The History of Homeschooling by S. Berg
Historically – For most of history, professional educators were only available to a few elite families in different cultures around the world. The majority of children, particularly young children, were educated in the home by one or both parents, or in apprenticeships.
17th Century – Compulsory education begins in Western world, particularly Russia and German states of Gotha.
Early 18th Century – Majority of people in Europe and Colonial America are still receiving no formal education. They are either being home schooled or receiving no education at all.
Mid 19th Century – Formal schooling becomes common in civilized nations throughout the world. Native Americans, who prefer home schooling and apprenticeships, strongly resist school teaching.
1960s – John Caldwell Holt publishes How Children Fail (1964), a book depicting the ways that the formal schooling system affects children. He states that children failing in school is due to pressures put on them by their adult teachers and authority figures. During this time, the practice of home schooling begins to rise across the nation as parents denounce the institutionalized education system.
1970s – Holt spreads his message on TV and in interviews that educational institutions need to be reevaluated to become friendlier towards children. Ray and Dorothy Moore take Holt’s ideas a step further, researching the bearing that early childhood education has on the mental and physical development of children between the ages of 8 and 12. These studies produce evidence that formal schooling is damaging to children, and even show that “illiterate tribal mothers in Africa had children that were more socially, and emotionally advanced than children in the western world.” The Moore’s conclude that this is mostly due to the broken bond between parents and children when the children were sent to institutionalized schools.
1980s – The “deschooling movement” of the 1960s and 1970s grows larger as more and more parents decide to take their children out of formal schooling in favor of alternative educational opportunities.
1986 – Prof. John Taylor finds that home schooled children have significantly higher self esteem than children in public schools. Prof. Mona Delahooke concludes that students in home schooling are as well adjusted, emotionally and socially, as private school students, as well as that home schooled students are less peer dependant.
1982 to 1993 – Thirty states – besides Nevada (1956) and Utah (1957) – pass home school-enabling legislation in response to its popularity.
1992 – Prof. Larry Shyers conducts studies to rebut claims that home schooled children suffer from retarded social development, observing children in free play and group interaction activities. He found that public school children had far more behavioral problems than home schooled children.
1995 – Study finds that homeschooling has more than doubled in the five years between 1990 and 1995. 1 to 2 percent of all school aged children are home schooled, 10 percent of private education sector (20 percent in some states).
1997 – Michael P. Farris publishes article “Solid Evidence to Support HomeSchooling” in The Wall Street Journal which concludes that 98 percent of home schooled children are involved in two or more outside functions on a weekly basis.
1998 – All fifty states have regulations that allow the practice of home schooling as an alternative to compulsory education.
1999 – September 16; U.S. Senate designates the week of September 19-25, 1999 as “National Home Education Week.”
2000 – June; Peabody Journal of Education publishes 300 page issue devoted to the topic of homeschooling. This interest reflects the reality introduced by Patricia Lines in 1991 that home schooling parents are “reinventing the idea of school.”
2001 – Barbara Kay’s article “School’s Out Forever” in The National Post states that “Home schooling, initially off the radar screen… has in the 30 years of its modern revival become a completely mainstream alternative to institutional schooling of any kind, public or private. No longer monolithic, easily accessibly, adaptable and responsive to its consumers… home schooling is the still extreme but rapidly assimilating cultural prototype for inevitable reforms to public education in the coming decades, already in vigorous germination in the form of school voucher programs and charter schools.”
Note: Miss Berg is a freelance writer and hired to write this piece for LVVHSN.
