Perhaps you’re wondering how homeschooling is good for your child. And, if you’re like my husband, it can’t just be good for your child, but better than other options. (He doesn’t settle). We had experienced the public schools, both as a parent and from the inside as a teacher. After a few years of teaching, I questioned how my children would fit into this system. Would they stand firm in the values of honesty, truth, and goodness that we are trying to instill in them? Or would the pressures from their friends and classmates prove too much? How would they respond when a classmate made a vulgar comment towards the teacher, or the assignment? Or when a friends pulled up an inappropriate video on their phone during lunch? What would my kids do when they finished the assignment, but the class was still working? Just how much of their day would be spent waiting? And the question that kept lingering…Is this really the best I can offer my children?
I’m not against public education by any means. For so many kids, they need that safe place with caring teachers to invest in them. There’s no argument that public education has it’s flaws- flaws which I would love to see improved and erased. But I also know that is unlikely to happen within my children’s lifetime, and as such, I need to make a choice. Do I keep them in a messy, broken, but also beautiful educational system, find an alternative, or teach them myself?
One of the ironies I took with me from my time in public education was the push for individualized education while educating the masses. I participated in training after training about personalized learning and adjusting each lesson to meet the unique needs of 30 different students. Then there were all of the individualized education plan meetings for qualifying students, which, ironically, were often repetitive and called for the same “individualized” techniques in the classroom. I lost track of how many times the phrase “which the teachers already do” was used during those meetings. What I did take away from all of this is that creating a personalized approach to education benefits students, yet that is extremely challenging to do with too many students (and most schools in America are overcrowded) and few can do it well.
If personalized learning is of great benefit to the student in the long run, as research suggests, then surely I am qualified to implement such a strategy in my own home. I at least trust myself to personalize my child’s education more than an overworked teacher. My kids have had amazing teachers who are incredibly professional and caring, but ultimately, I can give my kids more time, love, and attention than they can. The beauty of homeschooling is found in it’s personalized approach. Why is this important? Well, according to the limited research and a key study done by Rand Corporation:
- The early evidence suggests that regardless of a student’s starting achievement level, personalized learning can improve achievement for students.
- It may take time for the benefits of personalized learning to be seen. Analyses suggest that effects may be more positive after schools have experience implementing personalized learning.
- There is currently a lack of evidence on which practices are most effective or must be in place to maximize the benefits of personalized learning.
These are takeaways from one of the few studies to be done on personalized learning in charter and public schools. Overall, the limited evidence points towards positive learning trends, but just how positive depends on the school’s ability to incorporate the personalized learning approach. The better equipped a school is, the better the students learn, regardless of the child’s past learning trends. This is good news! It means that you, as your child’s parent, have everything you need to educate them, and educate them well. You already know what captures your child’s attention, and how they receive information. Do they need to act out the new information? Write about it? Read about it, see it, and ask questions? Maybe your child likes to doodle while listening to the new information. As your child grows, their preferred learning method may change, but you will be ready. You are an expert on your child. No one knows them as well as you do, which means that you, the parent, are highly qualified to teach your child all they need to know.
This is one of the beauties of homeschooling. Your child will receive a top notch education not because you are an amazing teacher, but because their education is personalized, tailored for them, and completed at their pace. There is freedom in that. This concept is part of the reason homeschoolers tend to outperform their public school peers on standardized tests. When the curriculum is tailored to the student, and the student completes it at his or her own pace, the student learns the material in a deeper and longer lasting way than a student who is simply studying for a test, checking the box and moving on.