The Natural Child Project The Natural Child Project
View shopping cart

Common Objections to Homeschooling

People, especially educators, who hear me talk about homeschooling, raise certain objections so often that it is worth answering them here.

  1. Since people are from so many different kinds of backgrounds, don't we need some kind of social glue?
  2. Children in school are able to meet many children very different from themselves. If they didn't go to school, how would this happen?
  3. How are we going to prevent parents with narrow and bigoted ideas from passing these on to their children?
  5. If you don't send children to school, how are they going to be exposed to any values other than the commercial values of a mass society?
  6. If children are taught at home, won't they miss the valuable social life of the school?
  7. How are we going to prevent children being taught by "unqualified" teachers?
  8. How am I going to teach my child six hours a day?
  9. How are children going to learn what they need to know?
  10. to 17. A few more short questions and answers
Originally published as Chapter 2, Teach Your Own: A Hopeful Path for Education. New York: Delacorte Press, 1981. Excerpted and reprinted with permission of Holt Associates, copyright 1997. Reprinting of any part of this chapter is allowed only by the express written permission of Holt Associates.