homeschooling by interacting with adults of the family. This will help parents to diminish the rebellious and destructive behaviours of children.

6. Freedom in Difficult Times

Whenever a family faces difficulties times like an illness, a death in the family, or moving from one country to another, Homeschooling helps them to cope with challenging situations.

7. Ample Rest for Kids

Many studies suggest that sleep is necessary for the physical and emotional well-being of children. Waking up early in the morning can be devastating for the health of children. Children feel boredom or lack of sleep which causes them to take less interest in their studies. This situation has made parents adopt Homeschooling.

8. No Busywork

Typical homework of schools can slow the learning of children. Children may take long weeks to grasp the concept in the classroom, which takes a few hours in Homeschooling. Due to these reasons, parents and educators are pro homeschooling.

Cons of Homeschooling

1. Gap in Learning

Homeschooling is a type of learning model where the children stay at home most of the time with their parents and learn. This may harm the child-parent relationships because of spending a lot of time together moreover, as parents are busy in their life so they may not teach their kids properly due to inadequate time.

As a result, children may develop gaps in their learning process. Also, when the child grows and learns in Homeschooling he/she can develop certain beliefs which may or may not be correct or partially correct. This narrow approach can damage the world view and psyche of children in future.

2. Unaware of New Trends in Education

Since parents have control over the curriculum, material and methods, they can miss the incorporation of new education trends in curriculum because parents are not education experts. This could limit the knowledge of children which they gain from Homeschooling.

Unorganized learning may occur in the absence of formal curriculum. The curriculum is developed by the highly qualified curriculum developers which keep many things in mind before designing formal curriculum including children needs, psychology and social context.

Whereas, children may be deprived of the true benefits of learning by their ignorant parents. Consequently, children, instead of receiving fruits of education, can be hampered by Homeschooling.

3. Lack of Legal and Societal Acceptance

Another reason that home-based education of children may not get societal and legal acceptance because of the way it has been taught at home. Homeschooled children may face difficulty in favour to further education which can hurt them in succeeding.

The children who are homeschooled may not enjoy the healthy benefits of competition in schools which inspired them to break the limits and reach their full potential.

4. Narrow Mind-set

Homeschooling has a disadvantage for children because most of the time, they are surrounded by the same people throughout the day. This results in the formation of the one-sided view of the world and hampers the thinking skills of children while neglecting the other perspectives of the world.

The opinions carried by children may become biased because they take forward the opinions and beliefs of their teachers and parents. Consequently, children develop narrow mind-set.

5. Missing the Competitive Environment

Children who are homeschooled miss out the sporting event with their fellows. Despite they are participating in the sport even still they miss the competitive sports events where they may get a chance of fostering their strong bonds with their peers.

Lack of competitive environment creates low self-esteem among children. Moreover, these children’s may not handle the situations involving high pressure, meeting deadlines and surprise quizzes. Lesser learning through social interaction in groups may result in social and behavioural issues.

They can face problems when exposed to other cultures and norms because they have done things the way they want previously.

6. No Socialization

School-going children share everyday experiences with their peers. Theses common experiences can be formed during field trips, shared projects and sports events. This not only improves the trust of children among peers but also understand emotions. Due to these experiences, children form lifelong relations and friendships.

7. Financial Burden

Homeschooling costs more than public schooling. This means that parents have to think over other viable options for finances to meet their financial constraints. This economic burden may pose challenges for parents.

Conclusion

In conclusion, parents should weigh the pros and cons of Homeschooling and then take the decision that allows them to provide a comprehensive home-based education to their children or send them to a school where more qualified educators can teach them.

Parents need to think of all available option so that they can make a better decision for providing quality education to their children.

Introduction