Homeschooling Vs Traditional Schooling: What Are The Pros And Cons?

Everybody who reads this has more or less a vivid picture of how their schooling was and what their classrooms consisted of.

Here is the irony.

Every picture looks very similar because schooling all over the world is the same. The traditional schooling pattern has been around for years but is it being overtaken by a new method of teaching?

A section of parents has started to teach their kids from home without sending them to school. Is it that effective or is it just a trend that will vanish by the tests of time?

Homeschooling Vs Traditional Schooling: when did this debate start?

It was an author named John Holt in the 1970s. That was the time when people gave up rote learning methods to educate their kids. Instead, they insisted that their kids should be taught from home, following a syllabus framed by their parents yet approved by the school board. Even though the buzz was still around, the majority chose traditional schooling as the statistics were in its favor. Then the pandemic struck. Things were turned upside down. Now even though kids learn online, communicate remotely with their teachers and learn from home, this invokes the idea: should we have to follow the old approach? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to this debate? This article helps to breakdown both teaching methodologies without any biased information. Is traditional schooling losing its grip? Is homeschooling worth the talk or is it just hype? Let us find out.

What We Know About Traditional Schooling

Followed for hundreds of years, the children from these schools have created the wonderful world we live in. Although there are significant differences in the curriculum, between states and countries, some principles remain the same. Here are some typical things your kid experiences in schools:

1. Follows a fixed schedule of every day with tutors taking different subjects for specific time periods.
2. They get elective subjects that mostly include arts and crafts, music, dance, and culinary arts.
3. Sport is an integral part of the school and kids get to choose what they want to play and excel.
4. The exams determine their next step in their career. With various methods of assessments, exam patterns change but the schooling approach remains the same all these years.

The pros

1. The classroom is filled with other kids, that creates an energy of its own. This social environment is powerful for your kids to develop their social skills.
2. Schools instill responsibility to a certain degree.
3. Your kid could be the leader of the class or the captain of the baseball team or the coordinator for the science fair. All these are small responsibilities they take up and manage people in their lives.
4. Teachers are better at what they do than parents. You might be good at teaching your kid math but you cannot be the allrounder. This is why schools appoint different teachers for every niche.

The cons

1. One of the primary reasons why both parents work is because of the school fees of their kids. The highly preferred private schools do the most damage to parents’ paycheck and they cannot cast this away.
2. The highly coveted social interaction that schools provide brings issues like bullying and abuse with them. This has transformed into serious forms of cyberbullying that has resulted in suicides being the second largest cause of deaths in the United States.
3. There is only one narrative and that is the teacher’s narrative.
4. The average classroom size is a little over 23. That means every time a teacher shows up, they narrate their perspective to 23 individuals, thereby reducing the chances of teaching the same concept in many other ways.
5. This reduces creativity among individuals and they follow the mindset of a crowd. This one size fits all approach does not work for kids who have infinite resources online.

Taking A Deep Dive Into Homeschooling

When it comes to teaching your kid at home, there are some things you should know right off the bat. First, you cannot teach random things at home. When you teach your kid at home, you must consider the laws of the state and act accordingly. Once that is done, you have to frame a curriculum for your kid that is wholesome and inclusive. With that being said, here are the practical advantages and drawbacks when you decide to homeschool your kid.

The pros

1. No more 8 to 4 fixed school schedule. Homeschooling is flexible and when your kid gets the day’s learning done, they can take the day off.
2. As a parent, say goodbye to school fees.you can purchase the resources you want and teach them from home and not rely on private schools that rob your bank.
3. There is only one pupil and that is your kid. This increases your focus on them, identifying where they lag behind and make immediate adjustments.
4. Homeschooled children perform well than public school kids. They achieve more in academics and even top universities like Standford admit homeschooled kids for their programs.

The cons

1. Giving your kid the social interaction and environment is something that homeschooling always lacks. No matter what the parent does, it is hard to recreate the energy that the classroom creates.
   Studies also reveal that a decline in social interactions could be a consequence of the attachment to the parent. When your kid cannot interact with others on a regular basis, their entire behavior gets a dent.
2. Even though you do save a lot of money by avoiding schools, your family income reduces as well.
   Take this as an example. You and your partner both have jobs and run the family. Now since your kid is at home, one of you has to commit to them. This reduces the overall income of the family.
   Managing a household with one source can be a new burden that you might not foresee in the process.
3. Getting along with your kid can be a problem.
   Think about it. When they go to school five days a week, they spend the least time with them, keeping the parent-children relationship fresh and close. Now you are the teacher, the parent, and their classmate at home. Can you play these roles to perfection? Definitely not.
   You are in your children’s face from morning till the end of the day, every day. Some parents love this attachment but most children don’t as they crave new connections.

The Final Verdict

The pros and cons of both homeschooling and traditional schooling look evident and do not deliver the winner. Whether you agree or not, current circumstances have aggravated the need to have homeschooling in the general discussion and has brought pressure to reform educating models at schools. Before choosing what to do, be self-aware of your child’s needs and your resources at hand. Even if you choose to go the traditional route, there will be the parent’s role to play at home to educate and to get things done.