Some people claim that home schooling is the best choice for a student to learn. I disagree with this statement for a plethora of reasons. High school is a time for a student to develop their beliefs, to prepare for college, and to learn skills that will help them with their future careers. I question how home schooling can be a beneficial choice for a high school student, when public schooling is an opportunity that helps students in all of the areas mentioned above. Personally, I have learned many lessons for attending a public school that I otherwise would not have.
1. Standing up for my beliefs
If I had been home schooled my whole life, I never would have been able to stand for my beliefs with the certainty I can now. With my parents as my teachers, I never would have experienced a time when a teacher has taught something that goes against what I believe in. However, this was thankfully not the way that I was brought up; I have been taught by numerous teachers, all of which are teaching different things with different perspectives. Consequently, I have learned how to continue believing what I stand for without questioning those viewpoints, or even in more extreme cases, dropping the class because I disagree so strongly with the teacher or the material being taught. In this way, when I go on to college and a teacher or the class material goes against what I stand for, I won’t freak out because I have experienced this type of situation before.
2. Working with a group
Group projects are a necessary part of life in a public high school, and can be loved or loathed. I do not spurn teachers for forcing me to work in a group, because I know that functioning as a part of a group is a skill that I will need for the rest of my life. Possessing the ability to work with others helps students learn to collaborate and cope with personality issues, which will certainly exist in the work force.
3. Learning by lecture
Lecture halls are the most common way of teaching in college; being able to experience this sort of teaching style before I start paying thousands of dollars per class is a valuable experience. Those who are strong supporters of home schooling always seem to bring up “how beneficial one on one teaching is.” I guess that would be okay, but only if you want a child to grow up in a fairy tale world. I’m sorry to break it to you but one-on-one teaching is not something that is prevalent in the real world. In college, some class sizes are in the hundreds. In other words, those who teach their child via one-on-one teaching are training their children to learn in a way that they will most likely never use again after high school.
4. Keeping to a schedule
I will be the first to admit that being able to sleep in would be incredible, however forcing myself to get up in the morning and keep to my daily schedule is a skill that will help me not only once I get to college, but also once I enter the work force. Yes, I complain a ton about having to go to school in the morning and to all of my classed too, but on the inside I know that keeping to my troublesome schedule is helpful. Some home schoolers make their own schedule, getting up when they please and not having specific due dates is just staring habits that could harm them in the future.
5. Being taught by those who are experts in the fields they are teaching
To teach secondary education teachers need to excel in a specific field. This is a great benefit of public schooling; each and every educator has extended previous knowledge of the subject he or she is teaching. However, in a home school environment this is not the case. Occasionally, the parent may have a teaching degree, but it is doubtful that he or she has degrees for each subject they are teaching. Shouldn’t student’s parents want them to learn from the best experts possible?
6. Diversity in learning
In a public school environment, students are exposed to multiple perspectives of teachers and students, while in a home school environment students have limited exposure to other’s perspectives. Additionally, interaction with my peers is a large part of my day at a public high school; consequently, I am familiar with interacting with many people in a day. On the other hand, home schooled students are not used to meeting and interacting with so many people in a single day of school. It is one thing to be comfortable within the four walls of your own home but to be confident in an environment with hundreds of people is a completely different thing.
Therefore, home schooling is not the right choice for a student in high school but rather public schooling. Public schooling better prepares a student for their future, be it college, the work force, or just life in general. While home schooling may appear to be a better choice for a more personal learning environment, it fails to adequately prepare a student for the world outside of their own home.