Public Schooling and Homeschooling

Both provide education for anyone who wishes to learn. Homeschooling develops oneself (personality, beliefs, likes and dislikes, etc.) without too much outside influence. Pro-individuality. Another major difference is that their are not as many distractions from schoolwork. Home school associations provide abundant access to other homeschoolers to help develop social skills. Academically advanced due to one-on-one teaching. Also teaches a student to learn on their own, to teach themselves. While in public schools a child develops oneself within the general public; sometimes social skills are more quickly developed. More easily influenced by peer pressure. Generally not as academically advanced because of one teacher provided for many students. Proponents of home schooling believe that children thrive better in a safe, comfortable environment with which they are familiar. Ironically, so do advocates of public schooling. However, home-schoolers believe the home is the safest, most secure environment in which a child can learn. At home, a child does not have to deal with peer pressure or with fitting-in with the popular cliques. A child can just “be.” This gives the child the opportunity to focus on the lessons being taught and on the educational expectations required of him or her. Home-schooled students do not have to worry whether they are wearing the right clothes, the right shoes, or are shopping at the right stores or playing the right video games. Since there are (usually) no other children around, home-schooled children learn in a relatively calm, peaceful environment, and – most importantly – they usually have the opportunity to work at their own pace and in their own style. For some, that spells the difference between success and failure. Regular public school classrooms are not, by nature, relatively calm environments, especially at the elementary school level. However, that does not mean a student cannot thrive in such an environment. In fact, supporters of regular public schooling argue that the chaos of the classroom is actually what children need to succeed. Humans are social creatures. That is the belief of many regular public school proponents. Children should interact and to work with one another in order to build real, vital skills needed in the real world. For example, the advocates of regular public schooling believe that learning the reading process can certainly happen effectively at home. After all, they say, most kids do learn to read at home. However, the goal of public education is not to teach students simply how to read, solve math problems, or to solve scientific equations. If that was the case, home schooling would be the best option for everyone.