As the name suggests home schooling refers to educating children at home. Parents favoring homeschooling and local advocates of formal schooling have been involved in discussions for years over homeschooling. In US, all the states have granted legal sanction to homeschooling.
Parents may opt to educate children at home for any number of reasons ranging from poor educational facilities located close at hand, dilution of moral values, and religious reasons. A landmark case in US granted parents the absolute power to decide on the mode of education for their wards based on their religious beliefs or other valid justification.
While parents have the authority on how their wards are to receive education, denying any form of education to children leads to abuse of this power. While homeschooling has won legal approval, denial of education to a child is an infringement of the constitutional right to education of a child and amount to child abuse. Today many resources and teaching material are available online helping parents develop a comprehensive courseware for home education.
Most homeschooling parents adopt a proper structured curriculum to ensure their children are knowledgeable about concepts expected of them at their age. When homeschooling does not follow such a structured pattern of study, it is normally referred to as unschooling. Yet another model is known as natural schooling which revolves around practical sessions which is mostly used when children lean towards special set of skills.
There are many different methods of homeschooling. Classical education, Waldorf education, Thomas Jefferson Education and Montessori method are only some of the many available options for a parent to choose from. In fact Montessori and Waldorf approaches to education have been adopted in quite a few schools in the past few years. Today colleges and universities also have new admission procedures to accommodate students from various educational backgrounds including homeschooling.
Many home tutors are also available today to help with homeschooling. In fact some states insist on such a tutor even if the child is being home taught. Some states may also insist on proper sanctions from state authorities for homeschooling of kids and may also demand registration of such students with an independent educational institute.
Though homeschooling has its advantages, its major disadvantage is that children may not be able to develop sufficient debate and interactive skills due to non availability of companions in the peer group unless the homeschooling is structured in a manner that helps them overcome this disadvantage.
Visit the following sites for information on homeschooling and homeschooling resources