The History Of Home Schooling

Home schooling is also known as home education, and is a method of teaching children in the family home, rather than at an institution, such as a public school. Originally, all schooling was done in the family home, or informally within small communities. Very few children ever went to school, or had private tutelage. Children who did have this type of education were considered to be privileged, and were mainly from wealthy families.

Informal education, mainly conducted in the home, was the only way for children to gain an education. In the US, there were books dedicated to home education, such as "Helps To Education in the Homes of Our Country" authored by Warren Burton. Parents were the main teachers of their children, although, where possible, local teachers would assist parents, and take classes. It is said that before schooling was institutionalized, the US was at its height of literacy skills.

The 19th century saw many significant changes to the way education, and schooling was conducted with the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws. It is now considered a human right that children are given an education provided by the government.

Over the years, there has been much controversy over the effectiveness of institutionalized schooling, and some people have even gone as far as saying that the compulsory schooling system is damaging to younger children, especially boys who are slower to mature.

In the early 1970s, Ray and Dorothy Moore, who later become well known home schooling advocates, researched the bearing that early childhood education had on the mental, and, physical development of children between the ages of 8 to 12 years of age. Through these studies, the Moores produced evidence that formal schooling was damaging to children, and a cause for some behavioral problems commonly found in school aged children.

According to these tests, illiterate tribal mothers in Africa had children that were more socially, and emotionally advanced than children in the western world. The Moores believed that this was largely due to the bond between parents, and their children being broken when children were institutionalized in schooling systems.

In some English speaking countries, it is still an option for parents to home school their children rather than to send them to an institutionalized school. There are a wide variety of home schooling methods available to families who choose to home school their children, rather than send them to schools, including methods such as classical education, Waldorf education, and the Montessori method.

Home schooling can also refer to schooling done in a home environment, with supervision by teachers through correspondence schools. While children are schooled at home, they must still complete compulsory educational subjects, and take tests.

One of the main reasons that parents choose to home school their children is that they feel the schools are unable to offer their children the same quality of education, or social environment that can be taught at home.

Education in Schools

Raban's special interest was the prairie. His book 'bad land' is beautifully crafted, and completely unputdownable.

Jonathan Raban recaptures and tries to recreate the unique ninety-year history of the Montana plains. 'bad land' is part history and part memoir. He reconstructs the whole scene so vividly - people who had read the propaganda, believed it, uprooted themselves from their villages and towns, and came to eastern Montana was with a dream, determined to put down their roots. They learnt how to farm the unforgiving land, deal with inclement weather, and create a society. After a few successful years, though, life became near nigh impossible with conditions becoming harsh and raw, forcing them to move again...

Describing life on the prairie, he talks about education, for all children must go to school....As soon as the homesteaders got their homes going, they would put up the school house, and their place of worship. The schoolhouse was actually at the center of their lives, and in a way it took on the importance of the seat of government - all important topics that related to their life on the prairie, were talked about, discussed, and debated here. The schoolhouse also knitted the group that came from widely different backgrounds into a community.

This is what Raban found:

With schools going up all over the prairie, and there being no qualified teachers, teenage sons and daughters of the homesteaders pitched in, for as long as their labor was not required on the farms. The child-teachers were as much in need of instruction as the children they taught. State-approved textbook were detailed, laying out lessons complete with stage-directions and props for the novice teacher. Educating the educators, thus, was an important part of textbook writing. Randall J. Condon, Superintendent of the Cincinnati Schools and general editor of the Atlantic Readers series, deals with this issue. Talking about the criteria for textbooks, he says: "Are these books intended as 'basal texts'? By all means, for they deal with the most fundamental things in life: character, courage, service. These books teach peace founded on justice, but they teach also the beauty of a willingness to die if need be for the sake of truth and honor, for freedom, conscience and of country."