August 15, 2007

Homeschooling ? Can You Really Do This?

Tip! Do not let worry about legal issues distract you from the everyday business of homeschooling. When homeschoolers object to rules that require them to document their children’s learning or to have their kids tested on a regular basis, it’s because such requirements often interfere with that learning.

1f6f

As you know, school house teachers prepare for their career path through many hours of course work, methodology classes, and student teaching before they begin teaching school. So how in the world could a parent without such training and preparations expect to be able to successfully home school their children?

Homeschooling Secrets Revealed. Unlock The Keys To Your Childs Educational Success.

As someone who has accomplished both, I can tell you that home schooling is quite a different job than classroom teaching. For instance, a classroom teacher is tasked with the rather prodigious challenge of conveying specific skills to a large group of kids with many different learning abilities and learning styles and certainly they come from different backgrounds. I can tell you, as a teacher, the temperament toward learning in which the child is exposed to at home is a huge influencing factor when it comes to the child’s performance at school. Whether a child comes from a home environment that embraces and nurtures learning or not makes teaching a large group of students an even more challenging task. Then there are those discipline issues that inevitably come. When this occurs, the schoolteacher is bound to follow rules, regulations, and policies. And may or may not have the support of the parents in correcting the behavior.

Tip! Less Distractions - Homeschooling programs enable students to solely focus on the task at hand. They can pay 100% attention to their studies, without any worries, social distractions or pressures of a regular school setting.

Disciplinary action is a whole different arena when you are a homeschooling parent. This is a natural duty for you as a parent and as such you can incorporate the rules and policies that not only work best for your homeschool but for your family as well.

As a homeschooling parent, you are in control of the home environment of student(s)! And homeschoolers certainly don’t have to teach, motivate, and reach out to an entire room full of children at one time. We only have to motivate and manage one (or several) children, and even then (if you’re creative with your scheduling and planning) it doesn’t have to be all at the same time. As parents, homeschoolers are driven by the highest of motivators? the love for their children and the desire for them to be successful.

Tip! Do not be shy about your homeschooling. You don’t have to announce it to everyone you meet, but visible home-schoolers help make homeschooling familiar and acceptable to the general public.

When it comes to the curriculum, schoolteachers are largely bound by a prescribed program and schedule. In the traditional classroom, because of scheduling and time constraints (along with everything else) a teacher must instruct as efficiently as possible. Too much time on one unit will probably mean cuts being made in others. One of the biggest challenges schoolteachers face with the larger class sizes is finding teaching pace that will not out run the slower student yet deliver to the higher learners subject matter that challenges them as well. Unfortunately, the answer is usually a compromise that neither works for the slower or the faster students.

As a homeschooling parent you don’t have to work within the time constraints or the class sizes. And you certainly won’t get called into the office because you spent too much time on one subject either because your child really took to it and you wanted to dig deeper, or your child struggled to understand some of the concepts and you wanted to review, test and teach some more before you moved on. As a whole the homeschooling parent can work with and help their children fully learn something without having to worry about any myriad of issues that schoolteachers face.

Tip! There is a significant distinction between ?Homeschooling? and ?School-at-Home?. One of the concepts of homeschooling is that it carries out standard lessons and schoolwork at home, and ?home? definitely becomes a part of the schooling itself.

It’s been documented that one on one instruction facilitates learning at a much greater pace than can be done in a one to many environment. The homeschooling parent has the flexibility to adjust the schedule as learning dictates. You’ll find that because this teaching model is so much more efficient than classroom learning, that you’ll be able to dig deeper and stay longer within subjects and still have plenty of time on your homeschool yearly calendar.

Preparation is always a good thing and with today’s technologies it’s much easier. Get out there and read books, find some good online homeschooling forums that you like and jump in. You’ll soon get a feel for how those ahead of you on the path have approached the very same questions that you have. Be prepared for some sanding and buffing of your schedule and your plans until you find what works best for you, your child(ren) and your family.

Tip! child. Most homeschooling parents only object to state requirements for documentation and testing because they interfere with the learning experience for their child.

Do you have educational training and pedigrees that schoolteachers have? Probably not; but as you now know, in the case of homeschooling you don’t need many of them.

So, homeschooling? can you really do this? I think you’ll find that with the availability of so many resources today, combined with your enthusiasm for your child’s success and the love of being their parent that? yes you can do this.

Tip! Don’t assume that explanations of homeschooling legal issues are correct. Always investigate any possible concerns for yourself.

Mary Joyce is a former educator, successful homeschool parent, and has written many articles on
teaching your child at home for the Homeschool-Curriculum-4u website. Please visit (http://www.homeschool-curriculum-4u.com) for more of Mary’s articles, resources on homeschool, ideas, and curriculum information.

Permalink Print
Made with WordPress and an easy to use WordPress theme • Strawberry Cream, Classic skin by Antonella Pavese