Imagine a school where you don't need permission slips to take a field trip, where you can take a break from studying to go swimming, and where if you don't understand long division, the teacher can spend as much time on it as you need.
Well, that's the kind of school that at least 1.1 million of the nation's 52 million school-age kids go to.
Waldorf's Joshua and Jessica Cooperstock learn at home with their mother.
(Mark Gail -- The Washington Post)
|
|
It's called home school.
Home-schooling is pretty much like it sounds. Kids get taught at home by their parents or the parents of friends who are also home-schooled.
If you're being home-schooled, it's probably because your parents chose that for you.
Parents give different reasons for home-schooling. Some say schools go too slowly or don't pay attention to children's individual needs. Some say schools don't teach moral or religious values. Some don't like the bullying and teasing on school playgrounds. Many think they lose valuable time with their children when they send them off to school.
Michelle Shaver of Springfield, Illinois, home-schools her son, Alex, 16, and her daughter, Abigail, 6. It's hard work, she says, but allows her to "get to know my children, especially my son, as a person, an individual, not as a member of that mysterious group called teenagers."
Jeffrey Loomis of Waynesboro, Virginia, said he sometimes questions his decision to pull his two sons out of school, but then remembers the day the planet Venus passed across the face of the sun and he got up early with his older boy to watch the sun rise over the Blue Ridge Parkway before 6 a.m.
What Kids Think
Student opinions of home-schooling are like kids' opinions of regular schools. Some love it; others would just as soon skip it.
Jessica and Joshua Cooperstock, 9-year-old twins in Waldorf, say they are learning a lot being home-schooled. Some of that learning comes from books, but some comes from trips to Baltimore, the District, even England and Wales, and Joshua really likes that. "I get to travel more and the work I do is more challenging, which makes it more fun," he said.
Jessica said she likes getting right to work and then having the time to do what she wants. "We do all our work in the morning or early afternoon, and so we can do fun stuff later like ice-skating and swimming," she said.
But some kids miss the fun-and-friends part of school. "You are stuck in your house with your parents and siblings all day every day, and it gets incredibly dull," said Justin Morton, 26, who was home-schooled from second to eighth grade in Portland, Oregon, along with his six brothers and sisters.
How Does It Work?
Some families turn a bedroom or the living room of their house into a classroom with desks, maps, bookcases and whiteboards, and have a set schedule. Some parents don't have either a special room or a schedule, but encourage their children to read whatever they like and take them to museums and concerts.
Sometimes several families home-school together. Maybe one dad is great at math so he'll teach that to the kids, while someone else's mom is a biologist who can teach science. These groups, called cooperatives, help with one of the biggest criticisms of home-schooling: that kids don't learn how to deal with other students.
So, do home-schooled kids learn as much as kids in a regular school? Or do they learn more?
Most children who are home-schooled seem to do well in their studies. On tests, they perform as well as, or better than, their friends who are in school. Many home-schooled kids say that because they are more responsible for their own learning, they are better prepared for the demands of college.
-- Jay Mathews
