Saturday, May 13, 2017

Use Homeschooling option smartly




On 13 May, we interacted with Homeschooling parents to find out the pros and cons of Homeschooling. 

Here is the summary of the important observations :

Advantages of Homeschooling 

1. Today's parents opt homeschooling when they want their child to focus on subjects which are not taught in depth in school , such as drawing, music, sports, economics, computers, and psychology. Earlier homeschooling was used for disadvantaged children because of which homeschooling has acquired 'wrong' reputation. 

2. Because parent-child interaction in homeschooling is more dense than in normal schooling, homeschooling enables parent to identify the 'spark' in their child and guide accordingly.  Because of more interaction with child, parents also learn to trust their child and help the child indirectly.  

3. Parents also opt this method to skip grades. For instance, if their child is ready for Class VI even when her age is say 11, she can give an exam of Class VI and jump ahead. 

4.  More importantly, homeschooling enables the student to 'develop' at his/her own pace as there is no peer pressure or teacher pressure.  In other words, the child stops running because someone else is running.  

5. Most of the students opt for registering under NIOS, National Institute of open schooling. One can register in 6th, 8th or 10th class. This also enables the students to give exams for those years. NIOS certificate is good for getting admission into any discipline, be it Engineering, Medical or anything else. Please visit their site for more information on course material, study center. Guru Gobind School is its official study center in Nashik. Everything can be done online. 

6. Students can also opt for SSCE Board to give exams. For that one should ideally register in the fifth class. Late registration can also be done. This points requires more clarification. 


Disadvantages of Homeschooling

1.  Parents have to spend considerable time in homeschooling. One parent, whose child is of age 5, spends 2 hours every day.. Given the generic subjects upto Class V,  one can safely claim that a parent may be spending more time on homeschooling till the Class V, But, as the student moves to higher specialised classes, this time is reduced because student manages himself.

2. It is assumed that homeschooling parents should be experts on different subjects. In the past this may be true, but Internet today has made it easier for parents to help their children even in different subjects. Homeschooling parents use Swashikshan group for linking with other homeschooling parents. This helps the parents to share resources, ideas and workloads. Parents also use various sites to get 'worksheets' ( worksheets are question sheets) on different subjects like English and Mathematics. They also use Pinterest to find more material. 

3. Due to absence of formal schooling, it is assumed that homeschooling students miss socialisation and therefore lack social skills . This is a myth. Because students always form different groups, be it with neighbors, with sports group, or arts group. 

4. Due to absence of formal schooling, it is assumed that homeschooling students miss camping experience, experience of Annual days, Stage experience. Once again, this is no more true in the current times. 


1 comment:

  1. After writing the blog, i found that there is difference between Home schooling and Unschooling. Home schooling is helping the child to finish the school curriculum at home. Unschooling is customising the child's curriculum to suit the holistic development of the child.

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