| |
What is Home Schooling
|
|
Home School |
(Rate 1 2 3 4 5) |
What is Home Schooling?
By Ina Woolcott
Home schooling, or as some call it home education, is the teaching of children and giving them an education at home as opposed to going to a public school. Prior to the 19th century, when compulsory school attendance laws came into being, education took place mainly in the family or community. Few children attended school or had a private tutor.
Nowadays most children are institutionally schooled. There are families who DO choose to home educate their children though, as they believe that they are better able to provide them with a quality education or social
environment than a public or even private school. This seems to be a more regular occurrence in English speaking nations.
A wide variety of methods and materials are available. Families may choose to follow a particular education philosophy e.g.
*Waldorf Education - the educational philosophy or Rudolf Steiner. Based on his anthroposophical view of humans. The child's development is considered a process of the child's soul and spirit incarnating into a developing living,
physical organism. The central values of the curriculum and training of teachers are spirituality. There are Waldorf - Steiner schools in circa 60 countries world wide and the methods can be incorporated in to a home school
environment.
* classical education - this form of education developed a lot of the terms now used to describe 'modern' education. In the western world there are three different phases:
1-primary education (this was often called the trivium)
2-secondary education (this was often called quadrivium)
3-tertiary education.
* Charlotte Mason - a British educator who dedicated her life to improving
the quality of education. Her ideas led to the main methods used in modern day home schooling. She believed that children were born as persons and should be respected as equals. The motto she used was "I am, I can, I ought, I will." Two key principles she used were "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life" and "Education is the science of relations."
* Montessori - a methodology and educational philosophy developed by Dr Maria
Montessori in the 1900's. The foundation being built on the idea that children develop and think differently than adults, that they are not merely "adults in small bodies", and that the way the children would develop into adults would lead to world peace. Traditional methods of tests are discouraged as this is seen as negative competition and detrimental to a
child's inner growth. Many Montessori schools are preschool. There are also schools that begin with infants and go up to 12th grade.
* Theory of Multiple Intelligences - this is based on the educational theory of Howard Gardner, which suggests various types of intelligence exist within human beings. Individuals manifest varying levels of these different
intelligences, producing unique cognitive profiles. He states, for example,
that whilst one child's strong point may be arithmetic this does not make
him more intelligent OVERALL than a child who has trouble with the subject.
This second child may be stronger in another type of intelligence and may learn, for example, arithmetic better using a different approach. He/she may
even excel in a different subject. Schools should offer education based on a
child's needs and abilities and not rely on a uniform curriculum.
Other families use a broad combination of ideas or allow children the
freedom to develop their own interests/selection of subjects and or learning
methods. This is sometimes known as the process of 'unschooling', the phrase
coined by John Caldwell Holt, who wrote a controversial book 'Why Children
Fail' in 1964. He also wrote other books and had a home schooling magazine
for 24 years. By many he is considered the father of modern day home
education.
|
Bookmark and share:        |
|
|
|
|
