There are many different reasons as to why parents chose to homeschool their children, whether it is because of religion, social problems, or because of the disagreement with the educational system. Reading this blog, it was from a mom who does homeschool her two kids because of multiple reasons, some being not having to deal with social issues in the school and mainly trying to keep them away from any type of exposure to the socializing effects of peer culture in the public schools. She goes on to explain the importance of the community within the homeschooling life and the ability of her kids being able to interact with others. She states that “when kids enter a school, they’re joining a community” (AnEverydayStory 2015). She elaborates on being in a community, there being resources of interacting with other students to help enhance their lifestyle, the way they think, or how they perform in school. They play alongside other people their age in sports, problem solve together, negotiate with teachers, and argue and disagree with other students. The mother’s main concern is that just because she doesn’t have her kids enrolled within the public-school community, they don’t get those resources and don’t have the extra help that other students may have in the school system. She states strongly that the community like that doesn’t exist for her kids and that the issue of socialization is still a big one. Her hope is that socialization is worked on in a way that is consistent and purposeful.
From the test The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology, it talks and elaborates about the homeschool life as well as charter schools and the idea of unschooling aspect of it. It states, “many parents homeschool their children not only to control their academic education but also to limit their exposure to the socializing effects of peer culture” (Ferris, Stein 2018). There are problems within the schools dealing with racism, teacher’s pet, and other students getting more benefits because of their social status, their class, race, gender, etc. With the statistics showing that the academic achievement of homeschooled students, on average, is significantly above that of public-school students and homeschooling keeps kids away from socialization, why wouldn’t homeschooling be more common that it is today? From the text, it shows that in the United States, homeschooling has been growing steadily since the 1980’s with current growth rates of 5-12 percent a year, which puts the number at 1.8 million students in the US being homeschooled. On top of homeschooling, unschooling rates are also increasing as it is a way of rejecting the standard curriculum that is typically taught to students, as well as conventional teaching methods and classroom environments. This approach makes lessons more meaningful and personal to the students as it goes along with their specific type of learning style.
http://www.aneverydaystory.com/2015/03/04/socialisation-homeschool/
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