Home schooling

Home Schooling

Home schooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school. Prior to the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education occurred within the family or community, homeschooling in the modern sense is an alternative in developed countries to formal education.



Motivations for Home Schooling

According to a 2001 U.S. Census survey, 33% of homeschooling households cited religion as a factor in their choice. The same study found that 30% felt school had a poor learning environment, 14% objected to what the school teaches, 11% felt their children were not being challenged at school, and 9% cited morality.

According to the U.S. DOE's "Homeschooling in the United States: 2003", 85 percent of homeschooling parents cited "the social environments of other forms of schooling" (including safety, drugs, sexual harassment, bullying and negative peer-pressure) as an important reason why they homeschool. 72 percent cited "to provide religious or moral instruction" as an important reason, and 68 percent cited "dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools." 7 percent cited "Child has physical or mental health problem", 7 percent cited "Child has other special needs", 9 percent cited "Other reasons" (including "child's choice," "allows parents more control of learning" and "flexibility").

Other reasons include more flexibility in educational practices for children with learning disabilities or illnesses, or for children of missionaries, military families, or otherwise traveling parents. Homeschooling is sometimes opted for the gifted student who is accelerated, or has a significant hobby or early career (i.e. acting, dancing or music).


Home School in USA

Public schools were gradually introduced into the United States during the course of the 19th century. These were for the purpose of educating the orphans who had no parents to educate them at home. This concept slowly spread until Massachusetts became the first state to issue a compulsory education law in 1789. It was not until 1852 that the state established a "true comprehensive statewide, modern system of compulsory schooling."

Prior to the introduction of public schools, many children were educated in private schools or in the home. During this period, illiteracy was common and many children were never properly educated. It was common for literate parents to use books dedicated to educating children such as Fireside Education, Griswold, 1828, Warren Burton's Helps to Education in the Homes of Our Country, 1863, and the popular McGuffey Readers, sometimes bolstered by local or itinerant teachers, as means and opportunity allowed. Raymond Moore, among others, asserted that the United States was at the height of its national literacy under this informal system of tutelage, but such claims are difficult to prove.

After the establishment of the Massachusetts system, other states and localities gradually began to provide public schools and to make attendance mandatory as they too had problems with the question of how to educate the orphans. In 1912, A.A. Berle of Tufts University (not to be confused with the Adolf Berle who was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference) asserted in his book The School in Your Home that the previous 20 years of mass education had been a failure and that he had been asked by hundreds of parents how they could teach their children at home.