"When we were parents, we didn't talk much about how to raise kids," a grandmother says, "we just did it." By contrast, today's parents are prone to analyze and agonize over every decision they make regarding their children and have little confidence in their preventing abilities. Believing that the professionals "can do it better" they drop their children off at institutions to be educated and cared for at ever-younger ages.
In the midst of this crisis of parental confidence, there is a refreshing attitude emerging, a reemerging faith in the do-it-yourself approach to raising children. One of the most visible signs of the new mood is the homeschooling movement. Homeschooling parents feel that too much institutionalization is bad for education, just as it is for health care, childbirth, or any other people-oriented service. They are convinced that relationships, not programs, are the key to a high-quality education, both academically and socially.
Today, nearly one million children in the United States are educated at home by their parents. What makes these parents willing to assume such a staggering responsibility? A 1984 study, entitled Home Study in Alaska, conducted by S. Green, found that the main reasons for choosing home study are to make education concrete by integrating it with daily practical life skills (52 percent) and to teach religious/spiritual and moral values (58 percent).
Life And Learning
"Children learn best by doing active, hands-on projects, not by sitting at a desk writing symbols in workbooks," says Carole Thaxton of Julian, California, who homeschools her two sons. She cites Piaget, who showed that a wide range of concrete experiences is the basis for developing abstract reasoning. In many home education projects, children count real objects, construct models, act out historical events, grow gardens, develop home businesses--projects available in only the best institutional schools.
Because of its emphasis on practical experiences, home education is easily integrated into the rest of life. "We talk about what we're learning in 'school' on and off all day, relating it to other things we're doing," explains Connie Mehring, of Silver Spring, Maryland. The result, according to Erika Smith of St. Louis, Missouri, is that "kids discover that learning is part of life, not something that takes place only in an institution, segregated from the rest of society."
Education is not just a matter of teaching academic skills; it is also a matter of training a child's character. By educating their own children, parents have a greater opportunity to pass on family values--whether those values be religious, traditional, or countercultural. Dan and Janice Strong of Toronto, Ontario, teach their three children at home because, as Janice puts it, "Why should I wash the kitchen floor while someone else does the really fun part of parenting--training my child's mind, teaching her values, molding her character?"
Many homeschoolers feel that youngsters need a longer incubation period during which their primary dependence is on their parents, not their peers. "The more our society loses its moral orientation, the more we need to give our kids the convictions and the emotional security they need to stand on
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