Some understanding and thinking about "school at home"
One
If one day, you find that the children in grade one are
disgusted with their studies and school because of the large amount of homework.
Their once curious and shining eyes have lost interest in everything.
If one day, the first day of junior high school children run
home to tell you: I want to study at home, school all day is either homework or
examination, I have no time to do what I like, I want to learn painting and
programming.
At this point, would you like to offer your child another
way of education? In fact, many parents in various countries are already
trying.
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Two
Recently, I saw a paper about a German family school (also
known as "school at home") written very well and summarized it with
mind mapping.
Here is an overview:
Germany is one of the few Western countries that do not
recognize the legal status of family school. It is stipulated by law that
school-age children/juveniles must receive education at school. Unless
otherwise, it is illegal to carry out family school education in Germany.
In spite of this, a wave of family school movement has been
formed in Germany since the end of the 20th century.
The reasons can be divided
into two types:
Religious motivation (that the knowledge or secular values
delivered by schools are inconsistent with their own religious values) and
Alternative education motivation (such as dissatisfaction with the current school system, strong autonomy of teaching at home, good effect; obstacles in the social integration of children, children are superior to others.
The talent is
not suitable for school education.
Because the family school has no legal status, German
parents who choose family school education have to adopt various strategies to
deal with the judicial dilemma.
The low tolerance of family school in Germany has its
specific social, historical, and cultural reasons. In the long run, the
legalization of family school in Germany should be the general trend, but in
view of historical and cultural reasons, the realization process must belong.
Three
What is "home school"?
"Homeschooling" is still a new thing in most of the country,
but internationally, there is a common English word "homeschooling",
also known as home education and home school education. It is a unique way of
education in the United States that began to sprout at the end of the 19th
century.
At that time, some middle-class families with strong economic strength
and higher cultural quality, because they recognized the disadvantages of
school education, such as procedural and mechanical, and for religious and
security considerations, they were unwilling to send their children to school,
so they chose their own way of educating their children at home.
They lead
their children to learn by themselves, pay more attention to children's
personality, talent, and interests, and choose appropriate education methods and
learning priorities on this basis.
Why do people choose to "go to school at home"?
Giving up the "welfare" of national compulsory
education, taking great risks and paying more time, energy, and financial
resources, why? From the research data of homeschooling in various countries,
we can find that there are four main reasons for people to choose home school
education.
1. Keeping watch on religious goals.
This is mainly
reflected in western countries. Many parents think that knowledge and
values transmitted by school education are inconsistent with their own
religious doctrines and that homeschooling can better preserve and inherit
religious beliefs.
2. Disappointment with school education.
This should be a common problem for all countries. School education usually embodies the
national ideology transmits the core values of society and implements
collective teaching, which inevitably fails to meet the individual needs of
each student.
Many parents do not agree with the school's educational
philosophy and unified mechanical teaching methods. At the same time, the
safety of the school environment, campus bullying, and other issues also make
parents worry and distrust school education.
3. Hope for home school.
Parents are dissatisfied with traditional school education and hope for home school education. According to
the characteristics of their own children, adopt relatively free teaching and
learning methods, pay attention to children's personalized learning interests, and provide relevant learning content.
According to children's learning
characteristics, flexible arrangement of the teaching plan, and progress. Unlike school
education, parents can fully mobilize their children's life experience and
establish a connection between knowledge and life.
Of course, family school
education needs all kinds of conditions from good hope to a reality.
4. Children's special needs.
Some children have
extraordinary intelligence and conventional school education can't meet the
demand for knowledge; some children are hyperactive or have short concentration
time, so they can't adapt to the school education with uniform action; some children
have special talents such as music and sports, so they need to match the
personalized schedule with rehearsal, training, and performance.
What is the status of "homeschooling" in various countries?
In the United States, "homeschooling" has
experienced a development process from scratch, from small to large, from
illegal to legal. Before the 1970s, "homeschooling" was considered
illegal in most states of the United States, and had been "encircled"
by the public administration.
