Inside Homeschool from Azaria on Vimeo.
It’s 8:39am Monday morning and Christian Charles races out of his bed to catch his favorite shows on PBS. He quietly sits at the end of the couch as he watches the curiosity of a little monkey named George. Next he learns how to solve problems with Peg and her talking cat. By 10:00am, he is exploring the prehistoric jungle with Buddy and his family on the Dinosaur Train. At 10:30am, the exploring comes to an end and the textbooks come out, class begins.
According to National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), “There are about 2.2 million home-educated students in the United States. There were an estimated 1.73 to 2.35 million children (in grades K to 12) home educated during the spring of 2010 in the United States (Ray, 2011). It appears the homeschool population is continuing to grow (at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past few years).”
In America, where there are so many different pathways for parents to choose where and how their children receive an Education, homeschooling is become more popular. Brian D. Ray Ph.D of NHERI says, “Homeschooling – that is, parent-led home-based education – is an age-old traditional educational practice that a decade ago appeared to be cutting-edge and “alternative” but is now bordering on “mainstream” in the United States. It may be the fastest-growing form of education in the United States. Home-based education has also growing around the world in many other nations (e.g., Australia, Canada, France, Hungary, Japan, Kenya, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom).”
Homeschooling is not funded by government taxes, and the curriculum is not dictated by the Board of Education. Although parents are responsible for purchasing the resources for the child, homeschool parents are given a variety of different curriculums at which they may choose to teach their children. They are not subject to teach only what’s given to the school within their district.
There are many different reasons to why a parent or guardian might want to homeschool their child. Rosemarie Charles explains, “I wanted my children to have a Christian based upbringing, a Christian based environment. And what they were teaching in public school there was nothing Christian about it.” A lot of parents decide to homeschool their child because of the way they see the children from public school act around them.
“I could see around me the other kids that are in school, and their behavior, how they carry on, and no manners no respect. And I didn’t like that,” she continued.
Flexibility is also among the top reasons why parents homeschool their children. Child actors are often homeschooled because of their intense work schedule. It works out perfectly for young stars like Jaden smith, who might have film by day and go to school by night. Homeschooling provides them with schooling that compliments their work schedule.
Many parents who are interest in homeschooling worry that their child will not be socialized, which is one of the major stereotypes that homeschoolers face. Most homeschool parents say their children have great communicating skills because they are placed in an environment where they develop and grow with people of different ages and grades as themselves. “When you’re in school you are all the time around your peers, your age group. So they only know how to relate to their group their age. Now homeschool kids, they’re well rounded. They can communicate they can get along with adults, they can get along with younger, older, middle age no matter what kind, what age, what size people,” said Rosemarie.
“They’re not weird!” Rosemarie says, which is another taboo that has been placed on homeschoolers. “No, they’re not weird. People stereotype because they think they’re home, they’re just sheltered in, they’re in this box and then that’s it. When they go out in the world they don’t know how to survive because they were home all the time sheltered. No it’s not.”
As homeschooling increases in popularity in the years to come, we can expect a shift in how children are educated. And this unknown learning alternative will soon be mainstream, well known and respected.
