I have never looked seriously at homeschooling - untilrecently.
This started about month ago when I first read the story of Derrion Albert, the honor studentkilled in Chicago while walking home from school. I often worry about my children and theirsafety in the coming years especially once they start High School. Today, high schools are a breeding ground fordrug use, underage sex, and gang violence not to mention the peer pressure,bullying (now online and through texting) and the constant exposure to more andmore liberal world views.
Please understand I am not some fanatical Christian fatherwho thinks we should lock our kids in church and never expose them to theoutside world. Read some of my otherposts and you will understand I am against this approach. But somewhere a parent has to draw the lineand do what is best for the children. Mychildren frequently come home and complain about two specific areas:
1. Theyare not learning “new things” at school
2. Otherkids misbehave so much that the teacher spends 30% of their time on discipline.
My son expresses this more than my daughter and he does notunderstand why kids constantly find ways to bully and make fun of other children. My wife and I are seeing this as a wake-upcall.
This past week, President Obama proposed that in order forthe U.S. to keep up with the education trends and falling behind the rest ofthe world, that children would need to spend more time in school and have lessfree time.
"Now, I knowlonger school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," thepresident said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in myfamily, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demandmore time in the classroom."
I immediately read scores of remarks from parents around thecountry, some positive and some outright crazy. But one specific parent made it very clear. If the education system in America is broke,more time in it will not yield positive results. In fact, this may lead to higher burnout anddropout rates as well as even greater pressure on our already hurriedchildren.
In The Hurried Child byDavid Elkindhe, the author finds that “Infant mortality is upafter more than a century of decline. More children live in poverty today thantwo decades ago. There has been a fifty percent increase in obesity in childrenand adolescents over the last twenty years. Our teenage pregnancy rates are thehighest for any Western society – twice that of England, which has the nexthighest rates. Suicide and homicide rates for teenagers are triple what theywere twenty years ago.
Educationally, SAT scoreshave plummeted, and at the other end, some fifteen to twenty percent of youngchildren are “flunking” kindergarten. And perhaps most frightening of all, inthe United States today, millions of children are being medicated to make them moretractable at school and at home. This is a several-hundred increase over thelast five years.” (Prefaceto the Revised Edition, p. xvii)
Based on this, I believethat as parents we basically have a few choices:
1. 1. Moveto areas where the public schools are the best in the area and hope that,combined with strong parental, faith and life training, our children will getthrough it.
This option is limiting as real estate prices are high inthese areas and you are still playing the odds as these schools also haveproblems. Not to mention your career orlifestyle may not be conducive to living in this area.
2. Lookinto private schooling either secular or religious based.
While this option is better than the first, it alsorequires substantial money out of pocket. I am the product of a private school and I assure you that this is alsonot foolproof.
3. 3. Homeschooling.
I’ll be honest, my vision of homeschooling was a stay athome mom preparing lesson plans and teaching children day in and day out whileplacing stress on the marriage. I alsohad visions of ultra-right wing fanatics like those in Jesus Camp.
While this option offers the most flexibility and Ibelieve gives the children the best education and training in morals andvalues. It is also extremely time and resourceintensive.
There is also a hybrid of all these options which I neverknew existed, until now.
Continued in Part II