The only way for parents to implement the
"homeschooling" program is to hide in Tibet. After a long time of
social debate and the struggle of many families involved, the government
gradually recognized the legitimacy of homeschooling.
At present, family school
education has gained legal status in 50 states of the United States and has
become another important form of education besides public schools and private
schools.
The good planning structure of the American community provides necessary
hardware guarantee, abundant learning resources, and social practice
opportunities for family school students.
Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark and
Australia, have also experienced a similar development process. So far, home
education has become a specific form of education parallel to school education,
with a steady increase in the number, and national mutual aid and resource
network system has been formed.
In France, there are more than 10000 students
who, under the guidance of their parents, choose to study at home or travel
around the world. As long as you submit a request for instructions to the municipal government before the start of school every year, you can become a
member of the "homeschooling group".
The education management
department sends professional inspectors to visit the children's learning
environment and test the learning results every year. If the standards set by
the education department are not met, parents must send their children to
school. Germany is one of the few Western countries that do not recognize the
legal status of homeschooling, as mentioned above.
The basic law of education in Japan clearly stipulates that
the state and local governments should respect the autonomy of the family
education and Japanese academic circles generally believe that if certain
conditions are met, parents of children can refuse to send their children to
public or private schools for compulsory education.
Russia juxtaposes the
family education form with the off-campus examinee system as the legal form of
formal education. However, children who attend school at home must take part in
the school examination. Those who pass the examination can continue to study at
home; those who fail to pass the examination must go back to school (study in
regular classes and make-up examinations or repeat grades).
The main reasons for choosing to go to school at home are
"do not agree with the school's educational philosophy", "the
progress of school teaching is too slow", "children are not fully
respected in school", "children are tired of school life" and
"religious belief reasons".
Four of them are closely related to
school and the most common reason is that they choose to go to school at home
because of "not agree with the educational concept of school".
There are six main ways for children to learn at home, which are:
- Parents teach their children
- Several parents help each other in teaching
- Employ tutors to teach
- Hire tutors to teach with their parents
- Children self-study and
- Participate in social training institutions.
Among them, parents
who adopt "parents teach children" and "children learn by
themselves" are the most. Children's extracurricular activities from high
too low are reading extracurricular books, doing housework, gathering friends,
playing football and other sports activities as well as social and cultural
activities.
So, what about homeschooling?
According to the research of the report, the effectiveness of homeschooling was investigated from six aspects:
- Children's mathematics and calculation ability
- Writing and writing ability
- Oral expression ability
- Interpersonal communication ability
- Vision and knowledge and
- Self-care ability.
The results show that parents think that
children's ability to go to school at home is in the middle and upper levels.
According to the average score of each ability from high to low,
- vision and knowledgeability
- oral expression ability
- writing and writing ability
- mathematics and calculation ability
- communication ability.
What about the future of homeschooling children? For the
children after kindergarten graduation and compulsory education stage, most
parents choose "continue to study at home".
For the children's plans
after high school graduation, most parents choose "to study
abroad", followed by "take part in the college entrance examination
and enter the University".
Most parents are clear about their children's
future plans, and one-third of them hold a wait-and-see attitude towards their
children's future. A few parents are worried and do not know the future
direction.
What are the information sharing channels for homeschooling?
There are mainly three types:
- National mutual aid exchange (such as the first national homeschooling seminar sponsored by the 21st Century Institute of Education).
- Network (such as QQ group, homeschooling alliance network, etc.) and
- Local group activities such as homeschooling salon.
According to the degree
of common use and effectiveness, the order in the network.
- Local group activities
- National mutual aid exchange.
Therefore, on the basis of
abundant online communication activities, the organization, and the development of
offline communication activities should be strengthened, especially the
communication among multiple self-organization modes.
Parents' common puzzles and problems with school at home?
- Lack of mutual aid group activities
- Unclear policies and regulations
- Limited learning resources
- Lack of professional guidance, difficult to implement
- Difficult to choose teaching materials
- Lack of economic strength and
- School and government intervention.
The most needed support and help for parents is:
- Regular mutual aid group activities
- Domestic and foreign-related information sharing
- Professional guidance on teaching methods and textbook selection
- Expansion of educational resources
- Support of policies and regulations.
