The Philosophy Behind Home Schooling

There are many reasons why parents choose to home school their children. Some parents have religious reasons, other parents might object to specific topics taught in public or private schools or the methods in which they are taught. Many parents have the simple belief that they can give their children a superior education over what is offered by public schools. All parents who choose home schooling have the belief that public and even many private schools and institutions have done a poor job in providing quality education to children.

But even positive results can come from such negative views.

Home schooling is not a radically new method of education nor is a parent required to recreate education all on one's own. In fact, practically all children prior to the mid nineteenth century, when public school education was made compulsory, were home educated if they received any formal, structured education at all.

Throughout the twentieth century, public education has become the norm. This is due mainly to the rigid adherence to the nineteenth century Prussian model of a state run authoritarian school system, which is still followed to this day.

This public school education system was challenged by several other sources in the 1960s. Books by well known authors such as John Holt and Ayn Rand have helped inspire people to abandon the public education system in favor of home schooling.

Many of these parents were libertarians who were eager to distance themselves from centralized government as much as possible. Others were inspired by the venerated tradition of classical liberal training from Roman Catholic Church (such as the Jesuit schools) and the enlightened ideals of ancient Greek society. The home schooling movement has found inspiration from sources like the famous book Metaphysics, by Aristotle, who wrote that all mean posses by nature the desire to know.

The main idea is that given the proper resources, materials and environment, learning doesn't have to be enforced from authoritarian sources. It would instead be eagerly embraced by children who are interested in exploring the world around them. The schools of thought on what should happen next usually diverge at this point in the home schooling community.

Some parents believe in the concept of unschooling, which is the method of home schooling that doesn't involve and structured curricula or direction other than whatever the child wants to study, given the proper resources at their disposal and their natural interest.

There are others who believe that home schooling should follow a formal structure, even following the topics or materials that are used in public or private schools. This is a case where the parents are simple substituting themselves over a state educator.

The middle ground in the pursuit of home schooling could be considered the Montessori program, which allows children to learn at their own pace and are provided with all the materials and guidance they need to accomplish this. Part of the Montessori program involves sensory and motor development as well as language learning. In this type of program, the teacher is tasked to pay attention to the child rather than the other way around, allowing the stimulation of learning through imagination. The emphasis is focused more on self correction rather than corrections from external sources.

The consistent theme in the home schooling philosophy is that the child should be the focus of education and that proper development can be achieved through the learning experience. That goal is best achieved, by the underlying wisdom of the home schoolers, outside the realm of a public school system that does not have the resources or ability to provide the same high level of quality instruction.