Comparing homeschooling and home-based education
A year has passed since my last day as a homeschool teacher, but since March, my children studied at home again due to COVID-19. I’ve heard many discussions about the home-based education measures taken because of the pandemic. Views vary to the extremes. But major differences exist between the two: responsibility and investment. I still believe traditional homeschooling allows students to learn more because they cover more.
Comparison shows investment differences
I liked having my girls home again, but this time the stress of lesson planning laid on another’s shoulders. Homeschooling moms are responsible for purchasing the curricula, planning the lessons, teaching the lessons, helping the students when they struggle, finding more material when the students learn quickly, keeping accurate grades, and showing a progression of learning. That’s a heap of responsibility. With the public school’s home-based education, the teachers still provided the lessons and did the grading, though the pressures on some parents was to make sure their children completed the lessons. (The younger the student, the more time investment needed.) Learning is always the child’s responsibility. No one can learn for someone else.
Unfortunately, some children didn’t want to learn. That caused frustrations for teachers and parents alike. That happens in homeschooling sometimes too. But I always said, you have to complete your lessons whether you attend public school or homeschool. Homeschooling moms set expectations and stick to them. If you set high expectations, students will rise to the challenge if they understand that a good education is in their best interest.
Failing to do the lessons and make progress hurts the student, nobody else. Is there a subject that excites the student? What does a student envision for her life? Where does she want to go? What career does she dream about? One needs an education to accomplish that dream.
Benefits of homeschooling
Not only does one gain knowledge through homeschool education, one gains work ethic and perseverance. One learns how to research and try new methods to find the answers. Considering different perspectives allows one’s scope of the imagination to broaden and enlightens one to how others think, what they believe. No one is forced to accept any doctrine, but rather a student learns to think for himself by considering all the options and views. True education helps you to dig deeper not just accept what’s on the surface.
When someone learns at home, she can spend as much time as she wants to in how far she wants to dig. If a topic interests you, more time allocated equals more learning. What a gift time is!
Reading expands the mind. Read HERE my blog on the Storyteller Squad website about the benefits of reading. If one’s nose is in a book, I believe you’re learning.
Class sizes make it more difficult
Perhaps people admire the determination and flexibility of the homeschoolers now that they have had an opportunity to taste education at home. Parents who homeschool invest money into books and supplementary materials (such as those needed for science experiments or math manipulatives, etc.). They also invest their time because most value education. Most importantly, they value their children and believe it’s the best educational option for their family. One wonderful benefit is the bonding and close relationships knit in the family through learning together. When you spend lots of time together, you get to know each other in many ways, and you learn about how to get along, how to forgive, how to help, how everyone’s contribution is valued, and much more.
In our experience with the home-based education from our local school, lessons were shorter and not as frequent. Students had a lot of free time. Less time was spent studying. Public school teachers juggled their families in addition to several classes of 20-30 students. Comparisons fail here since parents teach only their own children. No one has 20-30 offspring. The more students, the harder it gets.
Whether you homeschool as your educational choice or you’ve just completed a quarter of home-based education, you know schooling at home is hard work, but oh, it is also so rewarding.
Education matters. What benefit did you discover when you schooled at home?
Photo credit: Emily Welsh
3 Replies to “Comparing homeschooling and home-based education”
Although I didn’t homeschool our children, I’m not sure it even existed then, your article makes me wish I could have. During the time I was growing up I planned to be teacher. I worked in an elementary school library when our children were in middle school, though, so that satisfied my love for books.
Working in the school library sounds like a fun job, Donna. Did you have favorite books that you recommended to the children? I think I would if I had that job. LOL I am glad you enjoyed my blog. Thanks for taking time to comment.
I did help them pick out books I thought they would like. I enjoyed the job so much that I took a correspondence course with the “Christian Writer’s Institute.” Actually, I took three courses:
1. Christian Writing Techniques (Journalism)
2. Writing for Children and Teenagers.
3. Writing Juvenile Fiction.
I wrote a few stories for children, which I never submitted, and it was during one of those courses that my instructor asked if I would be interested in writing devotionals. I fell in love with that, and the rest is history.