Dear Colleagues! Friends and parents!
The issue of home schooling is an important and ambiguous one. He has many ardent supporters and as many ardent opponents. On this page we offer you the opportunity to express your opinion and get acquainted with the opinion of the other party. Write your opinion in the comments. As elsewhere on Psychologos, moderation will be, so it’s better to write immediately not categorically, but constructively and with respect for a different opinion. Let’s make the discussion sensible!
And let the bright article of Ksenia Podorova “Home Education” put the beginning of the discussion. Excerpts from there:
In my time, all first-graders were still “automatically” enrolled in Octobrists, and then they began to cry out to their “Oktyabryat conscience”, etc. By the end of the first class, my son realized that no one asked him if he wanted to be an Oktyabrenko. He started asking me questions. And after the summer holidays (at the beginning of the second grade), he announced to the teacher that he was “coming out of October”. At school, panic began.
At home, my son and I often told each other about our news (according to the principle “I had something interesting today”). And I began to notice that in his stories about school too often situations of this type are mentioned: “Today I began to read such an interesting book – in mathematics.” Or: “Today I began to write the score of my new symphony – on history.” Or: “And Petya, it turns out, plays great chess – we had time to play a couple of games on geography.” I wondered: why does he even go to school? Study? But in the classroom, he is engaged in completely different things. To communicate? But it can be done outside of school.
A normal child, in addition to classmates, usually has many more acquaintances: living in the next house, coming to visit with their parents, found where the child was engaged in some interesting thing … If the child wants to communicate, he will find friends independently on whether he goes to school. And if he does not want, then it is not necessary. On the contrary, one should be glad that no one imposes communication on him when he feels the need to “withdraw into himself.”
Communication at home is usually more complete than at school. The child gets used to discussing any topics freely, expressing his thoughts, thinking about the interlocutor’s thoughts, agreeing with them or protesting, selecting weighty arguments in the dispute … At home, he often has to communicate with those older than him and is able to communicate better, more qualitatively, more fully. . And the child has to “catch up” to the level of normal adult communication. He gets used to respect the interlocutor and to build a dialogue depending on the situation …
When I say that nobody “sits” with my children, doing “lessons” with them, they simply do not believe me. They think it’s bravado. However, I am sure that any normal child has a craving for knowledge (remember: from the first years of life he wonders how many legs the crocodile has, why the ostrich does not fly, what the ice is made of, where the clouds are flying, because this is what he could would learn from school textbooks if I perceived them simply as “books”). But when he goes to school, there they begin to slowly but surely kill this craving. Instead of knowledge, they impose the ability to count the necessary number of cells from the left edge of the notebook. In school, knowledge, if acquired, is in spite of the learning system. At home, they are easily digested and stress-free.
In the process of home schooling, we realized that a child could have a “vacation” 10 months a year (that is, do what he was really interested in), and in 2 months go through the next class program and take the necessary exams. And one more observation: a person who has not spent 10 years on the school bench is noticeably different from the others. There is something in it … As one teacher said about my child – “a pathological sense of freedom.”
- As I understand you!
A few years ago I would subscribe to every word of the article. Home schooling? Yes! Save the kids from school! Home birth? Yes! Let’s save mommies from the state-run maternity hospital, evil nurses and doctors who might be mistaken! No vaccinations? Yes! Protect our kids from the penetration of poisonous vaccines!
Now I wouldn’t with such joy and confidence “break stereotypes” and “resist the system”. I sit, thinking.
- What are you thinking about?
I think that homeschool education is not suitable for all parents and children.
Parents should be very wise and responsible. To be able to organize both yourself and children. And how many of these among us?
Suppose my friends decided to go to home schooling. They tell me how long they made this decision and why. I know that they have a plan for learning and monitoring the results. Their children (of secondary school age) rejoice that they can have time for the pool, chess, and programming lessons. Mom does not work and enjoys the opportunity to give her children the knowledge and discover the world.
For this family, I am calm.
There may be another case. Suppose I hear that they want to “save the school system from grinding the Identity,” they recall, “what stress we experienced from the mockery of classmates and what boredom on excursions with the class,” wondered, “why did we learn about the infusorium-shoe ?! She’s I never used it in my life! The ability to solve equations in a store is also not needed – we use four arithmetic operations! ” At the same time, children are jubilant: “Hooray! No need to go to school!”
Friends, I will be seriously distressed. In my opinion, this is not the case with which reasonable people operate. Meanwhile, there are a lot of similar arguments in homeschooling forums.
- Let’s approach the question deliberately.
I did not examine the question of the consequences of home schooling, therefore I am only expressing my doubt. I ask the enthusiastic parents to weigh them all over again, to talk to those who have been home schooled. And also with those who have tried and refused this form of knowledge acquisition.
Important! The school system gives not only knowledge! Think carefully about how the child will be socialized at home. Personally, having transferred a child to study at home, from time to time I would turn to a good psychologist to assess the degree of mental maturity and socialization.
- A look from the fourth position of perception (“System look”).
A small but important digression: I am for vaccinations. The arguments of those who are against, as I understand them: vaccination can be harmful; compulsory vaccination violates human rights.
From the point of view of the child and the parent, vaccination may not be necessary. The situation around is more or less favorable. “Well, where did you see that smallpox and polio ??! Mom refuses vaccinations for her three children – and they grow up healthy! Very good! The vaccine was not needed!”
A systematic look at this question is different. When there are many such literate moms who write refusals, the epidemiological situation changes. Already “defeated” smallpox and diphtheria may return. Only vaccination coverage of the population (over 70%) can guarantee the health of a wide range of people.
According to the conclusion of experts of the World Health Organization, the majority of anti-vaccination arguments are not supported by scientific data and are described as “alarming and dangerous misconception.”
I am writing about this for two reasons. The first. The author mentioned the lack of vaccinations as one of the advantages of home schooling. I will speak as a representative of supporters of another point of view.
The second reason is the main one. Ideally, our view of the situation should be systemic. A school is not only a certain amount of knowledge that your child has mastered. Not just everyday communication with peers. The school (for the present) brings up. School education introduces a new generation of children to the culture. The school disciplines, teaches to regular efforts to organize themselves. I think this is not all that a child gets in ten years of schooling. Who can guarantee that after reading the textbooks at home and having passed the teacher’s exam at school, did your child learn everything his classmates learned? We will know this when these children become adults.
A good, high-quality home education is a lot of work and a big responsibility of parents.