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I've straddled and blurred the line between being in IT and an educator. I've seen home schooling go horribly wrong and incredibly right. From my observations of the few dozen families I've watched, it seems to mostly depend on the motivation of the parents, and how much time they're willing to put into it. The ones that tend to go wrong are those parents whose primary motivation is to keep their children from learning things, usually on religious grounds. I'm not saying that parents who provide a religious education do a bad job, but if the goal is to avoid having kids learn certain basic level facts (like reproduction), they will have gaps. I've also seen where parents expect to throw their kid in front of a computer to do all their learning, which also goes bad. In these first few cases, I've seen situations that come close to neglect. A third path that can go either way are the single-issue families. This would be parents who want their child to focus on one specific talent in order to nurture it, like singing, dance, or a sport. In these cases, so long as there is other topics covered, the kids can turn out ok as well as be at the top of their field. There's also cases in this area that can look like abuse when the parent is a little too vested in their child's success. The home-schooling stories that are super successful are usually where one parent (or ideally, both take turns) at turning every day activities into learning opportunities. One family took at least one trip per week to a museum, zoo, botanical garden, park, public government building, or conservation area. The kids had to research the location before the visit, write up a list of questions they had, had questions added by parents, find and record the answers during the visit, and write up a report afterwards. They would research an issue and write or visit government representatives to discuss the issue as a well-informed member of the public. In those families, it seemed the entire family was about daily and life-long learning. The parents also had the kids involved in a lot of outside activities like local plays, orchestras, sports. Just as busy as the public school kids, just a more holistic approach to learning. |