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What should you do when you feel that traditional schooling is not the best way to educate your child? What should you do when you watch your child come home from school day after day, burdened with so much homework that she doesn’t have any time left to follow her passions and do the things she loves doing (even if they’re not part of the school’s curriculum)?

Parents who find our school often tell us, “I was fed up with the traditional schooling system.” Being a product of the same system, you don’t want to watch your child going through twelve years without really getting a chance to create, to be active in his learning. You don’t want your child to go through twelve years of passive learning, of memorizing facts, of so little technology exposure and training that when it’s time to go out into the world and find work, he’s simply not ready.

We believe that “schooling” is not the same as “learning” and in fact, often schooling – in the traditional sense – results in very little learning, certainly in very little high order thinking and learning. Back in 1956, Benjamin Bloom found that over 95% of the test questions students encounter require them to think only at the lowest possible level – the recall of information. The highest, most abstract order of thinking, which is creating, was almost completely ignored. Sadly, this is still the case today.

The good news for parents who worry about the way their child is being schooled: there ARE viable alternatives to traditional schooling. Homeschooling, online homeschooling, immersive education – today there are so many tools and options available to parents who want to see their child learning, not just going through the process of schooling. Start exploring your options today. You owe it to yourself, and to your child.

Until recently, homeschooling parents had to defend themselves (if they wanted to, of course!) against the common accusation “But homeschooled kids don’t know how to socialize!” with either anecdotal evidence, or with the single long-term study on the subject, “Homeschooling Grows Up,” a study that showed that the socialization issue when it comes to homeschooling is no more than a myth.

Now, we have another large, long-term study in our arsenal. “Fifteen Years Later: Home-Educated Canadian Adults” clearly shows that home-educated adults are more socially engaged, earn more and are happier than their public-school-educated peers!

This reminds me of the early opposition to homeschooling, when the main argument was that homeschooled kids will not do as well as public schooled kids because they’re not taught by professional, college-educated teachers. Several studies later, when it turned out that home schooled children actually do BETTER academically than public school students, the arguments shifted. Now, critics were saying that home schooled kids are isolated and will not learn how to socialize.

I’m happy about the studies, because they will ease the worries of parents who are considering homeschooling their children. But anyone who has been engaged in homeschooling for the past decade, or more, is not exactly surprised.

What’s surprising to me is that anyone would assume that what’s going on in a typical public school, socially speaking, is desirable or even “normal.” You force a large group of immature kids into the same classroom, and make them spend eight hours each day with each other, with very little supervision (one teacher for 20-30 students), and you call that normal, desirable socialization? While this scenario may work for some students, for many others it creates unimaginable stress and social difficulties, and not because something is wrong with them – but because the situation is inherently difficult.

Being homeschooled does not equal being isolated. It means spending your days with your family and with a select group of friends. It means going outside on field trips and on excursions, meeting other home schooled kids, and going through a much more gentle, natural socialization process than in public school.

We knew all along that homeschooling produces intelligent, happy, confident, well-adjusted adults. And now we have the studies to prove it!

Many students do quite well in a traditional school. They get good grades, they learn what they need to learn, and they advance through the grades until they graduate and – hopefully – go to college.

But are they developing love of learning?

Unfortunately, it’s often quite the contrary. Traditional education takes curious kids who have a natural love of learning, and churns out, 12 years later, teens who can’t stand learning, who see learning as a hated but necessary chore and who are constantly looking to escape and to “relax.”

But what if learning can be a lifelong passion? What if, instead of taking the fun out of learning, learning could become fun again? As a homeschooling parent, you get the opportunity that other parents lose when they send their kids off to school. You get the opportunity to allow your child’s natural curiosity to flourish. You can give your child a curriculum that teaches her independent thinking, that challenges her. You can refuse to accept that “learning” and “fun” are two different things – after all, learning IS fun for young children. Why would we allow them into a system that takes the fun away and turns learning into a boring, repetitive chore?

In a typical classroom, your child is told what to study, when and for how long. In your “classroom,” whether it’s in the kitchen, in your child’s room, in a homeschooling group, or in front of the computer doing an interactive, online homeschooling program such as WiloStar3D, allow your child to be a self-learner, to discover his passion, and to develop a lifelong love of learning.

Photo credit: Courtney Carmody