By Davian Koren
As a high schooler, I often get asked the question, “What school do you go to?” When I respond that I’m homeschooled, oftentimes people don’t really know what that means, and/or they don’t get why anyone would want that as opposed to going to a public or private school. There’s a whole range: the ones that think you must be the smart, nerdy kid; and the other end of the spectrum, where they think you must be falling through the cracks, socially isolated, and below average.
That’s why, today, I’m going do my best to clear this up a bit by talking about what homeschooling is, how it’s different than pursuing education through a public or private school, and also why I think homeschooling is the best option for giving the highest level of education possible, with the most engagement, all while aligning with families’ values and principles.
What is Homeschool?
Homeschooling is the practice of educating school-aged kids at home, rather than enrolling them in a public or private school. It’s a form of education where families take full responsibility for their child’s learning, tailoring the curriculum, pace and methods to suit their needs and values.
Some parents choose all their own textbooks and curriculums for different subjects, teaching them all on their own, while others take the more part-time approach of bringing their kids to a public school for certain subjects, while teaching others themselves.
During Covid in 2020, many kids that had, up until that point, gone to public schools kept working through the same material but instead online. This is not the same as homeschooling; the key difference being that you’re still fully enrolled in a public institution, whereas homeschooling is a private educational choice managed entirely by the parents.
Reasons to Homeschool
There are many benefits to homeschooling, with perhaps the most obvious being higher academic performance. Multiple studies show that homechooled students typically score 15-25 percentile points higher than their public schooled peers on standardized tests.¹ (The public school average being ~50th; homeschoolers often 65th-80th.) This remains true across subjects, income levels, and parental education.
Another advantage to homeschooling is that it aligns better with family values and principles than any private or public school could; the reason for this being that families are able to choose all the material that they use instead of having to follow a mandated curriculum. In other words, parents have more control over what is being taught and how.
On a similar note, homeschooling is also a great opportunity to strengthen and grow relationships with family. Since you’re around your parents and siblings a lot more, you have the ability to become a lot closer together than you otherwise would be if you were gone all day, five days a week, in separate directions. (The latter leaves very little room for family influence, especially when you factor in the time not only spent at school, but also the commute to get there, as well as any extracurriculars. In short, sending them off all day would mean you’re giving the schools a large amount of influence over your kids instead, allowing for their values to be engrained more deeply in your child than anything you could have said in the couple hours worth of family time that you could have in the evenings or weekends.)
Another reason why homeschoolers tend to do so well is because parents have more skin in the game — they care about their kids way more than any teacher would, and because of that, they will go greater lengths than anyone else to do what’s best for their kid. Whether that be spending a little longer focusing on a given concept, or supporting them in pursuing additional interests further than you’d be able to otherwise, it’s very important to have a strong attachment to your student in order to help them succeed.
This is part 1 of a 2-part series. To read the full article, you can go to www.daviankoren.com/an-argument-for-homeschooling/ (Part 2 will also be published in the December 21 issue of the Fillmore County Journal).
Sources
1. nheri.org/homeschool-academic-achievement-fact-sheet/
Davian Koren is a homeschooled high school student, one of eight area students participating in the Journal Writing Project, now in its 28th year.
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