The teacher qualification of American homeschoolers is a key issue that concerns the survival of homeschoolers and a new battlefield in the battle of teacher education paths. Supporters of the professionalization of teacher education believe that home-school parents should meet the same standards and requirements as public school teachers. Home-schoolers argue the opposite.
The homeschooling movement arose in the United States in the 1950s as a free educational choice movement. Since the beginning of this movement, this kind of family education in the modern sense developed rapidly in the United States, gradually forming an education system independent of public schools and private schools. Homeschooling in the United States is different from traditional home education. It means that school-age children are not educated in public or private schools, but are educated in their own homes by parents or specialized educators who meet the requirements of teachers and complete primary education courses at home.
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In terms of the number and scale of home schools, the trend is increasing year by year, and the development is rapid. By some estimates, between 10,000 and 15,000 children were home-schooled in 1970.Other scholars have pointed out that the number of home-schooled children in the United States at that time ranged from 500,000 to 2 million, accounting for 1% to 4% of the total number of students in the United States. In addition, according to statistics released by the national center for education statistics (NCES) in July 2001, in the spring of 1999, about 850,000 to 970,000 school-age children (aged 5-17) were home-schooled in the United States, accounting for 1.7% of such school-age students. By the year 2000.About 1.5 million American children leave traditional classrooms for home schooling. Studies show that the number of home-schoolers in the United States is growing at an 11 percent annual rate. It can be seen that American homeschool has grown rapidly and has become a powerful educational force.
There are many reasons for the emergence of homeschooling, including the following:
- Parents are not satisfied with the institutionalized and mechanized education and teaching methods in schools. They believe that the knowledge taught in schools is outdated. It can't meet the demand of the market for talents, and the classroom teaching style ignores the individuality of students, fails to meet the individual needs of children, teaching efficiency is low, coupled with various surveys, the quality of education in the United States has been declining year by year. This has led parents to grow increasingly distrustful of schools and take their children home.
- Religion is also an important reason for parents to bring their children home. The United States is a country where many religions coexist. It always advocates the elimination of racial discrimination and the coexistence of diverse cultures. But the knowledge and values taught in many public and private schools are diametrically opposed to the religious values held in some families. Not only that, but schools also potentially instill a strong culture in children, making it hard for many more conservative or religious families to accept. Therefore, these parents prefer to let their children stay at home.
- The increasingly rampant school violence, the spread of vulgar culture, drug abuse, promiscuity and other abomination phenomena in American schools have caused physical and mental harm to children, causing parents to doubt the safety of schools and believe that homeschooling can provide a safe and healthy learning environment for children. In addition, some parents choose homeschooling because school is far away from home.
- With the development of the social economy, a large number of middle-class families have emerged, and these families have good economic strength. With more leisure time, parents have a higher level of education. According to a survey, about 20% of parents in the United States have higher educational quality than school teachers. In addition, with the gradual popularity of the Internet, parents can easily get the required educational resources from the Internet. All this has facilitated homeschooling, leading parents to believe that homeschooling is as effective or better than schooling. So they withdrew to their homes.
With the development of this kind of education form, controversy surrounding it is also more and more, one of the focus of dispute is the home schooling teacher qualification problem, namely, undertake the task home schooling teaching parents home schooling ability to organise, whether they like public school teachers should be required to the requirements of government regulation, including qualifications, qualifications, examination results, experience in teaching, etc.
The supporters of the professionalization orientation of teacher education believe that the qualification requirements for home-schooling teachers should be strengthened, because this is a necessary condition to ensure the quality of home-schooling education. Supporters of homeschooling argue that the qualification requirement should be scrapped because parents do not have to meet the same standards as teachers in public schools. As parents, they can educate their children well. Because it is necessary to ensure the quality of home schooling; Supporters of homeschooling argue that the qualification requirement should be scrapped because parents do not have to meet the same standards as teachers in public schools. As parents, they can educate their children well.
Teacher qualification certificate is the basic condition for organizing and carrying out teaching activities. It can reflect whether teachers have necessary subject knowledge, professional teaching knowledge and whether they have received professional teaching training. The same applies, therefore, to homeschooling. Only by requiring parents to have a teacher's certificate can the quality of homeschooling be guaranteed. Teaching is a specialized profession, and many homeschooling parents do not meet even the basic educational requirements, so it is difficult to teach good children. In the United States, all teachers in public schools have a bachelor's degree or higher, and more than half have a master's degree or higher, according to the data. Homeschooling parents, by contrast, are much less desirable. According to the survey, only 66.3 percent of fathers and 62.5 percent of mothers of home-schoolers have a bachelor's degree or higher. 8.4 percent of fathers and 7.5 percent of mothers only graduated from high school; Even 1.4% of fathers and 0.5% of mothers did not finish secondary school. In this way, most homeschooling parents do not have the basic qualifications to be teachers.
Homeschooling parents and public school teachers are engaged in teaching activities, so homeschooling parents and public school teachers should meet the same requirements, that is, have teacher certificates. Moreover, since many homeschooling parents educate their children at home because of factors such as religion and values, there should be greater demand for their teaching expertise and skills. Because, the family school parents may take too much time and energy into religion and values education, the discipline knowledge and skills will not only lead to weakened, and instill in the children's narrow concept, make the child cannot come into contact with the pluralistic values like in public schools, and on this basis to develop social values they desired. In the process of educating their children, parents are unable to look at problems from a more objective and impartial standpoint. Instead, they tend to instill their own prejudices into their children, such as devout belief in a certain religion and discriminatory attitudes towards different cultures, which will bring great harm to the society. Only strict regulation of homeschooling activities and parents' qualifications as teachers can prevent harm to children.
Professional education and training is a necessary condition for obtaining the teacher's qualification certificate. In general, nearly all teachers in public schools in the United States hold state-certified teacher certificates. Most teachers in private schools also hold teacher certificates. In addition, the school will provide teachers with many orientation programs and professional development programs to help new teachers adapt to the teaching environment and promote teachers to continuously improve their teaching ability and level.
Homeschooling parents have less professional training in educational concepts and teaching skills than teachers in public schools. Specialization of teachers education, supporters say, since there is no accepted the professional education and training, home schooling parents don't know teaching, they don't know how to prepare lessons, don't know how to teach, more do not understand the development stage and characteristics of children, can only be groping in the process of teaching practice, sum up experience, thus the quality of their teaching was not guaranteed. For these parents, the quality of such education can only be guaranteed through teacher certification and teacher certification.
Therefore, for the better development of their children, home-school parents should reach the same or similar level as school teachers.
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