... and the cult of the child: Home Schoolers Content to Take Children’s Lead. (Hat tip, Roger Miller.)
Summerhill, anyone?
I think the headline is typical of the Times, which probably disapproves of homeschooling in general. More traditional homeschooling seems to have worked fine for Christopher Paolini and Francis Collins.
Update: Link fixed thanks to timely alert from Dave Lull.
Hi Frank, as a disclaimer I haven't read the articles at these links. I agree that homeschooling can be excellent. But too often it is done by parents for what I might call "frivolous" reasons - they don't actually teach their children much and it is taking more and more resources out of the very pressured education system's budget to check that the children concerned are getting an education to some acceptable standard, are not being neglected or worse, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't a black or white issue, but like any other system, there are people who use it well and there are people who take advantage of it, I guess. And the latter category take away thinly spread resources from the children who do go to school.
Not sure if this is covered in the links you provide, but the author of the Graduate (book and movie) is a keen proponent of homeschooling, both doing it and writing a recent book about his experieneces and difficulties in so doing.