Difference between revisions of "Homeschooling"

Revision as of 15:30, April 13, 2008

A young homeschool student

Homeschooling consists of students receiving education from a parent or guardian, or instructors acting under the direction of a parent or guardian, rather than from certified teachers in a formal school setting like a public school.

Homeschooling enables students to do well in contests, often winning over students from the school system.^[1] In the United States, homeschooling includes one to two million students, or about one out of every 50 students. Homeschooling includes many of the top college and graduate students in mathematics today.^[2]

Reasons for homeschooling include:

• a different, often better, education environment with different, often better, opportunities
• freedom from liberal and/or atheistic bias and culture in schools
• a more flexible daily schedule
• avoiding conflicts with public school officials
• more time by parents with their children in formative years
• avoiding violence, intimidation, invasions of privacy (e.g., searches) and other hostile aspects of the public school culture^[3]
• avoiding objectionable vaccines, mental health screening, and questionnaires
• developing the discipline to work at home as an adult, which can be invaluable
• less likely to pick up life-long addictions from peers, like drugs, cigarettes, pornography, sex, or alcohol
• the time and availability to learn a trade or profession as an apprentice, as was historically done

Homeschooling parents oversee their children's education, usually providing some of the instruction themselves. In addition, homeschooling enables them to mix-and-match other instructional approaches, including:

• attending a weekly course provided in many communities by the homeschooling community
• using a correspondence school (or the modern video- or computer-based equivalent)
• taking classes at local museums or nature centers
• joining with other families to share teaching responsibilities in a co-op
• encouraging the student to self-instruct using library books, traditional textbooks or workbooks, knowledgeable mentor's and/or hands-on experiences
• hiring a tutor for certain difficult topics, like physics

Homeschooling includes local "after school" enrichment programs like scouts, 4-H, sports, music lessons, karate or dance classes, public library programs, and summer camps as part of their educational program. In 2003, "76 percent of homeschool graduates surveyed between the ages of 18 to 24 voted within the last five years, compared to only 29 percent of the corresponding U.S. population."^[4]

Homeschooling Statistics

In the United States, as of 2003, the government estimated that 1.1 million students - about 2.2% of children in grades K-12 - participate in homeschooling.^[5] A 2005 estimate from the National Home Education Research Institute places the number at 1.9 million to 2.4 million while the National Center for Education Statistics estimates that the number of students being homeschooled increased 29% from 1999 to 2003.^[6] Families who homeschool do so for a number of reasons. A 2001 study by the US Census Bureau found that the single largest reason that parents homeschool is that they feel they can give their children a better education at home. This accounted for 50% of the homeschool families; religious reasons came in second at 33%.^[7] Other frequently mentioned reasons include dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools, the ability to provide religious or moral instruction along with academics, the ability to control what the child is being taught, flexibility in meeting the needs of a child with special needs (such as a physical or mental health problem, a temporary illness, or giftedness), flexibility in scheduling family life, and concern about safety, drugs, and peer pressure at other schools.^[8]

"We read home-schoolers' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either. Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives."

In the United States, some states allow homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities at their local public schools. 20 states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming) in one way or another expressly allow equal access. In most other states, participation is worked out on a case-by-case basis. ^[11] In addition, some states, such as Alabama, are considering equal access legislation. ^[12] In New Jersey, school athletic associations dominated by public schools exclude homeschoolers from participation in athletics, even though they allow students at different charter schools to participate.^[13]

History

In the United States, opting out of public schools is not new. When Thomas Edison's public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home.

