Are
Parents Qualified to Teach Their Children?
How
can parents teach their own children? Is teacher
certification required? Studies show that teacher
certification for home schooling parents has little
effect on the child's learning.
How
much education does a parent need to successfully
home school?
Studies
show that the public schooled children's parent's
educational level and students are directly related.
The higher a parent's education, the better the
public student's achievements. For home schoolers,
studies show that the student's achievements (which
are significantly better than public schooled
children) are not related to the parent's
education level.
A
degree doesn't make someone caring, considerate,
knowledgeable, and understanding of children.
It doesn't make them love someone else's children,
and often doesn't even mean a vested interest
in a child's development. The larger issue is
"Who is responsible enough to influence the
mind and thoughts of a developing human being?"
The most important focus should be, but isn't
always, a child's needs. The situation that serves
the best interests and growth of a child is learning
in a secure and responsive home environment in
which caring, respectful parents are the teachers.
Home
schoolers out-perform their public school peers
by 30 to 37 percentile points across the subjects
on standardize achievement exams. Someone is doing
something right.
The
best teacher for any child is someone who loves
and cares about them and their particular way
of learning - someone who has the time and the
patience to provide one-on-one instruction. Parents
do what teachers wish they could do in the classroom
but cannot for lack of time and help and an excess
of students. There is a ton of data to support
the idea that children learn how to be sensitive,
caring, empathetic human beings at home with their
family, as compared to being in an institution,
like school. In general, not even the BEST schools
can compare to a good home.
Noted
author, former education columnist, and father,
Andrew Nikiforuk, in his 1994 book, If Learning
Is So Natural, Why Am I Going To School?, cites
a recent U.S. study of 4600 children. The study
found that students learning at home regularly
outperformed 80% of all other students on Standardized
Achievement Tests. Nikiforuk goes on to say that
big-name universities, like Harvard and Yale,
are very receptive to recruiting home-educated
students. Apparently, their study habits are widely
admired.
Great
men and women have been homeschooled and were
tremendously gifted and lead our country through
perilous times like Thomas Edison, George Washington,
Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln. Surely if their
parents could homeschool with very little education,
we have the right and ability to do an excellent
job schooling our children.
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