What is the future of homeschooling? According to the home
schooling Research Report, 48.60% of parents are very optimistic about the
future trend of homeschooling, believing that learning to learn at home is the
choice of more and more families; 39.66% of parents are cautious about
homeschooling and think it is only the choice of a small number of families;
only 6.15% of parents are not optimistic about it and are worried about the
status and 5.59% of parents choose "hard to explain".
Four
With regard to homeschooling, although different countries
have their own characteristics, they all involve the discussion of several
issues.
Here's my opinion.
1. Legalization
The government and the public think that it is illegal to go
to school at home, which is mainly based on the national compulsory education
law. Because the "Compulsory Education Law" stipulates that parents
or other guardians must make their children or guardians attend school on time
and receive compulsory education for a specified number of years.
If there are
special circumstances that require postponement or exemption from admission, the application shall be submitted and approved by the local government.
However,
the implementation of "school at home" has not made school-age
children enter the school on time and have not been approved by the local
government.
However, we think about it a little bit. The compulsory
education law stipulates that parents have the obligation to send their
children of school age to receive compulsory education for a specified period
of time.
It is to ensure children's basic educational rights and is a policy
introduced to popularize national education. Most of the parents who "go
to school at home" do not mean not to send their children to school, but
to enable their children to receive education better and faster.
As long as the family has such educational resources and can let their children complete the
teaching materials and courses prescribed by the state according to the
requirements of the compulsory education law, the choice of family education the model does not conflict with the relevant laws.
All children should be educated,
but not necessarily in a particular way. As long as we can achieve the same
purpose of education and achieve a certain standard of education quality, no
matter what kind of education method and form is adopted, it is OK.
Therefore,
with the development of society, when people have higher requirements and
better solutions to education, the state should not only rely on legal
provisions to restrict parents and children's right to choose education, but
should update the law to better protect children's education.
In addition, some countries regard family school as illegal
because it may affect the state's control over education, or worry that
religious groups may use it to affect social stability.
In fact, many families
do not choose family schools for religious reasons, they are not marginalized
groups and they are not totally against the compulsory education system and
have no intention of overthrowing the school system. They just hope that family
school can exist legally as a supplement and alternative form of school
education.
This actually involves the degree of democratization of education in
the country, as well as the consideration of collective interests and
individual interests. How to ensure the "formal equality" of all
school-age children/adolescents to receive an education with the same content,
but also to ensure the "relative equality" oriented by teaching
students according to their aptitude, so as to realize the optimization of the
form and content of individual education.
2. Socialization
Both the bystanders and practitioners of homeschooling
should question the impact of choosing the home school on children's socialization,
because it is obvious that the children who go to school at home have different
experiences from their peers at school.
To separate children from their peers
artificially and limit their normal communication with peers may cause certain
psychological barriers to children and affect their early socialization.
In fact, it depends on whether the implementers of homeschooling have the consciousness to make up for and cultivate children's social
development. Children receiving home school education do not mean that they are
isolated from society.
They can meet the needs of social interaction by
participating in community activities, such as learning musical instruments,
participating in teams or interest clubs, or through the interaction between
"home schools", parents leading their children to participate in life
practice and social public welfare activities.
In fact, children in "home
school" have more time to participate in social welfare activities, visit
museums and carry out field trips because they don't have too much test
pressure. They have more opportunities and richer ways to contact and
participate in society than students in public schools.
In addition, in the current school education mode, the
school cannot reproduce the real social environment. In fact, it is a pure
peer environment created by human beings, which may not really have the
function of promoting social integration.
Therefore, there are many related
researches advocating mixed-age teaching to promote students' Socialized
cooperative learning. Many scholars believe that the learning environment of
children who choose to go to school at home is closer to "real life"
then the "artificial" environment of the school.
On the contrary, there
are many problems in the process of individual socialization of school
students, such as unfair competition between students, the spread of bad
information, campus bullying, etc. How to realize individual socialization
reasonably is the key point to be considered in "school at home".
