Homeschooling for a Better Life- Ali Al-Rida Moussa 9B

          “Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.” This quote highlights the importance of education in building people’s intellectual abilities and making them rather civilized but not oppressed, abused, marginalized, or enslaved. Education is portrayed as one’s means to exploit his intellect in living a decent life. This means that it is of utmost importance to educate children well by having a homeschooling program. I believe that homeschooling, the great evolution of education in the 21st century, is an important tool for children to make a change from a negative school environment, get a higher quality of education, and improve their social interaction.

          To start with, The National Household Education Survey (NHS), which is conducted every four years by the U.S Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), says that highest rated reason parents choose to homeschool is the negative environment of their child’s public school. Over 26% cited a negative environment as their most important reason, and over 90% listed it as one of their reasons for making a change to homeschooling. Most often, parents are concerned about bullying. In large part, bullying is difficult for parents to see, because unlike a report card or a letter from a teacher, it is difficult to know if your child is being bullied at school or online by classmates. Incidents where students tease, steal food or money, inflict physical harm, or progressively use more abusive or hurtful language, can often be dismissed by teachers and go unreported by the children who experience the bullying. Added to that, as kids get older, bullying and their effects become even more severe, often magnified by growing social pressures in school. Bullying can lead to lower grades and self-esteem, poor sleeping habits, depression and more. Jack, a 13-year-old American child, lived in California, says that he was a victim of various incidents of bullying that lead to a drop in his grades. Simply jack found his solution at homeschooling system.

          Moreover, getting a higher level of education is another importance of homeschooling. Homeschooling gives parents more control over what their kids are learning. For many, homeschooling parents, there is a strong belief that public school curriculum is not providing the right knowledge and skills for children. A recent Career and College Readiness survey showed that less than half of high school students feel academically ready for college.  Other surveys have shown that college professors believe students are less prepared for college work. The number of college professors who believed students were prepared for higher education has dropped from 28% to 14% in the last 10 years, this is a great significance of the low level of education in schools due to the stuffed curriculum and crowded classes. Besides, homeschooled children tend to score better on state and federal standardized tests. According to research from Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute, home-educated kids “typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.” This is true regardless of the parent’s income or if they have experience teaching.

          In addition to that, another important reason why parents decide to homeschool their children is that they want less exposure to bullying and peer pressure in the public school system, and more tailored social interactions that support their values. Homeschooling parents can do this by taking the course curriculum and making the world around the classroom. While most public school students spend large amounts of time in classrooms listening to lectures (over 150 days per school year), homeschool students have more activities that take place outside of the home. With a flexible homeschool curriculum, families are better able to go to museums, parks, and historical sites, and participate in community service activities as part of their daily learning. In fact, the impact of homeschooling in this manner often improves emotional and psychological development in children. It also strengthens family connections when students homeschool with their siblings. What’s more, kids gain a greater awareness of the world around them and can develop a stronger sense of civic responsibility.

          To wrap up, homeschooling benefits the student himself in various domains be it psychological, academic and social. I urge the Lebanese ministry of education to take serious actions in activating homeschooling system providing it with the needed documents, tools and centers to be applied.