Home Schooling

When considering their child's future, many parents limit their choices to public or private schooling. Very often the mighty dollar wins that debate. More and more however, parents are choosing to school their children at home.

There is no doubt the public schooling system is riddled with problems. Many Secondary School teachers will tell you their main role is behaviour management, rather than passing on anything of value. Your child may be subject to bullying, personality clashes with teachers as well as peers and a variety of unwanted influences. In recent times there has been the additional fear of violence, particularly following the series of school shootings.

Australia seems to have escaped the worst of the violent trends to date, but that does not mean that a public school education provides the best environment for your child. Many public schools are under-resourced and ill-equipped to deal with the demands of the fast-paced, rapidly changing society of today.

Home schooling provides the flexibility and freedom to provide the student with choices not necessarily available to them in a more strictly structured system. They are safe from harassment by others in the school community and have far fewer distractions from the topics under study.

Most people have a mix of positive and negative memories regarding their Secondary School experience. The experiences that formed these memories depend upon individual strengths, social skills and abilities (or lack thereof). A person's self-esteem can be powerfully affected either way, by the predominant tone of their High School experiences.

For a child being home schooled in a loving and supportive environment, the issue of self-esteem is far less critical than in the Secondary School environment.

However, home schooling is not without its issues. If the parents are not qualified teachers, what guarantee does the child have that he/she is receiving a better quality of education? It's true that not all qualified teachers are good teachers, but in the Australian school system there is always the reassurance of knowing that your child is being taught by a trained professional.

Then there is the much-debated socialization aspect of home schooling. It has been argued that Secondary Schooling is, in fact, first and foremost, a forum for social interaction. Imparting knowledge to the students runs a distant second in this philosophy. This emphasis on peer interaction would appear to put the home schooled child at a severe disadvantage. There are, however, home schooling networks available that help organize excursions and opportunities for many home schooled students to interact. This would minimize the impact of any lack of daily socialization with peers and adults outside of the family.

Another major concern for home schooling involves the family's finances. Many families struggle to meet the demands of day to day living. Families with both parents there can often ill afford to live on one income while the other parent schools the child. For sole-parent families the pressures are even greater. The Australian Government provides no funding for home schooling and is, in fact, undermining sole parents who are considering home schooling, by pushing single parents of school-age children to re-enter the workforce.

Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to home school will depend upon individual circumstances. It will be made by parents who have taken the time to become fully informed on the subject, and who are prepared for whatever challenges their decision entails.