| > kids will only ever be as smart as their teachers Clearly not true. Do you think every genius had teachers who ever also geniuses? You do not need to be a qualified teacher to teach, and you do not need to teach in order to educate. Teachers need teaching skills to teach classes. That is very difficult but not something home educators need to do. As for subject matter, parents can arrange access to appropriate resources. It is not usual for parents to teach everything and I think that is a bad approach to home education (the term I prefer, for just this reason). My two home educated kids have been taught some subjects I know, they have gone to classes a bit, had tutors, done online courses, and done a LOT of self-teaching. I like the last of these because it developing study skills. They have done well academically. My older daughter got a 9 in Latin GCSE, for example, for which she was entirely self-taught. For those unfamiliar with the UK system that is a top grade in public exams typically done at 16 (although my kids did most of theirs younger - less stressful, less at risk from adverse events, and one of the advantages of HE). Even for subjects I helped them with, once they reached their teens the help needed was very minimal. A study in Australia found HE was unusual in that working class kids did better than middle class kids. A study in the US found HE kids whose mothers had not graduated high school did better academically than similar kids who went to school. A study in the UK found HE kids did better after adjusting for factors such as parental education and income. What I do think is a bad idea (and I suspect it what your friends are doing) is to attempt to replicate school syllabuses and teaching methods at home. |