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HOMESCHOOLING

American parents today are faced with a stark choice. The country’s public schools are becoming more crowded, more violent and less effective in preparing children for college or employment. Private schools may be too expensive or unavailable. To ensure that their children receive an adequate education, an increasing number of parents are simply teaching their children at home. While homeschooling offers many benefits to both children and parents, its three most important advantages are flexibility of curriculum, its adaptability to different learning styles and speeds, and its more positive, supportive social environment.

If, for example, the child is interested in dinosaurs, that subject could be used to teach scientific concepts in geology, biology or even history. Moreover, in the home environment there is plenty of room for spontaneous discussion, field trips and other learning experiences that classroom logistics make difficult, expensive or challenging. Homeschooling puts the child’s natural curiosity to use, it being limited only by the imagination of the child and the parent.

Children can move through the material at a rate that challenges them positively. In the conventional classroom, most lessons are aimed at the middle level of ability. Thus, some students are rushed along much faster than is optimal, or faster than necessary for satisfactory results, while others yawn or find distractions because the pace is too slow. Nor can a teacher pay much attention to any single student in a classroom of 30 or discover how individual students learn best. But the parent at home, who knows the child better than any teacher, can really make adjustments to content, teaching strategy, or pace as the child requires.

The final important advantage of homeschooling lies in the socialization children are able to receive. Homeschooled children are less subject to the stresses and pressures experienced by conventional students who spend six, seven or eight hours a day with their peers. They are less likely to become involved with gangs or drugs. On the other hand, homeschooled children spend much more time in the company of appropriate role models: parents, other adults and older siblings. In this environment they are better able to learn from actual life situations how to interact with people of all ages. In particular, homeschooling fosters healthy family relationships because both children and their parents are able to play larger and more complete roles in one another’s lives.

If both parents work out of the home, care must be found for young children while their parents are out or away. Indeed, working parents may be unable to find the time to provide schooling for their children at all, and hiring a tutor to fill that role is an expensive proposition. Second, parents may be attacked for choosing what many people feel is an antisocial or elitist option – for thinking that their children are better than anyone else’s, for refusing to participate in an important social institution, or even for trying to destroy public schools by depriving them of students and funding. Third, not all parents will be comfortable in the role of a teacher. They may not have the patience required, the basic knowledge of the material or the energy to encourage and motivate their children when necessary.

Homeschooling is not a panacea for the institutional deficiencies found in American public schools; these can only be addressed through a large-scale restructuring of public education policies nationwide. Nevertheless, homeschooling offers a number of significant advantages to parents and children. And it works. Homeschooled children, on average, place in the 87^th percentile on standardized exams – the national average is the 50^th percentile – and have been admitted to all major universities and military academies in the country. Clearly, homeschooling is a serious positive alternative for motivated parents and their children.

1. According to the passage, one of the benefits of homeschooling is that the environment

Aenables children to develop skills that will make them good parents.

B prepares students for being self-directed members of the workforce.

C gives the child ready access to books and other educational materials.

D provides more flexibility in the choice of learning activities.

2. Which of the following is mentioned as a problem with today’s public schools?

A They are a frequent recruitment ground for violent gangs.

B They overly emphasize the importance of standardized exams.

C They have too many students and are very distracting.

D They structure their lessons for children at the lowest level of ability.

3. The author’s description of a parent’s homeschooling role mentions the importance of parents

A being trained to use appropriate teaching methods.

B challenging children to work at increasingly higher levels.

C modifying the instruction to suit the needs of the child.

D providing alternative opportunities for children to interact with their peers.

5. For questions 1-16, answer by referring to the magazine article, in which various people talk about their experiences of educating their children at home.

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1. HOMESCHOOLING

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