From the editors of Psychologos
Dear colleagues! Friends and parents!
The issue of homeschooling is an important and controversial one. He has many ardent supporters and just as many ardent opponents. On this page, we offer you the opportunity to express your opinion and read the opinion of the other side. Write your opinion in the comments. As elsewhere on Psychologos, there will be moderation, so it’s better to write not categorically right away, but constructively and with respect for other opinions. Let’s make the discussion reasonable!
And let the bright article of Ksenia Podorova “Homeschooling” put the beginning of the discussion. Excerpts from there:
Ksenia Podorova
In my time, all first-graders were still «automatically» enrolled in the Octobrists, and then they began to appeal to their «October conscience», etc. By the end of the first grade, my son realized that no one had asked him if he wanted to be an October boy. He started asking me questions. And after the summer holidays (at the beginning of the second grade) he announced to the teacher that he was “coming out of October”. The school began to panic.
At home, my son and I quite often told each other about our news (according to the principle “what was interesting for me today”). And I began to notice that in his stories about school, situations of this type are mentioned too often: “Today I started reading such an interesting book — in mathematics.” Or: «Today I started writing the score of my new symphony — on history.» Or: “And Petya, it turns out, plays great chess — we managed to play a couple of games with him in geography.” I thought: why does he even go to school? To study? But in the classroom, he does something completely different. Communicate? But it can also be done outside of school.
A normal child, in addition to classmates, usually has many other acquaintances: those who live in the next house, come to visit with their parents, found where the child was engaged in some interesting business … If the child wants to communicate, he will find friends for himself, regardless of whether whether he goes to school. And if he doesn’t want to, then he doesn’t have to. On the contrary, one should be glad that no one imposes communication on him when he feels the need to «withdraw into himself.»
Communication at home is usually more complete than at school. The child gets used to freely discuss any topic, express his thoughts, think about the thoughts of the interlocutor, agree with them or object, select weighty arguments in a dispute … At home, he often has to communicate with those who are older than him and “know how” to communicate better, better, more fully. And the child has to «pull up» to the level of normal adult communication. He gets used to respect the interlocutor and build a dialogue depending on the situation …
When I say that no one “sits” with my children, doing “lessons” with them, they simply do not believe me. They think it’s bravado. However, I am sure that any normal child has a craving for knowledge (remember: from the first years of his life he wonders how many legs a crocodile has, why an ostrich does not fly, what ice is made of, where clouds fly, because this is exactly what he could would learn from school textbooks if I perceived them simply as «books»). But when he goes to school, they begin to slowly but surely kill this craving. Instead of knowledge, they impose on him the ability to count the required number of cells from the left edge of the notebook. At school, knowledge, if it is assimilated, is CONTRARY to the education system. And at home they are digested easily and without stress.
In the process of home schooling, we realized that a child can have “holidays” for 10 months a year (i.e., do what he is really interested in), and for 2 months go through the program of the next class and pass the necessary exams. And one more observation: a person who has not spent 10 years at school is noticeably different from others. There is something in him … As one teacher said about my child — «a pathological sense of freedom.»
Elena Chuevskaya
1. As I understand you!
A few years ago, I would have subscribed to every word of the article. Home schooling? Yes! Save the kids from school! Home birth? Yes! Let’s save mothers from a state maternity hospital, evil nurses and doctors who can make a mistake! Vaccine denial? Yes! Let’s protect our kids from the penetration of poisonous vaccines!
Now I would no longer be so happy and confident to “break stereotypes” and “resist the system”. I sit thinking.
2. What am I thinking about?
I think that home schooling is not suitable for all parents and children.
Parents should be very wise and responsible. Be able to organize yourself and your children. How many of us are like that?
Suppose my friends decide to go home schooling. They tell me how long they took this decision and why. I know that they have a plan for training and monitoring results. Their children (middle school age) are happy that they will be able to keep up with the pool, and chess, and programming lessons. Mom does not work and enjoys the opportunity to give her children knowledge and discover the world.
I am at peace with this family.
There may be another case. Suppose I hear that they want to “save the child from the school system that grinds the Personality”, they recall, “what stress we experienced from the ridicule of classmates and what boredom on an excursion with the class”, they are perplexed, “why did we teach about the infusoria-shoe ?! She has never been used in her life! The ability to solve equations in the store is also not needed — we use four arithmetic operations! At the same time, the children rejoice: “Hurrah! You don’t have to go to school!»
Friends, I will be seriously upset. In my opinion, these are not the arguments that reasonable people operate on. Meanwhile, there are many such arguments on the forums of homeschooling supporters.
3. Let’s approach the issue thoughtfully.
I have not investigated the issue of the consequences of home schooling, so I only express my doubt. I ask enthusiastic parents to weigh everything again, to talk to those who have been homeschooled. And also with those who tried and refused this form of obtaining knowledge.
Important! The school system provides not only knowledge! Think carefully about how your child will be socialized at home. Personally, when transferring a child to study at home, from time to time I would contact a good psychologist with him in order to assess the degree of mental maturity and socialization.
4. View from the fourth position of perception («System view»).
A small but important digression: I am “for” vaccinations. The arguments of those who are against, as I understand them: vaccination can be harmful; compulsory vaccination violates human rights.
From the point of view of the child and parent, vaccination may not be necessary. The situation around is more or less favorable. “Well, where did you see that smallpox and polio??! Mom refuses vaccinations for her three children — and they grow up healthy! Very well! No vaccination needed!
The systemic view on this issue is different. When there are a lot of such literate mothers who write refusals, the epidemiological situation changes. Already «defeated» smallpox and diphtheria may return. Only coverage of the population with vaccinations (more than 70%) can guarantee the health of a wide range of people.
According to the experts of the World Health Organization, most of the arguments of the anti-vaccinators are not supported by scientific data and are characterized as «an alarming and dangerous delusion.»
I am writing about this for two reasons. First. The author mentioned the absence of vaccinations as one of the advantages of home schooling. I will speak as a representative of supporters of a different point of view.
The second reason is the main one. Ideally, our view of the situation should be systematic. School is not only a certain amount of knowledge that your child has mastered. Not only everyday communication with peers. School (still) educates. School education introduces a new generation of children to culture. The school disciplines, accustoms to regular efforts to organize itself. I think this is not all that a child receives in ten years of schooling. Who can guarantee that by reading textbooks at home and passing an exam to a teacher at school, your child has learned everything that his classmates have learned? We will know this when these children become adults.
A good, high-quality home education is a lot of work and a great responsibility of parents.
Who is next? Behind? Against?