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The Advantages of Homeschooling:
What are the Pros?
Here's where we find out the biggest advantages of homeschooling. For me, one of the most wondrous pros of homeschooling must be the riot of children's pictures following me along the hall, the shiny foil of Voyager's space probe peeking out of a bedroom and the eyeball lying half-constructed on the kitchen table.
If your child's never been to school then homeschool has to be the natural choice.
Even if you're following a set homeschool curriculum, you've got time in your home school schedule to follow your child's natural curiosity.
Now I know I'm using the word 'natural' in a deliberately provocative way (who said homeschool wasn't challenging?) but – let's face it – it's SCHOOL which has to take the credit for being the artificial method society has imposed to educate children en masse. And probably schools do as good a job as they can, given the constraints.
Just in case you don't believe me!
But with up to 30 children in a class how can even the most brilliant teacher give each child the attention they deserve? When you look at the pros and cons of homeschooling, the advantages of homeschooling are self-evident.
After all, the key to successful learning doesn't require a PhD in educational theory – just the common sense to know that if you're interested in something you'll want to learn.
It's those delightful sparks of excitement and discovery that can so easily be smothered in a school environment.
After all, if my 5 year-old daughter, (who happened to love Big Cats), is pre-occupied with a typical childhood fascination: How a Cheetah does a poo – is the teacher going to have the time (or the inclination) to answer her?
Yet the explanation includes mammals, digestion, even continents. And that's the point.
If you follow an interest you’ll cover a homeschool syllabus that can take you light years beyond any pre-determined level.
That's the same whatever the interest of the child, not to mention the benefits of spending time together.
It's the necessity to squash all children into the same lump, to get everyone learning the same thing at the same time at roughly the same level which is the killer.
And what about that vital missing element:
Who asked your child if they want to learn fractions today?
Put it another way:
How would you feel if I decided to teach you Ancient Greek?
Could be you've been to Greece and always been fascinated by the Parthenon; could be you'd rather not thanks and can't see the point anyhow.
Even with the best will in the world, school tends to make everything boring.
There are exceptional teachers, there are great schools, and there are pupils who come through and enjoy what they learn.
There are some problems with homeschooling, but overall you've been given an incredible opportunity, perhaps the biggest of all the advantages of homeschooling.
Want some ideas?
If you'd like some inspiration to help you make the most of the advantages of homeschooling, Julie runs the best homeschool website I know.
She's also written a free e-book full of ideas for creative homeschooling, which shows you all the pros of homeschooling by giving you top tips on how to homeschool by making learning fun.
If you do decide to start teaching your children, you'll discover that no school can match the chance you have to encourage your child's interests and follow wherever they lead. You'll also find one of the pros is the academic advantage of homeschooling, as you'll see if you look at the homeschooling statistics.
One of the big pros of homeschool is that you don't have to follow a strict timetable and you can gear learning entirely around what your child is interested in.
The overall advantages of homeschooling are incomparable, and I hope some of the activities here will inspire you to benefit from them.
