Homeschooling is growing rapidly but when you choose to homeschool your child you may run into a lot of criticism people who think badly of homeschooling or you yourself may have reservations about starting due to something that’s about it.
These are the most common misconceptions about homeschooling
- #1: Homeschooled Kids Can’t Go to College
One common criticism that people give of homeschooling your child is that your child will be unable to attend (or at least unprepared for) college. This is far from true. In reality, homeschooled kids can actually have an advantage over their pubic school counterpart. Because they are able to work at their own pace, many homeschooled students are able to move ahead quicker than they would in a traditional school setting. They typically are more familiar with independent learning. They are more likely to have studied a wide variety of topics and are able to study topics they find interesting at a greater depth.
They also have more free time available to earn college credits, thus giving them a bit of a head-start. As long as homeschoolers follow the guidelines of their state where it concerns high school graduation requirements and do their due diligence when applying to colleges, there is no reason that they can’t go to college and thrive. In fact, there are homeschoolers in some of the top colleges and universities, including Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, Rice, and Brown.
- #2: Homeschooled Kids Can’t Participate in Extracurricular Activities
Many parents might hesitate to pursue homeschooling because they fear that their children will be excluded from participating in extracurricular activities.
However, there are a wide variety of activities, clubs, and organizations that are open to homeschoolers. In addition to community activities (such as 4-H, Boy Scouts/Girl Scouts, martial soccer,swimming, baseball gymnastics, etc), homeschool children are also entitled to participate in interscholastic activities. For more information on this, please research the Tim Tebow Bill in your state.
There are also many local homeschooling groups-meet ups or Facebook-where they will have a meet up at other people’s houses for crafts, food,learning a new subject,playing or have a meet up at a special place such as Museum,hiking a mountain or a tour of say a local news Studio. Depending on your town there can be groups for different ages; preschool to middle school, middle school,high school even Infant to Pre-School ages. As well as different groups for different religions or different lifestyles such as veganism or Christian homeschool groups.
These are great for both the parents and the kids. The kids get to Play and Learn with other children and the adults get to speak with other homeschooling moms and dads.
- #3: Only a Few People Homeschool
Although homeschool is not the “norm”, it is gaining in popularity. Because of the varying homeschool legislations, it is difficult to get an accurate count of how many homeschoolers there are. However, as of the 2015-2016 school year, there was an estimated 2.6 million homeschoolers in the United States alone. Homeschooling is also a growing trend in other countries around the world – most notably, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and South Africa.
- #4: Homeschooled Kids Don’t Receive a high quality Education
Some people feel that homeschoolers can’t possibly receive a high quality education. However, most parents who choose to homeschool are intent that their children are well educated. In fact, their desire that their child excel academically and in life is often a reason for them to homeschool in the first place.
Homeschooling parents are usually diligent about putting together a curriculum or way of learning that will yield a great deal of learning for their children. They are also open to taking extra measures to ensure their child’s success, such as hiring tutors, focusing on an area/ subject that needs more attention, focus on major interests or taking extra classes for a particularly interesting subject through a community college or Community Center.
- #5: All Homeschool Families Are Very VERY Religious
Although some parent do choose to homeschool because of their religious beliefs, it is not the primary reason that people go this route.
There are a variety of reasons that someone might choose to homeschool their children. Some common reasons include feeling like the public school setting is not one in which their child can thrive, wanting their child to receive a more customized education, having a child that has special needs that a public school would not be able to address, and wanting to be able to focus on values, morals and beliefs not taught in traditional Public Schools. Our reasoning is that we want to tailor the education for our daughter to focus on passions and interests and hopefully she will grow up loving to learn and become an adult learner as well, teach things such as compassion, empathy and manners, avoid what we feel is unnecessary like standardized testing and common core and this island has a very poor public school system.
- #6: Homeschooled Children Are Unprepared for the Real World
Another common misconception is that homeschool children will not be prepared for when they have to go out into the real world. However, the reality is that many homeschool parent make the extra efforts to ensure that their children have a very well-rounded education that includes not only academic learning, but learning essential life skills. It is not uncommon for homeschoolers to learn about gardening, sewing, cooking, running a household, budgeting, interviewing, and a variety of other things that can help them once they enter the real world.
Most homeschool families also have hands-on learning experiences by going on field trips and traveling. Things that they may not be able to do as often if they were in a public school setting. They are also often highly involved in their communities (such as volunteering at an animal sanctuary or nursing home) which means they are not only able to communicate well with others, but are also likely well-networked.
- #7: Homeschool Parents Think Public School is “The Big Bad goverment ”
Although homeschool parents have decided that public school is not the best option for their children, that does not mean that they have an inherent issue with public education.
In fact, some families consist of some children who homeschool and other children that are in public( or private /charter school). We realize that homeschool is not for everyone. And the families who choose to homeschool their child or children don’t necessarily hate the public school system they just know that it’s not right for their child and family. For other families public School may be the best option.
Sites about the increase in Home Educators.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/01/why-homeschooling-is-growing/
http://whyonearthhomeschool.com/facts.html
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