Education at public school year-round from about ages 6 to 18 only became common in the 20th century due to compulsory education laws. The first law requiring attendance at public school passed in Massachusetts in 1852; the second such law passed in Washington D.C. in 1864; and most states did not pass mandatory schooling laws until between 1870 and 1917.^[14][15]

But even under compulsory education laws in the late 1800s, the school year was only twelve to twenty weeks long. Very few stayed in school from ages 6 to 18. For example, by 1900, only 6% of Americans had graduated from a formal high school. Moreover, these students did not learn basic skills like reading in school; they learned them at home.^[16]

Baltimore's Calvert School began selling the school's curriculum to parents in 1905. Within five years, more than 300 children were enrolled in Calvert's correspondence courses. Over the next hundred years, Calvert served over 500,000 children from a wide variety of families nation-wide and around the world, including missionary families and those in remote locations. ^[17]

The homeschooling movement began in the 1960s from very different ideological sources. Seventh-Day Adventists Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore pioneered homeschooling as a result of their research into education and their concern about the harmful effects of schooling on students, particularly boys, between ages 5 and 15.^[18] On the other side of the political spectrum, John Holt wrote a book critical of schooling in 1964, entitled How Children Fail. Holt was "a left-winger who regarded schools as instruments of the bureaucratic-industrial complex."^[19] More generally, millions of Americans were alarmed at the 1962 U. S. Supreme Court ruling which banned school-sponsored prayer in public schools, and many of those parents began to look for alternatives.

Truancy laws brought pioneering homeschoolers into conflict with local officials. The first New York Times story on "home schooling" appeared in 1974, and concerned two parents charged with "educational neglect" by the Westchester County Department of Social Services. Tests showed that they performed at or about grade level "except for one who is a little slow in reading," and the parents received strong support from a state senator.^[20] By the mid-1980s the Times was running articles with titles like "Schooling in the Home: A Growing Alternative" and "There Are Benefits In Homeschooling," and states were legalizing homeschooling.^[21] A 1997 article said "It's not only Christian fundamentalists any more" and a 2003 article noted "Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home."

Prominent people who were homeschooled

Throughout history, a remarkably high percentage of accomplished people were homeschooled, including many great mathematicians. Here is a growing list of such achievers:

• Ansel Adams, (1902-1984), the finest landscape photographer of the twentieth century. "At twelve, unable to stand the confinement and tedium of the classroom, he utterly disrupted his lessons with wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers. His father decided that Ansel’s formal education was best ended. From that point forward, the boy was homeschooled in Greek, the English classics, algebra, and the glories of the ocean, inlets, and rocky beaches that surrounded their home very near San Francisco."^[22]

• John Adams (1735-1826), U.S. President. Learned to read at home, and was then taught in the kitchen by a neighbor with a handful of children. He matriculated to Harvard College at age 15.^{[Citation Needed]}

• Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), the author of Little Women and other great works, was taught by her father.^{[Citation Needed]}

• Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)) wrote the first almanac by a black man and helped survey Washington, D.C.. Banneker was taught to read and write by his grandmother in rural Maryland."^[23]

• Clara Barton (1821-1912), pioneering nurse during the Civil War, founder of the American Association of the International Red Cross. Barton was homeschooled, and at 15 started teaching school. She later attended the Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. ^{[24] [25]}

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), a Christian who spoke against Hitler and was martyred for doing so.

• Mary Breckinridge (1881-1965), pioneering American midwife and founder of Kentucky's Frontier Nursing Service. Mary's father was a diplomat, and she was educated in America and abroad by private tutors.^[26]

• Robert Burns (1759-1796) Scotland's national poet.

• Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), the brilliant American businessman and philanthropist of the late 1800s, his father was a poor weaver and Andrew dropped out of elementary school^[27] and had only five years of formal schooling.^[28]

• George Washington Carver (1864-1943) Botanical and agricultural researcher and educator. Born a slave, Carver "learned to read, write and spell at home because there were no schools for African Americans in" his area.^[29] He did not attend school until age 12, when he went to a one-room schoolhouse in Missouri; he later graduated from Minneapolis High School in Kansas. Became the first black student at Simpson College in Iowa, transfered to Iowa Agricultural College in 1891. Earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897.^[30][31]

• Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789-1857), one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, was taught by his father during an 11-year retreat to the country to escape the French Revolution. His father "wrote his own textbooks, several of them in the fluent verse of which he was master. Verse, he believed, made grammar, history and, above all, morals less repulsive to the juvenile mind."^[32][33]

• Pafnuty Chebyshev (1821-1894), one of the greatest Russian mathematicians, was homeschooled until college.^[34]

• Agatha Christie (1890-1976), best-selling English mystery writer. Christie was homeschooled by her mother, who encouraged her to write from a very early age. At sixteen she was sent to finishing school in Paris. ^[35]

• Winston Churchill (1874–1965), British statesman. It was at home that he was taught how to read, write and do math, and was not enrolled in a school until several months into the school year at the age of seven. After only about two years at that school, he was abruptly pulled out and then spent several years under the instruction of two maiden sisters in a less formal school setting.^[36]

• Thomas Edison (1804–1896), the most prolific inventor in the history of the world and the holder of 1093 patents.^[37]

• Paul Erdos (1913–1996), the most prolific mathematician of the 20th century, was taught at home until college.^[38]

• Pierre de Fermat (1601?-1665), the greatest mathematician of the 17th century and the founder of the modern theory of numbers, was homeschooled.^[39]

• Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), a leading Founding Father and prolific inventor and statesman, only attended part-time school from ages 8 to 10.^{[Citation Needed]}

• Evariste Galois (1811–1832), among the brightest mathematicians ever and the founder of Galois groups and fields and Galois theory. "Until the age of twelve Galois had no teacher but his mother, Adelaide-Marie Demante."^[40]

• William Hamilton (1805-1865), the greatest Irish mathematician and biggest contributor since Isaac Newton of mathematics to physics. He was taught by his uncle, the Reverend James Hamilton.^[41]

• Zac, Taylor, and Isaac Hanson, of the band Hanson. Educated at home by their mother, and later by a tutor. ^[42][43]

• Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910), abolitionist, writer, and women's rights activist. Julia was educated by tutors at home and in girls' schools until age 16. ^[44]

• Carl Jacobi (1804-1851), a prominent and prolific German mathematician, was taught at home until the age of 12 and was taught the classics and mathematics by a maternal uncle.^[45]

• Joan of Arc (1412-1431), one of the greatest military leaders ever. Taught domestic skills and religion by her mother. ^[46]

• John the Apostle (c. A.D. 20-100), the author of the Gospel of John, considered by many to be the greatest written work ever. He also wrote several other books in the New Testament. His parents placed him, most likely as a child, under the homeschool-like teaching of Jesus rather than a more traditional school setting.^[47] John became the first to develop Christian faith and his work has since spread Christianity to billions.^[48]

• C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), the author of the Chronicles of Narnia and other famous works, was taught at home by his mother and a governess until age 10, and later sent to be taught by a tutor to prepare him for Oxford.^[49]

• Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), American president. "Though his [formal] education was limited to a few months in a 1-teacher school, Lincoln avidly read books such as the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress and Weemss Life of Washington."^[50]

• Countess Augusta Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), a visionary programmer and namesake of the ADA programming language, was homeschooled by governesses and tutors hired by her mother.^{[Citation Needed]}

• Benoit Mandelbrot, a Yale mathematics professor known as the "father of fractals" and the person who coined the term,^[51] received no extended formal schooling and was taught at home by his uncle beginning at the age of 12.^[52]

• Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999), noted violinist and conductor, never attended school, and was taught Mathematics, History and Hebrew by his father, and French, German, Italian and Spanish by his mother.^[53]

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), German composer. "He was educated by his father, Leopold Mozart, a violinist of high repute in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg."^[54]

• Christopher Paolini (1983-), the author of the best-selling Inheritance Trilogy (Eragon, Eldest, and a third book yet unreleased). He was homeschooled by his parents, through an accredited correspondence course from the American School in Chicago, Illinois, from which he graduated with his high school diploma at 15 years of age. ^[55]

• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), one of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of all time, was homeschooled by his father.^[56]

• George Patton (1885–1945), one of America's greatest generals. He was taught at home until age 11 based on his "father's theory of education" that "youthful mind should be led along a path that parallels the development of the mind of the race" by being read to by elders.^[57][58]

• Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), one of the greatest mathematicians ever and an original developer of the Theory of Relativity. Poincaré, who had diphtheria as a child, received special instruction from his gifted mother and excelled in written composition while still in elementary school. He entered the Lycée in Nancy (now renamed the Lycée Henri Poincaré in his honor), in 1862 and spent eleven years there. He entered the École Polytechnique in 1873, graduating in 1875. After graduating from the École Polytechnique, Poincaré continued his studies at the École des Mines. ^[59]

• Alexander Pope (1688-1744), one of the greatest and most-often quoted English poets and essayists. "From Twyford School he was expelled after writing a satire on one of the teachers. At home, Pope's aunt taught him to read. Latin and Greek he learned from a local priest and later he acquired knowledge of French and Italian poetry."^[60]

• Ferdinand Porsche (1875-1951), designer of the German Porsche automobile. He was homeschooled and self-taught during his formative years,^[61] which is ironic given that homeschooling is illegal in Germany today.

• Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), the father of modern chemistry and the discoverer of oxygen, dropped out of school as a teenager and privately learned geometry, algebra and numerous languages.^{[Citation Needed]}

• Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866), a German recognized as the greatest modern mathematician. He was taught at home by his father, a Lutheran minister, until he was ten. After that he was tutored by a teacher from a local school until he entered the Lyceum in Hannover at 14. ^[62][63]

• Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), U.S. President. He was educated by private tutors at home through age 14, then entered Groton, an elite private school in Massachusetts, in 1896. ^[64]

• Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), U.S. President. "Roosevelt never enrolled in a public school. He was mostly instructed by private tutors until he entered Harvard College in 1876."^[65]

• George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), author. Tutored in the classics by a clerical uncle until he entered school at age 10. Left school by age 15. ^{[66] [67][68]}

• Mark Twain (real name was Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910), American author and satirist who said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Attended school through the 5th grade, where he "excelled only in spelling" and was frequently truant, then worked as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His mother said, "He was always a great boy for history, and could never get tired of that kind of reading; but he hadn't any use for schoolhouses and text books." ^[69][70]

• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Italian artist, inventor, and all-around "Renaissance man". Leonardo went to school in Vinci, where he learned to write, to read and to calculate, and was taught geometry and Latin. At 14, Leonardo moved to Florence where he began an apprenticeship in the workshop of Verrocchio. ^[71]

• Andrew Wyeth (1917- ), American artist, was tutored at home until he was 18. ^[72]

• Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), considered the finest architect ever, was taught at home by his mother who dreamed that he would become an architect. She used "Froebel's geometric blocks to entertain and educate her son" as his father led the family among various Baptist churches, where he preached.^[73] Wright then attended high school but dropped out of college.^[74]

In addition, a number of prominent people have chosen to homeschool their children. David Guterson, author of the novel Snow Falling on Cedars (1994), which won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award, also wrote Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense (1992), an account of his family's homeschooling journey. ^[75] Actor and recording artist Will Smith and his wife actress Jada Pinkett Smith homeschool their children. ^[76]. Roseanne Barr stated in an interview that she has started to homeschool her 11-year-old son.^[77] Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, also homeschools.^[78] Kristin Maguire, head of the South Carolina board of education, which governs all its public schools, homeschools all four of her children.^[79]

See Also

• People Who Arguably Were Homeschooled

References

See also

• Homeschool Legal Defense Association
• Homeschooling in England and Wales

External links

• Christian Children Must Have More Than A Fighting Chance - Four reasons to homeschool your children, by Art Robinson
• [33] - List of homeschooled achievers.