Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 Homeschooling
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Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 Homeschooling: How Children, Who Are Homeschooled, Develop Cognitively and Socially Christen King Bridgewater College Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 Homeschooling: How Children, Who Are Homeschooled, Develop Cognitively and Socially Many people have discussed for a number of years about putting their children into public home schooling them. By 2001, one million (roughly 2% of school aged population) were being homeschooled (Lines, p.1). In Patricia Lines article, it stated that homeschooled children, most of the time, come from two parent homes that are religious, conservative, white, and better educated (Lines, p.1). Homeschooling has increased over the years. At first, only a few states allowed families to homeschool their children. Before this time, families that normally choose to homeschool come from all major ethnic, cultural, religious, background and all income levels (Lines p.1). Typically, when a family decides to homeschool their children, the mother takes the lead and does most of the schooling. The father sometimes will help but, it is mostly the mother (Lines p.1). Unfortunately, homeschooled children are normally perceived in a negative light. One parent stated, “The parents have real emotional problems themselves,” another statement later in the article states, “They need to realize the serious harm they are doing to their children in the long run, educationally, and socially,” another says that “the majority of homeschooled children are socially handicapped” (Medlin, pg. 1). When the article is saying they are doing harm to their children, they mean that since they are not in public schools around peers and teachers, they are not being taught how to act around others, so they are harming their social development. A few of the articles talk about how most parents who put their children into public schools are against the whole idea of homeschooling their Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 children. “People disagree about whether homeschooling helps or hinders a child’s social development. Homeschooling children spend less time with their peers and more time with people of different ages” (Lines p. 2). Two of my articles said that “92% of public-school superintendents believe that homeschooled children do not receive adequate socialization experiences” (Medlin 2000). Another article by Richard Medlin stated the same as the Lines article and added that “the study of parents whose children attended public schools believed that 61% of children were isolated” (Medlin, pg. 1). He continues to talk about how the parents of the homeschooled children are not concerned about their children’s social development skills. The parents tend to be confident in their child’s social skills. “Homeschooling parents care about their child’s social development skills. They are committed to providing positive socialization experiences” (Medlin, pg. 1). The parents believe that “socialization is best achieved by being in an age-integrated setting under the auspices of family” (Medlin, pg. 1). The parents are providing positive socialization experiences by integrating them into social activities (Medlin, pg. 1). Contrary to popular belief, the articles have swayed my beliefs about homeschooling and their children’s social development. Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 This pathway model is to show what I researched and found about my Homeschooling topic. The three categories are Parent Involvement, Structure in Homeschooling and Time Spent in Formal Instruction, and Time Spent in Social Contact. These categories all connect to cognitive development and socioemotional skills. The number of homeschooled children is over 2.2 million people (Ray, pg. 1). Homeschooling is now the fastest growing form of education. It is growing in minorities, about 15% of families are non-White and non-Hispanic (Ray, pg. 1). Homeschooling did not start becoming popular until the late 19th century, when parents “began to see schooling as an opportunity for upward mobility. Schools became more professionalized with more emphasis on pedagogy and student management” (Grubb, pg. 4). Before the 19th century, homeschooling was seen as a common Christian morality and that regardless of your denomination, the school was to be based on the Bible and be the moral educator of the nation. Homeschooling was Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 sorely based on religion before the 19th century (Grubb, pg. 3). In some states homeschooling was not even legalized yet because of states attendance laws but even then, some parents went ahead and still chose to educate their children at home. Two educational theorists, John Holt and Raymond Moore, started to inform and inspire parents on why they should start homeschooling their children. Holt and Moore essentially founded the homeschool movement. They believed that “public schools were by nature bureaucratic, inhumane settings that sought to rank, and sort children using discriminatory standards and make them into docile and obedient citizens” (Grubb, pg. 4). They wrote an article informing people about how homeschooling children can help them learn best through unstructured real-life experiences in a nurturing home environment and encouraged “unschooling” (Grubb, pg.4). They stated in their article that “parents and the home are the wisest educators” (Franzosa, pg. 121). There are reasons why parents choose to educate their children at home. They are, “concern about environment at the schools, to provide religious instruction, and dissatisfaction with academic instruction” (Isenberg, pg. 399). The parents that are educating their children at home purely based on religion are the largest and fastest growing group out of the three (Grubb, pg. 6). Most of the time, the academic achievement of their child is a secondary thought and is put after religious beliefs. 30% of the children are homeschooled because of parents wanting to incorporate religious instruction (Isenberg, pg. 401). For parents that are concerned with their child’s academic instruction, 48% of parents have decided to homeschool their children based on how schools instruct their students. “The poorer the academic quality of a school, the more chance of the parents homeschooling their child” (Isenberg, pg. 404). An Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 example Isenberg gives is Wisconsin schools. “The school district in Wisconsin had an increase in homeschooling because of a decrease in math test scores” (Isenberg, pg. 404). “An estimated 50 to 75% of parents who homeschool design their own curriculum to meet the needs of their children as opposed to buying the pre-packaged products on the market today” (Grubb & Lines, pg. 7). Finally, the concern about the environment at schools connects with the second one in the way that when the math scores go down, parents are wanting their children to go to private schools but most of the time parents do not like the environment of the private schools, so they go into homeschooling their child. Another category that some parents choose to homeschool is behavioral and/or special needs. 14% of parents homeschool their children in this category. This normally happens with older children. (Isenberg, pg. 407). Another reason is to form stronger family bonds (Grubb, pg. 6). Some other reasons are to be able to customize any lesson or activity based off of each child and to provide a safer environment away from violence and drugs (Ray, pg. 1). “Homeschooling appears to be continuing to change and is beginning to reflect our mainstream society. There appears to be a growing number of well-educated, relatively affluent parents who are choosing homeschooling in order to improve the educational achievement of their children in order to avoid what the view as problem-ridden public schools” (Grubb, pg. 6). When it comes to academics, research has shown that homeschooled children “outperform their public-school counterparts”, “regardless of race, age, and parent educational level, homeschooled children perform at a higher achievement level when tested on standardized tests and compared to all students nationwide” (Grubb, pg. 8). In homeschooled children’s Christen King Dr. Hoskins FCS 345 7 December 2018 social development, they appear socially, have opportunities for interaction with other children and adults, and are emotionally well-adjusted (Grubb, pg. 8). Looking at a variety of articles, I have found these four independent variables to be very important in the homeschooling process. Parental Involvement Parent involvement is defined as “a parents’ direct involvement with students’ academic assignments” (Barwegen et. al pg. 43). Another way to define parental involvement, as Barwegen says, is to divide it into four categories, helping, supporting, controlling, and participating. (Barwegen et. al, pg. 43). In the study by Barwegen, it showed that parental involvement did relate to a students’ academic achievement. In this study it said that it also related to the parents’ socioeconomic status and parenting styles. “Activities at home, such as discussions, assistance, and parents giving advice had a greater positive effect on students and helped them with their academic achievement” (Barwegen et. al, pg. 44). The results of the study were that with parental involvement, to create higher student academic achievement, parents “regularly asked about how their school work was coming and regularly supported their