I have an editorial post today on Getting Smart, the blog about innovations in learning and teaching.
I summarize the responses that I heard from parents on my post “10 Thoughts about Homeschooling by an Educator (And Why I’m Still Worried)” and conclude:
“We — as researchers, writers, observers, and reformers of education — cannot ignore the implications of their basic message that schools must respond to their children’s individual needs. In the minds of thousands of the most impassioned, capable, and knowledgeable parents about education — those who could have the most impact as partners in the educational systems as parents — the educational system is no longer acceptable for their child, and they are choosing to leave. Those voices are worth paying attention to.”
What else should educational innovators know about home schooling?
Check out the book Deschooling Our Lives (1998) by Matt Hern. I read this when it first came out. You use the word “unschooling” so it made me think about this. Also check out Dumbing Us Down (1992) by John Taylor Gatto. This one is written by a teacher of the year who worked with urban elementary school kids.
That’s an excellent summary. I’d only say that it seems to insinuate that the goal is to change the system so that those parents/families are drawn back into the school system. It’s important to realize that many homeschoolers don’t see this as a goal at all. They don’t want to be integrated back into the system. They see the system as broken precisely b/c it IS a system of bureaucracy and too many people. In order to accommodate these h.s. families, you’d have to alter the “system” to such a degree that it would simply resemble homeschooling, which will never happen. Our system, as it is, already allows for homeschooling. Why would they want to go back?
I also think this new trendy swing toward totally individualized, child-customized education is a reverse, a push against the system’s insistence that all kids be tested the same, stamped out of the same mold. But customized education IS a trend, and eventually it will be maxed out and taken too far to its extreme, and we’ll swing back the other way. We need education that somehow hits the middle: holding students to a common standard while allowing as much as possible for their strengths and weaknesses. Right now, homeschooling achieves that compromise best, so it’s a fast-growing method.
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There certainly is an abundance of homeschooling information available and this is a good thing… for the most part… as long as you don’t get bogged down in overload and suffer paralysis by analysis. There are a lot of wonderful articles and tips to help you insure your homeschool success.^””-
http://www.healthmedicine101.com
Have a nice day