Home Schooling Essay, Research Paper

Motivation of Home Schooled Children

Home schooling is relatively new issue that is getting a growing interest in the United States especially in the last years. Although, because of the nature of privacy of the issue, no certain figures can be confidently known about the number of people (pupils) involved in home schooling , Observers generally agree that the number of parents involved in home schooling is growing (Karel M). Whether it is in the range of 200 000, 400 000 or little more or little less, it seems that it is growing in numbers and needs special attention to look little deeper in the subject. The main issue that is worth discussing is, what makes the parent want the child to learn, what encourages him to learn in this way? A new article Home Thought is discussing this subject of Motivation of what motivates the parents to home school their children.

Basically parents first must be motivated to teach the subject, if it is boring to them to teach it, it will certainly be so for the child. The secret of success lies in that parents should be creative in trying to convince their children how the new topics will be (or currently is) applicable to the child s life and future goals. (Motivation 1) They need to create a reason for the child to expend the mental energy necessary to learn (Motivation 2). This will need using non traditional ways to increase the interest of the child, some spicing it up like using video, audio tapes, historical fiction, visiting museums and historical places, etc. Also the article suggested that the curriculum should be planned both by the parent and his children, which means that he must take their opinion in choosing the subjects they want to learn.

This two way communication helps in decreasing the possibility of resistance that may rise from the children side in refusing to learn some basic subjects like for example math. The parent may be as flexible and responsive as possible, keep a loose structure, encourage discussions and listen to your kids (Motivation 3), as far as optional topics are concerned. But for basic topics he must use all creative methods as possible to increase the interest of the kids like playing math games, he numbers were invented, use physical objects to teach equations, and so on. In a summary there must be a way to make basic subjects fun and relevant (The Objective Approach) to their daily life. It is very important in home schooling, and the article suggests getting out for one day during the week would be a good idea just to break the daily routine.

The issue now is why home schooling is getting important and more and more people are getting involved in it. In a recent article called Educational Philosophy: What s Wrong With Public Schools , it becomes very clear why this is happening to the extent that you ask yourself why isn t home schooling growing faster than it is now? Describing public schools in America children are, in effect, risking their lives by attending school. Fatal attacks from deranged students are spreading like an epidemic . police are a common sight on school grounds, and anti-drug campaigns are routine even in elementary schools, kids bring weapons to class and actually kill innocent people ( Educational Philosophy ). Thus, home schooling is much safer than public schools.

It looks horrible to the extent that parents should think a thousand times before deciding whether to send their children to school or not. Even the idea of socialization which we always though to be the main reason of going to school, there are critics about the government want to create a future society of passive, dependent, obedient citizens. They take a malleable young mind and shop it to be intellectually reliant, not on itself, but on an authority. (Educational Philosophy). This demonstrates how school does schooling very well Children learn to obey orders but it does not educate (qtd in Chappell 64).

It seems that it is a very interesting subject in light of the dark view of public schools now in America, but I think that a lot of training for the parents is necessary before getting into this experience. I believe that not just anybody can all of a sudden decide to let his children get in home schooling.