Home schooling or homeschooling, if you like (in fact, you even see it hyphenated, as in home-schooling) has been about for about 30 years now, although, of course it was all people had before state intervention in education. Out of the way rural places in huge countries like the USA, Canada and Australia still have to rely on home schooling to a great degree, although it is less difficult now with the wide-spread use of radio, television and the Internet. Video cassettes also have an important role, as do books still.

However, home schooling has become really popular in the cities as an alternative to urban public schools, which are frequently seen as hotbeds of upheaval, violence and narcotics, especially by the middle classes and not without some valid cause, to be fair. Nonetheless, there are also other good reasons for choosing home schooling, which we will go into later.

First, it must be pointed out that the decision to go for home schooling has to be a family one. This is because it will turn “normal family life” on its head and place an added monetary strain on the family purse. For instance, one parent will have to cease working. This cannot be allowed to be a cause of resentment, or both parents could take part-time employment and share the children’s educational time. Whichever way you decide, you will not have two full-time incomes any longer. Working from home on the Internet could be a partial solution here.

Home schooling will also disrupt everyone’s social life. So, the parents’ social life is restricted by not meeting work colleagues every day, but so is little Johnny’s, especially if he has already spent some time in a conventional classroom. He won’t see his friends from class as often and they could drift away from him or even be angry with him.

On the positive side is that the family will become a lot stronger as a unit by working together at home schooling. Both parents will have a thorough understanding of what their child is learning and will be learning. While following a broad-spectrum education, you may nevertheless opt to focus on points of, say, history or science, that particularly interest your child. It allows you the freedom to tailor your child’s education to his or her particular interests, something that state education cannot do well with over-sized classes. Your child will also come less under the influence of the rowdier elements in school and be able to concentrate more on studying.

A word of caution may be useful at this point. Do not be tempted to compel your child to learn too quickly. It is tempting for a non-professional teacher-cum-proud parent in home schooling to push the child a lot harder than he can go. Don’t forget that most pupils are just average. You ought to be on look out for signs of burn-out and stress at all times.

Once you decide to opt for home schooling, you will have to pick a basic programme, run through it yourself to familiarize yourself with it, purchase or locate in the library any additional books, videos and software, write a load of notes and stock up on pens and paper, folders, binders and filing cabinets and you’re ready for your first term at home schooling.

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