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Is Homeschooling Better than Traditional Schooling?
According to the statistics of experimental education released by the Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Education in April 2022, there were 9680 children deciding to study at home or to join non-school experimental education in 2021. The number of kids who refused to study at school was much more than before. Besides, most of us are familiar with homeschooling since a majority of us have undergone home
education for a while during the outbreak of COVID-19 and its high contagiousness. While pandemics may be one reason for us to study at home, there are other advantages to allure people choose it. It is easy to demonstrate that home education is better than traditional schooling in many ways.
Home education helps children control their studying plans and improve their ability to arrange their schedules. When children study at home or in other places, it means these kids will not be fettered by the curriculum guidelines of traditional schooling. They can learn what they want to learn freely instead of cramming education, so homeschooling may encourage students to take the initiative to acquire knowledge. Besides, as John Holt (n.d.) mentioned, “the school was a place where children learn to be stupid,” traditional schooling tends to make students become test machines to cope with exams rather than to think independently. Conversely, homeschooling provides opportunities for kids to manage their time and subjects, like drawing, dancing, or programming. Hence, home education can make children become masters of their learning.
Homeschooling aids children to develop their interests into expertise without any interference. During our academic career, we are always asked to study subjects; thus, we seldom spend our time on our interests. Traditional studying causes that we are at sea when we need to determine our future direction and where we can contribute our
knowledge and strengths. However, home education makes us concentrate on our interests and achieve our goals with a lot of sources, like social media, museums, or auditing courses. Take Audrey Tang for instance. In her interview with Yazhou Zhoukan (2016), she said when she graduated from junior high school, she rejected to enter the next higher school. She thought high school did not give a platform for her to develop her interest. Hence, homeschooling provides a good pathway that allows kids to specialize in hobbies and interests more deeply.
Though homeschooling is equipped with many advantages, some may argue that home education would trigger off the problem of a lack of peer interaction. Schools are pretty important places for children to learn how to interact with other people. It is true that homeschooling provides fewer chances for children. Nonetheless, with the advance of science and technology, children can take advantage of social media to communicate with other students and set up study groups to share sources and information. According to Zheng-Yi Wang (2019), who has been on Homeschool Review Board, the study groups enable students that study at home to meet peers, which has its own value and meaning. Thus, home education would not be a barrier to peer interaction. Instead, it supplies children with opportunities to communicate with other people from different backgrounds.
Homeschooling can help people not only learn how to make self-time arrangements but also cultivate their hobbies to become specialties. Although it may affect children’s peer interaction, there are some methods, such as social media, summer camps, and study groups to resolve this problem. Besides, with the changes in the legislation of education, we can find out that the Taiwanese government has a positive attitude towards home education. Based on these advantages, it is easy to predict that in the future, homeschooling may become a new trend all over the world, so numerous nations would revise the criteria of home education to get with the times.
References
1. The Department of Statistics of the Ministry of Education (2022) Zhuan yepei yupian yuandi qujiao yushi yanjiao yujizai xueshuai
https://stats.moe.gov.tw/files/analysis/111professional.pdf
2. Holt, John (educator) (n.d.)
In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holt_(educator)
3. Tong Qing Feng(2016) Taiwanzuinian qingge yuanzi xuechuan
Yazhou Zhoukan
https://www.facebook.com/yzzkgroup/posts/589148107963075:0
4. Xu Jia Qi (2019) Da pozi xuewutong chaimi sizi xueshengjuqi lai
chuanlianren jiyuxue xizi yuan
Qinzitian xia
https://www.parenting.com.tw/article/5080269
Sources
1. Wikipedia-homeschooling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling
2. Zi xueshi henimazai jiazi xueyouque dianfen xijiniting
https://www.stoody.com.tw/blog-detail/23
3. Yan Mi (2020) Zi xuexin dezi xuedegeyou dian
https://vocus.cc/article/5f16d11dfd89780001838752
4. Shen meshizai jiazi xue
https://sites.google.com/site/alearn13994229/zi-xue-de-tu/01
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