3. Learning effectiveness and quality assurance
According to relevant statistics and media reports, the
effect of "learning at home" seems obvious. Family schools train
children according to their aptitude and personality so that they can receive a better and more appropriate education.
A lot of research shows that the
performance of home school children is higher than the average level, and their
autonomous learning ability is often stronger.
However, the doubters believe that the effectiveness of
"learning at home" and how these children develop ultimately depend
on future follow-up surveys and case studies.
For individual families, homeschooling is another
possibility. As for the results and results, we can only pursue and make
efforts in a good direction. Making a choice also means bearing the
consequences of the choice, only because it is considered to be the best one in
the range of choices, and there is no absolute criterion for judging it.
For
the country, it may adopt some qualitative and quantitative indicators to
measure, which needs to be studied and tested for a long time.
I think the statement in the relevant report of the United
States gives a very good explanation: in fact, it is too utilitarian to expect
that family-school will surpass the regular school in all aspects, and that the
children who expect to go to school at home are better than the students of
regular school in all aspects.
As a complementary form of public and private
schools, family school opens another door for personalized education and
provides another possibility for parents and students with different needs.
Just as both public and private schools will come out of successful and less
successful, happy, and less happy students, family school is also a prism,
reflecting different faces. Whether to choose or not, parents need to make full
use of their wisdom and practice.
4. Information communication and professional development
Due to the different development of homeschooling in
different countries, the legal status, policy support, and social background are
also different, so the information communication and professional development
of family, schools are very different.
The overall environment in the United States encourages and
supports homeschooling. The good planning structure of the American community
provides necessary hardware guarantees, abundant learning resources, and social
practice opportunities for family school students.
Many home school
associations have sprung up, and some school districts have set up a special home
school guidance programs to appoint special teachers to help parents plan and
check progress.
Many museums have special activities for home schools. With the rapid development of the Internet, more and more home school websites emerge as
the times require, covering some general information of home schools and
providing home school courses.
These websites provide a great convenience for
home schools and their information sharing also provides a valuable reference
and guidance for parents in the process of exploration.
At present, most of the country "homeschooling"
is still in the small-scale practice stage, the main channel of information
sharing is the network, and the local group activities and the national mutual
aid exchange meetings are relatively few.
The practitioners of "school at
home" mainly communicate through the "homeschooling alliance"
website, micro-blog and other network channels, lack of effective communication
among self-organization, and there are few national industry forums and annual
meetings, which makes effective communication difficult to form.
It is
suggested that the relevant self-organization organizations should start from
the needs of students' growth, "go out" and "please come
in", exchange what they have to do, and if necessary, establish a regular
"visiting school" mechanism to exchange children's confusion in
growth and learning, so that children can feel different forms of education and
receive a rich and colorful education.
In view of the current situation of home
schooling in urgent need of professional guidance, it is suggested that home
schooling practitioners should fully seek the advice and opinions of
educational experts when forming their own training programs, educational
models and curriculum systems.
Make full use of social education resources such
as museums, libraries, and art galleries; make use of the resource advantages of
the community, and concentrate community forces to provide children with all
aspects of practice and exercise Let children participate in a variety of
social experience activities, so that children can fully integrate into the
society.
Five
There are many defects in school education, which inevitably
require reform. And change will not happen overnight. Moreover, it is difficult
to realize individualized teaching for each child according to their aptitude.
The family-school actually mobilizes family resources and time, which is an
upgraded version of family education. Parents take the initiative to make
sacrifice and dedication; the starting point is for their children, and
objectively also brought social benefits, especially those pioneers.
How to change the family school from a beautiful ideal to reality needs to integrate various conditions. Children's growth needs parents'
wisdom and ability, mutual assistance and communication in the community,
community social resources, and national policy support. School at home is not
suitable for every child, not every parent can do well.
However, I would like to pay tribute to all the parents who
seek a better education for their children. They use courage, wisdom, and
hard work to cultivate a happy learning soil for their children. May they go
better and better on the road of exploration, and children's future needs more
such pathfinders.
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