Dawn of the Geeks

There are two key objections to homeschooling kids: qualification and social skills.

While at Arizona State University I was accepted into the professional program for secondary education. I turned it down to go back to computer science and eventually graduated with a degree in Math. I was married and had a child before I graduated. I was also working full time as a programmer before I graduated. So I chose to continue in my career so my wife could be a stay at home mom. A teacher’s salary is not enough. Maybe I’ll go into teaching later.

While studying to be a teacher I learned that the focus is not on the subject matter but on how to teach. And not just on how to teach but how to teach other people’s children. The big issue in public education is where to teach to. Do you teach down to the slow kids at the expense of the smart ones or do you teach up to the smart ones and the expense of the slow ones. The general consensus is to teach to the middle.

When you have 20-30 kids in a classroom some of them are bound to not want to be there and end up disrupting the learning environment for everyone else.

The job of a teacher is to then babysit the ones who don’t want to be there and try to teach the rest of the class at a level that caters to the “average” student.

A parent raises a child for 5 or 6 years before they are off to school. They know their child and how to teach them. They know the child’s abilities. The parent doesn’t need to know anything that doesn’t apply to their child which is the vast majority of what is learned when going for a teaching degree. The rest they could read a book on or take a couple classes if they really want to.

The other advantage of homeschooling is that the parent is learning with the child. When you’re in public school you have a new teacher every year. The new teacher has to assume where the old teacher left off and what level the student is at. With homeschooling the same teacher is there the whole time. They know exactly where the student is at. And even if the parent doesn’t know say, pre-calc now, they’ll learn as they review the lower levels as their child grows up. By the time their child is ready for pre-calc the parent should be, too.

Let’s say your child could really benefit from going on a certain fieldtrip. In public education you have to make sure the entire school is okay with it because your student will probably be out for the day. And the school has to make sure they have money for everyone. Which they usually don’t. And now you’ve got 30 plus kids that are all on this field trip that want to do different things but can’t. Typically they all stay together and be lectured as they go through. Some of them don’t want to be there.

The parent has to only pay for them and their student and there is no one to answer to. If they want to take their kid to the zoo they can. They can stay for as long as they want and go at their own pace.

A typical school day has around 6 periods with 50 minute sessions each. These happen from 8-3pm. Most children are not morning people. Studies have found that starting school at a later time improves performance. When a child is home schooled, school can start whenever the child is ready. You can’t shift the starting time in public schools easily because parents have to be to work. Not all students have a parent available to be home with them until 9am or later. With a homeschooled kid that’s not a problem.

Six 50 minute periods is 5 hours of teaching time. Since most classrooms waste 10-20 minutes per period getting the students settled in you can easily cut 1 to 2 hours off that time. It’s very easy to find the time to teach 3-4 hours a day. Which is what most homeschooled kids end up doing.

The numbers show that homeschooled kids outperform public school kids. And that’s for many reasons besides the ones discussed above.