The education system is ever-changing, always picking out the best of present times and incorporating it into the students’ lives. Consider the addition of assignment management systems, fees management software, and many other reliable virtual portals in the wake of the digital era.
Although students like studying from home through LMS portals, there is a fine line of difference between online education and homeschooling. Home-schooling looks a lot like online education.
What is homeschooling?
A regular school offers multiple courses for higher education. Kindergarten commercial school and high school classes remain almost the same in every institution, with a similar syllabus distribution. The content of education does not change for students of a particular grade, but the teaching methodologies and environments vary. A home school offers education outside a regular school environment where a teacher is assigned to one specific child only.
- A family might decide to home-school their kids for the following reasons;
- It runs in the family to be homeschooled.
- The previous traumatic experience of bullying.
- Students of celebrities or popular figures refer to homeschooling because it is providing them with a safer environment.
- Homeschooling has flexible hours and the distribution of classes.
- The student’s family keeps moving throughout the year.
- Disabled students might prefer being home-schooled because of physical or mental limitations.
Often, parents prefer their children to study from home to support their other hobbies or areas of interest. Young professional athletes performing in the state, national or international level games can be homeschooled for years because they want to continue education alongside their passion.
Parents and students decide whether they prefer an institution over homeschooling. This blog discusses its characteristics and benefits to help students decide.
How is homeschooling useful?
An education system is to prepare a child for life and a successful future. No matter their means or medium of education, as long as they are learning they will turn out just fine.
Some families prioritize the opportunity that homeschooling gives them to build strong bonds with their children. This makes them prefer the option over traditional institution classes. The flexibility in hours and duration of teaching and learning is another attractive factor.
When a child is homeschooled they have more time to focus on hobbies and other activities. These activities are equally integral but lose their value in the busy schedule students follow regularly. Students can be depressed or unsettled from a very young age if they remain under academic pressure for too long.
Since the present-day education system is characterized by extreme competition, parents are inclining more toward homeschooling to promote both educational and positive values by eliminating this competition. Moreover, when a child remains with their family they learn positive values.
Students enrolled in private, and public schools compulsorily follow a systematic curriculum for learning. Homeschooling does not have a fixed schedule, the flexible timing allows them to have an equal amount of personal space and preferred duration and timing of classes. According to the research conducted by Aaron F Benjamin and Jonathan Tullis, students who believe in self-paced learning absorb more of the course material than students who closely follow the curriculum. Hence, the home school promotes self-paced learning and allows students the upper hand.
Pros of homeschooling
- Better scope for personalized instruction and teaching methodologies to benefit academic performance.
- Possible self-paced learning, emotional, cultural, religious freedom and lack of competition, anxiety issues, and social problems.
- Students have the opportunity to begin their careers early by having an independent idea and taking action since they don’t have institutional commitments that traditional schools and universities have.
- Helpful in rocky circumstances and provides stability in difficult phases of life. Students can easily manage their classes without affecting the learning process.
- Better family bonds and relationships.
Challenges of homeschooling
- It can be expensive because arranging teachers for every subject for one child has a higher cost. Overall expenses on teaching material and textbooks can also increase as the child progresses to higher classes.
- Students might miss out on socializing opportunities. They can develop communication issues, which parents can solve with extra effort.
- Homeschooling comes with multiple record-keeping requirements. A little carelessness on behalf of the student or parent can result in loss of track from record keeping in their entire education life.
- Students need alternatives for extracurricular activities to make up for their skill set.
- Missing out on a few classes can result in students piling up or availing of crash courses to make up for the missed sessions.
After carefully observing the pros and cons of homeschooling parents can rightfully decide which is the best option for their child. Besides their opinion, circumstantial situations can also initiate them to learn from home. As long as students find the education system helpful, it does not matter what medium they avail. Homeschooling might not be for everyone, but it has certain benefits some students need to become successful in life.
