When some parents enter the world of raising a child, the question or how that child is going to get its education is a no-brainer. We’ll just send them to school, of course! Well, it is required by law(in the USA, at least), to provide some sort of education for the child, so we are going to have to educate them whether we feel like it or not. Knowing this, there is no question that it is probably going to be tough on them if we sent them through a very raw, deductive system based on necessity, mediocrity, and mandatory activity. In other words, it will probably be rough on them if we send them through public school. I’ve talked about some of the issues and problems that public school faces, and how it can be improved. The other main options for their education are private schools, and homeschooling. Parents are often hesitant to send their children to private schools because of the money it costs, and they are usually hesitant to have them home schooled, because of the implications that entails.

When we come to the idea of public school, I believe it is exactly as I have described. The whole system is a mass of children crammed into areas brimming with rapid population, classrooms full of 25 to 35 kids, textbooks that are given to them that are 4 or 5 years old, bent at the corners and torn at the spine. Of course, not every single public school out there is that bad, but we definitely see a lot of problems. Another major problem with the public education system is the fact that it has been fundamentally the same for the past several centuries. Some changes have finally started to take place here and there with computer labs, computer lessons, online education, and pieces here and there taken from colleges and being used within high schools. It simply is not enough. A constant pattern is repeated over and over again of black and white worksheets mixed with reading a textbook. If that is how your children are learning, shouldn’t they just learn at home?

The big issue that I have seen discussed is socialization, or the social development, of children in their educational experience. For common advocates of home school, they often will back this up with it all being about the quality, or time spent with effort, of a child’s parenting. In order for a child to be successful learning at home, parents must be successful being within the home to give energy to the situation. The most common problems with public education itself are often a result of a lack of parental involvement, or an involvement from a very tiny minority of the parental parties. Public school can often get away with it because it is a system that still manages to let society function to at least some degree; but with homeschooling we’re not only pushing for more, we’re pushing for better.

To solve the problem of socialization, most advocates will tell you to get the child out and about other places – sports, church, the other neighborhood children, and other places where socializing happens all the time. I think this is good advice, and it makes me wonder – why are there not more places that are like church, but without a religious spin on them? Why not clubs? Organizations? There certainly are things like this, like boy scouts, but someone needs to get out there and get something together that is purely for kids to group together with a guided purpose on their own terms, and in their own desired direction!

Possibly the biggest issue with private schools is the fact that while they usually produce results that are more academically satisfying in terms of the numbers and grades, and while the children usually evidently are more proactive and knowledgeable – they still often operate under similar principles to that of a public school. Often times they solve their problems of discipline or mediocrity by putting the foot down, placing a strict policy of obedience. This is sometimes effective, but is it optimal? Is it the best way to go about education? Other ways have often been considered, and other ways, especially for adult level education, are working.

One example I can give is the use of Mind Maps. Now, this has lots of other names in its general concept, but in its truest form – schools are not applying it. To create a Mind Map, you often start from the center of a piece of paper, writing your topic out, then drawing lines and branching out in a tree like fashion to shape your ideas and thoughts. I like to do this myself, and do it quickly. Some call this simply a ‘flow chart,’ but a flow chart does not have the color, vividness, the illustration, of a Mind Map. I would recommend anyone check out the method of it by looking into the book entitled, The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan. Public schools are not functioning in COLOR, they function in black & white, and this is a problem I cannot stress enough. If you really want to get the brain active in learning, the brain has got to be stimulated. Going through rote patterns and repeating run-throughs of text gets you nowhere in terms of real critical thinking.

When it comes to the education of my own children, should I have any, I would want to ensure that they were thinking at a practical level learning practical skills and not just simply playing memorization games, which fun and as useful as they might be in the right place with the right context, are simply not the best way to go for absolutely everything. So it is often not so much a question of: should I send my child to public school? Private school? Should they do home school? The question is: whatever method I choose, is my child going to be getting the right kind of fundamental education they need. If you are willing to find a way to facilitate as much control over the educational experience as you can, I would wholly recommend home school. If you do not care so much and simply want your child to be given the “same opportunities you had,” or it could make little difference to you how they receive their learning experience, then send them to public school – as public school is likely where most people come from.

The greatest challenge behind my advocacy for home schooling, however, is not the customized experience you can create for your children. That is the easy and fun part! The challenge is the knowing the fact that when it comes to their behavior, their self discipline, their motivation and competency – you now have to find ways to govern that where before the public system was doing it for you – either the right way or the wrong way. It then turns to you being an overall good parent, and how that relates to their excelling in education.

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