After reading chapter 13:Education of the Unite States. According to it,I determined to write about American homeschooling, not included by this chapter. Lucy is a Chinese girl who lived in a quiet town in North Carolina for a while. Next door to hers are Mr. And Mrs. Lane, who are very hospitable and invite her to visit. They have two children, a boy named Jason, 7, who is bright and bright, and a girl named Emily, 4, who is as cute and lively as a doll. She enjoys playing with them. Mr. And Mrs. Lane trusted her, and sometimes they let her babysit when they couldn't take care of the children. The job was the spice of her life.
But there was one thing that puzzled her: 7-year-old Jason stayed at home all the time and didn't go to school every day like other kids his age. At one point, she asked Carol, the mother of the child, 'why don't you send Jason to school?' She smiled and said, 'I teach him to read at home. Have you heard of home school?' 'Look, here's Jason's schedule from Monday to Friday.'She see the Monday column below: get up at 7 a.m., brush your teeth and gargle. After breakfast, do some housework, such as feeding the pet cat. Class starts at 8:00 and Carol teaches him English, math and biology. In the afternoon, take him and Emily to the library to borrow children's books or videos, and the rest of the time he can play with his sister or do what he likes. In the same way, from Tuesday to Friday, Jason has two or three classes in the morning and Carol arranges different activities for him in the afternoon. For example, swimming, scouting, community activities, etc. On weekends, family visits to grandparents, friends or picnics in the countryside; Socializing with other homeschooling parents and children; Sometimes he also participates in church activities.
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There are many homeschooled children like Jason in the United States. This so-called 'home schooling' is an alternative to the traditional educational system. It usually refers to primary and secondary school students receiving the equivalent of a normal school education at home (rather than at school) under the guidance of a parent or guardian. The study plan is tailored by parents according to the different characteristics of their children. Children learn not only from textbooks, community libraries, and museums but also from life itself. For example, some parents take their children to participate in some charity activities, such as visiting the elderly and the sick in nursing homes or hospitals, with the purpose of consciously cultivating their children's moral character of caring for others and cherishing life. This is what is special about homeschooling, where parents are ready to impart important values, morals, and rules of daily living.
The history of American home schooling can be traced back to the colonial settlement and westward expansion of the 17th and early 19th centuries. At that time, most parents taught their children knowledge and skills at home, and later transferred their children to their community schools. It was not until the 1870s, when the state and the states passed laws providing free education to the general public, that responsibility was transferred to institutionalized schools. Home schooling is in decline because of the popularity of public schools. It was not until the 1960s and 1970s that homeschooling again attracted the attention of parents and educators. Two of these educators, Moore and Holt, developed theories that propelled the home-school movement.
The development of homeschooling has gone through several different stages of dispute, confrontation, cooperation and consolidation. It was criticized in its early days. While it was in dispute, Moore and holt planted the seeds of this educational idea in people's minds. They wrote books and articles to promote their educational ideas. They believe that education should not exist in a forced, high-pressure, competitive school environment, but should be people-oriented, in a family environment that follows the natural laws of human development. At that time, parents were dissatisfied with the educational activities in public schools, so they took their children out of public schools and home-schooled them. Parents and schools are locked in a battle over their children's right to education that has led to legal action. The mass media is also against homeschools, many of which have had to go underground. In the late 1980s, the courts ruled in favor of the parents. Schools realized that they had to serve their students in every way, so they began to work with home schools to provide them with materials, facilities, and so on. Since then, the number of homeschooled children has grown steadily. Homeschooling grew rapidly in the 1990s.
