When it comes to homeschooling, there is no such thing as a typical homeschool student or a traditional homeschool experience among families. The way parents choose to homeschool is just as varied as the type of students who receive an education at home.
However, there are some distinguishable similarities in the reasons why homeschooling families choose this educational route in the first place. Here are the ten most popular reasons families choose to homeschool:
- A Better Education
It’s no surprise to anyone who’s spent time in the classroom that today’s schools are overloaded with students, limited on resources, and held hostage by far too many standardized tests throughout the year. So many parents feel that homeschooling provides their children with a much better education vs one that’s focused on improving test scores for the district.
- Individualized Learning
Families choose to homeschool to improve the individual learning experience of their children. In packed classrooms, teachers must adapt all of their lesson plans to accommodate the many different learning styles and interests of their students and certain groups of students are left behind. This is particularly true with students who have medical and learning disabilities. With homeschooling, students can interact with materials the way they learn best and seek out additional information in their own areas of interest.
- Improve Social Interactions
Many families choose to homeschool in order to improve their children’s social interactions. Instead of subjecting them to negative socialization, which often includes large amounts of peer pressure, homeschooling families have more control over who their children socialize with and when. This reduction in peer pressure means that things like drugs, alcohol and school violence are minimized.
- Negative Environment
Homeschooling allows students to escape from the negative environment found in many public school districts around the country. Where in-person students can often be victims of bullying or witnesses to school violence, homeschooling students largely avoid these problems.
- Moral and Religious Reasons
Some families choose to homeschool their children to honor their moral and religious beliefs. Public schools are rife with controversy and many parents use homeschooling to limit their kids’ exposure to sexual, racial, and violent topics that they wish to avoid.
- Flexibility
Homeschooling provides a lot of flexibility to families that a typical public school cannot. Anything from having an alternate daily schedule to accommodating extracurricular passions their children may have such as acting, singing, sports, and artistic endeavors. It also provides the flexibility of location for families who are in the process of relocating or who travel extensively.
Many families who homeschool also take advantage of the resources that virtual schools provide. The selection to move to virtual brings a new dimension to the homeschooled kids because they are now collaborating with teachers and other students in a virtual environment. They get the benefits of the 6 reasons above along with the added benefits that virtual school or classes provide.
Jigsaw interactive is the only virtual classroom technology designed specifically for teaching and learning. Find out why the largest virtual schools use Jigsaw by participating in a live and personalized demo.
