Disadvantages of Homeschooling

[This article is intended to be satire and should be taken as such. For more information on homeschooling, visit any of the other articles on this website.]

Most people will agree that the one-on-one tutoring of homeschooling has some distinct advantages for the student. However, those same people will point out that there are also many disadvantages to homeschooling, besides the obvious reduction to only one spouse’s income while the other remains at home to teach the kiddies. Devout homeschoolers promptly argue that they find rewards in teaching their children at home far beyond what they could derive from a second income, but is there more to the story? Let us take a deeper look into some of the other disadvantages of homeschooling.

1) No certification of teachers — Instead of highly educated, state-certified professionals, homeschoolers must leave their children in the care of the parents. The latest, university-recommended, state-of-the-art, leading-edge, experimental teaching techniques are replaced by a 24/7 relationship based merely on familial love and first-hand knowledge of the entire family situation. Long-used, old-fashioned methods must suffice.

2) Removing the “best learners” from the classroom — Parents who choose to homeschool are removing the “cream of the crop,” and leaving the public school teachers to deal with the dregs of society. The teacher who explained this stated that once the easy-to-teach, eager-to-learn, “good” children have all been transferred by their parents to education at home, her job will be much more difficult as she would have to work at teaching the remaining “hard” students. Parents should, therefore, leave their children in public school to make the teachers’ jobs easier.

3) Extreme organizational skills required — Homeschoolers should maintain perfect order in their homes at all times, oversee the storage of every book, workbook, writing assignment, art project, and science experiment, and supervise all reading, writing, and mathematical computation. In order to verify a quality education, it should be absolutely necessary to produce all previous student work as proof of proper understanding. Attendance charts, grade books, and records of all homeschool-related spending should also be mandatory.

4) Life in a Bubble — Homeschoolers have no opportunity to experience life in multi-cultural classrooms. Homeschoolers are restricted to their family experiences, which are limited to their own biased lifestyle. Homeschooled students usually do not hold classes on drug use and abuse, s*x education, or alternative lifestyles, and therefore will see a naive, Pollyanna-like view of the world.

5) No socialization — Homeschooled students are primarily only-children whose families live in extremely remote areas and never visit anyone. They also never shop in stores or go to the doctor or dentist. They have no friends, no extended families, and no church. They steer far away from scouting, organized recreational sports, and all other club-type activities. Since these homeschoolers have no opportunities to attend prom or participate in team sports or vocal/instrumental musical groups, they will obviously never meet members of the opposite s*x, never engage in casual dating, and, therefore, never marry. (However, this should prevent any future generations of homeschoolers and set at ease the minds of public educators who are worried about job security.)

6) No breaks from your children — It would be like having the dreaded summer break last all year: the children would not leave in late August and be gone until early June. They would not be occupied Monday through Friday with an 8-3 schedule, supplemented by evening and weekend events, nor would they have homework to fill their remaining time. Instead, they would be at home, every day, all the time.

7) No age grouping — Homeschooled children are not grouped with others their exact age, except for the infrequent case of a twin sibling. They are subjected to a world full of adults.

8) No peer influences — No group of fashionistas to advise your daughters on the latest in haute couture. No group of super-jocks to initiate your sons with long celebrated locker-room rituals.

9) No yearly shopping trip for back-to-school items — No longer would parents have good reason for racing to the back-to-school aisles as soon as they are stocked in early July. Homeschooled students will be totally ignorant that their recently selected fashions will have become outdated (by public school standards) as soon as October, and they will continue wearing the clothing for as long as it fits.

10) No riding the school bus — A vital part of any quality education, no bus rides also means a lack of experience with “pecking order,” the right of older students to control who is allowed to sit in which seat. Homeschooled students are fated to take their field trips in the family car/van, confined by the seatbelts and airbags which are not required in buses.

11) No schedules — Homeschoolers rarely have to keep to a time schedule, which will cause them to become inherently lazy. While home educators are expected to teach specific subjects and hold classes every day, their students are not under pressure to be up by a certain time each morning, rush to catch the bus, or have assignments done by a deadline.

12) No diploma — High school diplomas are only awarded to students who have proven their ability to survive four years of intense peer pressure and substandard educational fare. A truly civilized society should require that you produce your diploma as a basic form of identification.

13) No college opportunities — Colleges do not want students who study in their rooms and actually complete assignments. Colleges depend on free-spirited, loose-moraled students to maintain the party atmosphere, so any serious-about-education homeschoolers would surely be rejected immediately.

14) Incredible cost — Besides purchasing all of the necessary homeschool curricula, there is the added cost of further education, should a homeschooler actually break out of his shell and be accepted into a college. The ubiquitous high grades will attract a few scholarships, but those only cover part of the costs, leaving the parents to come up with the remaining fees. Since homeschooled students seem to be quite fanatical about education, many desire further schooling past high school. Some start with community colleges or correspondence classes, thereby persuading universities to accept the education that began at home.

[For those who may be confused, check the disclaimer at the top of this article. ]

*Unfortunately, the spelling of some words had to be edited to eliminate undesirable search engine hits.