Homeschooling: The Road to Disaster

Homeschooling: The Road to Disaster

Over one million children are homeschooled throughout the world today. That figure constitutes 1 percent of school-aged children worldwide (Lyman "Answers"). Children are no longer required to sit in boring classrooms day after day and learn from textbooks; however, along with those classrooms comes the socialization that most young children need in their lives. Janet Mau, a teacher at a public high school, has family members who homeschool their children. She said, "I think the children get enough education, but they don't get adequate social stimulation. The children end up lacking the important social skills that they will need for the rest of their lives" (Mau). Most homeschooled children receive more individual attention during the school day, but many more advantages exist for children attending a public school. A homeschooled child is not exposed to the diversity of beliefs, backgrounds, and ethnicities that a child would come across in many public schools and the world beyond school (Gibbs).

Homeschooling - Gustoff family in Des Moines 020

English: Source: http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu...

English: Motivations regarded most important for h...

Unless the regulations tighten on Homeschooling, the number of children who are socially deprived and become substandard citizens might increase dramatically.

Homeschooling has been around for hundreds of years. Several of the most influential people in United States history, such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were homeschooled. George Washington acquired most of his schooling in the fields of his father's farm (Kantrowitz). Back then, however, the choices for education were limited to one-room schoolhouses and very few secondary schools. Today an array of choices for education exists. These choices include public schools, private schools, and homeschools. Until the 1980s, the main reason for parents to homeschool was to strictly instill their religious beliefs in their children through their education. Until that time, most homeschooling parents were considered "Bible-thumping Christians" educating their children at "apron-string length to...