The Benefits Of Home School Programs
The Benefits of Home School Programs
As the parent of a young daughter, and two boys, I was once a skeptic, but am now a total believer in home school programs. I was dragged kicking and screaming into the world of homeschooling. And now, I'm glad she dragged me here.
A little background. I'm from Richmond, and my wife is from Utah. That's where she first came in contact with the world of the home school (They tend to be rather conservative there). We now live in Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C. We have three children: 9, 7, and 5. The two older ones began their schooling at an arts based charter school in California. They were both strong academically, but about the 2nd grade, my daughter started getting headaches. When the school year ended, her headaches went away. When she started third grade, the headaches came back.
In the meantime, my son had started kindergarten. He hated school from the first day. I spent what seemed like most of his kindergarten year sprinting across the parking lot after him as he ran back toward our car. The principal assured me it would get better. It didn’t. His sprinting sessions finally ended, but then his complaining sessions started every day after school. There was no particular, complaint, teacher or bully that he had. He just didn’t like school.
Finally, a quarter of the way through their third and first grade years, I took them out of school and began to homeschool them. Did I initially see benefits? No, because it took some adjusting of schedules, temperaments and materials. But now that we’re on a somewhat even keel, over a year into it, I am no seeing some very positive changes and benefits. Here is a list of what I think are the benefits for most families of home school programs.
Learning: learning isn’t seen as a chore, or something they have to do. They just do it, and read as much as they can. I’m amazed when I see my 7 yr. old reading through a book on Ancient Egypt. This is one of the biggest benefits because now my kids love to read, and they have the time to explore many different topics and read about them
Independent learning: I can assign them work, and they can do it on their own, mostly willingly. No more whining: “I can’t do it.”
Subject Matter: We have a certain curriculum we follow, but within that curriculum are endless subjects to learn about. They have free range, based on their interests. We just finished a long study on Ancient Egypt. My son spent hours reading about the mummification process.
Flexibility: Learning can take place any time. The flexibility of homeschooling allows for the pursuit of more outside interests, jobs, friends, etc.
Together time, hands on learning time, I could go on about the benefits I’ve seen, but here are a few facts on homeschooling from a group whose only job is to research homeschooling:
The best way to see and understand the benefits of home school programs is to talk to homeschool parents, and do the research to determine how homeschooling benefit you.
