Friday, May 22, 2020

The Deficiencies of Homeschool vs. The Deficiencies of Public School

I'm a writer, almost everything I write ends up as an essay. This essay started out as an email to a fellow home-school mom as a follow up to a short conversation we had at our home-school co-op last week. Noticing the wide disparities in reading and writing ability among a class of 5-8 year old's, we engaged in a brief discussion about whether or not, as home-school moms, we are doing an adequate job instructing our children in basic skills. Some home-school children read and write early and others just begin to read and right at 7 or even 8 years old. Others may struggle for several more years. It's the 7 and 8 year old late bloomers that we were discussing that day. As part of that conversation the question arose in my mind, "Is it evidence of educational neglect if an 7 or 8 year old is just beginning to learn to read and write?"

Public School parents often view home-school parents as "out of the mainstream" so-to-speak, but they aren't so different that they don't find themselves comparing their kids basic skills to their kids peers. Unfortunately, we are all guilty of that. As I pondered this question I evaluated it by making just these kinds of comparisons, after all my son is just barely 7, and he is just now learning to read and write. In comparison, there are home-school peers of his who are significantly ahead of him in these skills and some who seem to be behind him. Likely, he would be behind his public school peers in these areas at this time. Does that stress me out? Sometimes, but not for the right reasons. Comparisons are funny that way, they are rarely made for the right reasons.

My son began writing his letters and numbers at 6, and not at 3 and 4 like so many other American kids in pre-k programs, and his progress in language is slow. His handwriting is neat but slow, and he can't write in small print. Despite these challenges he practices daily now without stressing over the copy work and I am happy with his progress. His reading is slow, and he must sound out many simple words still, but he is progressing and that is what matters to me. I feel confident that he is at the perfect developmental stage for both reading and writing and I have added more direct instructional methods as he has been able to handle them without stress. I feel content in his abilities and progress.

There would be some, maybe even a great many people, who would not feel the same about a 7 year old being at a beginning level in reading. Some may observe this and jump to the conclusion that there is some degree of educational neglect in my home, but as a home-school mom I made a choice not to push reading and writing as young as the public schools do. I made a choice not to use the same methodologies, curriculum, and lesson plans as the public schools do. I made that choice based on my own experience, research, and desires for my sons development. I made these choices based on my belief that there are other more valuable types of learning that can and should be done with kids between the ages of 4 and 7 then using direct instructional curriculum to teach them to read and write. Clearly that choice would naturally result in my son being behind his public school peers (in some areas, ahead in others) at 7, but I don't believe that means he will be behind them in 2 years.

It is logical that there is great diversity within home-school families, much more than the public school classroom, and that the reasons that families home-school vary widely, their personal beliefs about education and how it should progress differ, their instructional models differ, their curriculum differ, but the overall statistical evidence is that in the end as a group home-schooled kids perform as well or better then their public school peers. Are their failures in home-school? Certainly, but they are not more serious than those failures that take place in public school. Overall it comes down to choices. I'm sure that there is some level of educational neglect among home-school families, but I don't think it's higher than the national averages of public school kids who struggle and/or fail in the public education system because of poor home environments and/or the deficiencies and failures of their public education methodologies.

I think a person might judge the effectiveness of one home-school environment over another depending largely on their own unique experience within their local public school. A person in an under performing public school is more acquainted with the examples of education failure and neglect that happen in public schools across the country, however, a person whose children attend school in an affluent area in an affluent state, where their kids are surrounded by peers who largely grow up in stable intact families, experience the best of the best public school has to offer nationally. Thus judgments made about the effectiveness of home-school, which are largely comparative in nature, will differ as widely as do the educational outcomes in public schools. I had my older son in such a school district with the kind of excellent teachers those districts attract, for all of his foundational years, and he has a solid foundation, and for the most part I was satisfied, but not fully.

What I've learned from my exposure to education as a parent, teacher, then a political policy advocate in education, and through my research and study of the issues facing our education systems in America is that there are deficiencies in public school institutions that are no less serious in the way they affect the development of thought, and morals, as well as the development of problem solving skills and independent learning. I believe much of what we see wrong with society today either stems from or is compounded by these deficiencies in public education. As Abraham Lincoln said, "The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” -- Not only does this principle truth extend to the civil government, but the government of the family and most importantly the government of self.

In respect to the government of self, the transmission of morals, the development of character, and the development of independent thought, that I believe home-school is superior to public school. I love this quote from Thomas Jefferson that contains what people of his time believed the purpose for education was:

"The objects of this primary education are to give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether private or public, in them should be taught reading, writing and numerical arithmetic, the elements of mensuration...and the outlines of geography and history.” ~ Thomas Jefferson (August 4, 1818)

As you can see much of what makes up a quality education deals with character traits that are not based in skills alone. I've highlighted some of these such as, problem solving, independent thought, articulate expression of independent ideas, the improvement of ones morals and the subsequent behaviors, the faithfulness to ones "social relations," i.e. duty to God, family, community, and nation, and finally the ability to instruct (to teach others, first of which is their own families) others their rights and duties.

It is these fundamentals you find that the purpose of education is not revealed by mere skill. Education is about the development of a human being. What that human being is able to accomplish academically is reliant upon the character that is forged, character is not forged through academic pursuit alone. As a society we are often dismayed by the level of general ignorance that seems a glaring evidence of the failure of American education, but we will not succeed at growing well educated youth in a society where the mass of its citizens are lacking in sound moral character, mature thought, self-restraint and selfless duty to a greater good.

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