Homeschooling is now legal in all 50 states, and some have fairly liberal laws that do not require parents to seek state approval to start tutoring. It has become an influential form of education. The number of 'home-schooled' students is growing by 15-40% a year, according to estimates by the institute of homeschooling. Figures show that the number of home-schooled children rose from 500,000 to 750,000 between 1990 and 1995. In 2001-2002, two million children in grades kindergarten through 12 (the equivalent of our country's third grade) were home-schooled. From the above data, we can easily see the charm of this form of education. The parents' choice certainly reflects widespread dissatisfaction with schools in the United States. One mother said: 'public schools have a shortage of teachers and the quality of teaching has gone downhill. And middle-class families like us couldn't afford the expensive private schools, so I decided to teach my kids myself.' Another parent said: 'I decided to teach my children at home mainly because violence and drug abuse in public schools pose a great threat to children's safety and physical and mental health.' Parents are clearly desperate to find the best way to educate their children, and they are responding to the government's repeated attempts to bring their children's education back into their own hands.
Advantages
Homeschooling not only provides children with a safe learning environment free from violence, drugs and other negative influences, but also has many advantages that no other educational model can match:
1. Parents can impart values, beliefs and ethics to their children.
Parents who choose to teach their children at home believe that the right values, beliefs and ethics are essential to their children's overall development. Therefore, it is incumbent upon parents to pass on to the next generation what they consider important values. For example, some parents start by guiding their children to take good care of the animals and plants around them, so as to cultivate their awareness of protecting the environment and cherishing life.
2. Home-school teaching can meet the needs of different children.
Parents can not only tailor their children's teaching plans according to their children's intelligence, but also follow appropriate learning methods to guide them. For example, for children with slow mathematical thinking, parents can slow down the process of learning. If he has great potential in reading, he may choose a more difficult reading material and be encouraged to read widely. Such teaching methods can especially meet the special needs of exceptional or disabled children. Because the teaching model of regular schools is totally unsuitable for the learning and growth of this special group.
3. Homeschooling creates close family relationships between parents and children.
Close and stable family relationship is the guarantee of healthy growth of children. This model allows parents to fully enjoy the time they spend with their children and creates opportunities for family members to get to know each other better and build rapport. Homeschooling offers parents the opportunity to focus on their children's development. When they find children in the development of character or learning problems, can be timely guidance, inspiration, help the child to set up to overcome the difficulties of the letter Heart.
4. Homeschooling provides more personalized and social practice opportunities for children.
Public school students spend most of their free time watching TV and videos. Home-schoolers, on the other hand, tend to develop their own interests in their spare time. Parents arrange for their children to participate in community activities such as scouts, volunteer services, etc. In addition, the children also go on field trips and socialize with other home-school student groups. The success of homeschooling is obvious. Surveys show that homeschooled students outperform their formal counterparts in academic performance, social skills and moral development. At present, some famous universities such as Harvard,Yale is open to homeschooling. In the fall of 1999, Stanford admitted 27 percent of its home-school applicants, twice as many as it admitted public and private students.
However, although home school has many advantages, it also has some limitations according to the family characteristics of choosing this education model. Most families involved in such education are middle - or upper-income. In this category, 72% of fathers and 59% of mothers had college or graduate degrees. Another survey of 1,657 families found that 17.3% of parents were accountants or engineers. 16.9% were professors, lawyers or doctors; 10.7 percent are small business owners, among them 87.8 percent of mothers are willing to stay at home to educate their children as a career. One conclusion can be drawn from these data: families that choose to raise their children at home should first have a stable economic foundation; Secondly, parents should have a higher level of education.
Home school is an open and individualized special education model cultivated under the background of American culture. At present, it can not be applied to our country's education system and environment. But there is something to ponder in this model. There is a common problem in our country -- the tension between parents and children. The reason is that parents want their children to become the best in the world, and they want their children to be among the best in the world. As a result of the excessive pressure, the child to the parents have adverse feelings. In addition, parents do not know how to communicate, resulting in increased tension between the two sides, sometimes even conflict. The American homeschooling approach offers a way. Our parents should spend more time with their children, deepen their relationship with them, and establish a friendly relationship of mutual respect and understanding. This kind of relationship helps develop a child's self-confidence. Only when children are full of self-confidence, they can meet challenges on the road to success in life.
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