© Crescentlite

A/N: This is just an english arumentative assignment I was suppose to do and it shows my view on home schooling. This is not meant to be politically correct so please do not get too fired up over my comments. I will be happy to receive any comments you have about it though.

Home schooling: A better alternative?

Home schooling – a way to escape unhealthy influences or an excuse for parents to gain maximum control over their child's' education? There are many reasons why people decide to home school their children. Firstly, parents may be disillusioned by the public or private school systems, or they might want to integrate a strong belief in God in their child. Maybe they can't afford private schools and don't want to settle for a public school of feel that home schooling is a good way to protect their child from exposure to violence and drugs. Whatever the reasons may be, every family has the right to decide the hows, whys and wherefores of their child's upbringing. However, there may be more cons to pros concerning this issue of home schooling.

Arguably, home schooling does not teach teenagers the value of teamwork and friendship. Breaking up the term would give you "home" and "schooling", literally meaning schooling at home where you have a "one-on-one" with the tutor and nobody else. There is no involvement of co-curricular activities CCA or project work for the "home schoolers" to partake in and learn the importance of cooperation. As a result, home schooled children tend to be socially handicapped as they don't get to make friends during the course of learning. As such, they are not well equipped with the necessary conversational skills needed later in society.

Being home schooled usually means not being able to interact with other children of one's age unlike those attending public or private schools where recesses provide them with the chance to bond. Positive peer pressure is lacking in this aspect of education and it greatly impacts one's mind. How often it is that constant egging from peers spur you on to study and do well in examinations? Humans are born with the natural instinct of competition instilled in them since birth. Perhaps a shock treatment after comparing results with a friend is the only remedy for excellence. In other words, motivation is a key factor in studying and home schooling does not exactly allow for motivation from peers to show up.

In terms of information, children being home schooled may not be getting the latest updates and changes in the syllables or education system. Schools are usually the first to get new updates and the media may not report it until a while later. By then, students in schools would already be rather well acquainted with the changes while home schooled children are just receiving the news. This will prove to be a disadvantage as elaborate details may only be revealed to schools and the media just reports the raw facts that give a vague idea. They also do not have the opportunity to learn from others' mistakes as there is nobody whom they can exchange ideas with other than their own family members and the tutors themselves.

It is often said that children attending public and private schools are violent and experience bad moments in school. But there's a tendency to forget that although peer pressure may be one of the many contributing factors to a child's violent streak, influences of other forms are not to be neglected as well. As long as technology keeps advancing, as long as a child has easy access to the Internet and television, they are bound to pick up a thing or two from these sources. If so, is it then right to go as far as to isolate the child from these items to minimize their violent streak?

In conclusion, home schooling is not a better alternative to attending public schools. Parents see other children growing up and becoming bums and they blame it on the school systems simply because that is the easiest way out. If one bothered to examine carefully, only a minority of students who attend normal schools go astray. Statistics have shown that the crème de la crème often emerge from public and private schools and not from home schooling. Therefore it would be true to say home schooling is not a better alternative.