It all started in the 1970s by John Holt. It is not that homeschooling was not at all there before that. We know the examples of Einstein and Edison. There are many more. But it was not defined and formalized before the 1970s. 

John Holt started a kind of revolution calling the parents for liberation of small children from the oppressive classroom environment. He also founded a newsletter named ‘Growing Without Schooling’ in 1977. Thus he started what came to know as ‘Unschooling’.

He, with Raymond Moore, propagated that early schooling is detrimental for small children. Hence it is best if they are home-schooled at their early ages up to 8 or 9. Actually these early ages are more for playing and growing and not for getting overwhelmed by classwork and homework. This was the central idea behind the concept of unschooling and homeschooling.

As we can see these are two separate terms and both are almost used as synonymous. Why so?

There is a potential risk factor with unschooling. If small students are not going to school, then what are they doing at home? If nothing worthy, then that does not stand with the very essence of this unconventional education movement. 

In many third world countries and sometimes in developed countries also, parents may remain reluctant to make their child attend the school. There can be many reasons and factors behind this. For third world countries the most predominant reason is usually the poor economic conditions. 

Whatever the reason be, if the child fails to attend the school even by the age of 5 or so, then that can become extremely detrimental for the overall academic growth of the child. 

At such young ages the rate of brain development usually remains at the peak. Parents have to take advantage of this time for a significant cognitive development of the child. If this time is wasted, then these developments can get slow and may not reach the optimum level ever. There can be some exceptions, but we have to keep exceptions as exceptions only. 

So if for any reason, only unschooling happens or remains as a status of a child then that is of no benefit for the child, instead it can be extremely negative and disadvantageous. 

So the child has to start learning things from academics and other areas, right from the age of 3 to 5. This purpose is not supported by unschooling alone. Hence the next step is homeschooling. Thus unschooling and homeschooling need to come under the same package, just in sequel. This is the reason that this homeschooling movement has both unschooling and homeschooling combined in a total word that we would know as ‘homeschooling’. 

What does our school do? In the words of John Holt, they teach rote learning and produce compliant employees. John Holt was not the only one but there are many who believed and said this, which includes the legendary writer-poet Rabindranath Tagore also. 

But the early ages of a child are very vital ones and not exactly the time for rote learning and employee development. Instead, stress has to be given in human resource development. Then why are our schools not doing so?

Because schools are either run by industries or run by governments. And both need employees. Hence they are not much interested in human resource development in the talent section and more concerned on the employee skill areas. 

This may sound good for a youngster who is hunting for a job but not at all good for a child of age 5 or around. This age is of self-discovery. And up to the age of 20 we can suppose. It can vary from individual to individual but usually we can suppose so. These ages are not the ages of being programmed but is the time for getting explored. 

In the school, every child reads the same book, does the same assignments, follows the same routine, everything is the same almost. This is what John Holt meant by oppressive. This is absolutely not required for those young minds. They need something different.  

But where arise the justification for this? Many say childs are unique. I say they are classified. 

Yes it is true that many features of a human being are really unique. Like the fingerprints and retina structure. The DNA of every human is unique. Hence there arise many features that are unique. 

But when we are talking about education and academic knowledge, then everyone is not necessarily unique. If someone is really so unique, suppose at the positive end, then we may need to speculate that someone like Albert Einstein or Beethoven or Shakespeare or Van Gogh is waiting to get unleashed.

But that’s not the case in actual real life classrooms. Hence I prefer to call students as classified instead of unique. That is any class of students can be safely divided into more than one and often numerous categories or ‘classes’. 

So if students are all not the same then trying to help their education all in the same pattern does not make much sense. Does it? 

Students are needed to be classified into multiple categories depending on many different factors, including intelligence, memory and cognitive performances, individual preferences and so on. And then plan and implement appropriate education patterns for each category. Then the question of oppression behind education can be minimized. 

Both the parents and young students remain very stressed by this common education pattern. Nobody asks those young people about what they like or what they would love to learn. It’s all almost enforced on them. This is what creates the whole stress that ultimately destroys the learning aptitude of most of those young minds. 

These young minds will do different things when they grow up. Some can be engineers, some can be doctors, even a few may be scientists, a few may be artists, few can be sportsmen, and so on. They will nurture different tastes and knack for their education and learning.

How then does it make sense that all these totally different young minds are to receive the same set of learning materials and instructions? 

It really makes no sense. And if we can free our children from this senseless oppression then perhaps we will do better for their future. If we can break the social taboo that children have to be sent to some expensive school at the earliest possible age. 

So what can be done instead of that? What are the viable and feasible alternatives?

Now we need to measure the weightage of homeschooling as a viable and feasible alternative to traditional schooling. Obviously traditional schooling has its own sets of advantages and also not that it did not produce any output.

Even me as a writer and you as a reader are both products of traditional schooling. Maybe some do more years of schooling and some do less years, still we all do. So we really need to access the potentiality of homeschool as an option. 

The first question I would like to discuss is how much homeschool. And how much of traditional school. I would not like to rule out traditional schooling totally. We can follow a happy blend. 

We need to find out the most productive years of a student and also the stages of utmost growth. Those periods are ideal times for customized homeschooling. 

The first extensive growth period is the first 8 to 10 years of the child. Many parents hurry to the school at the earliest possible age of the child, say around 3 years. They are worried about their child’s educational growth. And that is solely because they do not have any idea about what and how to homeschool. 

But there is apparently no need for hurrying to school at this early age, conditionally parents are sufficiently learned and concerned to take care of their child’s cognitive  growth. And there lies the main problem. Parents need education first. 

The Need of Parental Education

Yes, if we really need to make homeschooling a viable option then the first thing that we need to do is to take the root. It is of no use watering the leaves unless the roots of a plant are watered. And here the roots are the parents. So the roots are needed to watered, to be educated. 

Without proper parental education no homeschool can guarantee any level of success, instead that can become a gamble with the child’s growth. This is exactly the point where the secret of success of homeschooling over traditional schooling lies. 

And one of the most stubborn problems of homeschooling is standing on this issue. Because there are not many courses on this in our country. The appropriate parental consciousness is yet to develop. 

Still one may find a few online classes on relevant topics. Beside that there are a few centers and clinics themselves who also provide a little bit of parental care training beside their other regular service offerings.

Parents may even choose to educate  by consulting the right -> books and references. Or maybe by taking some online help. 

There are many online resources on this now. Some are paid courses and one may get a good one even for free. There are Youtube videos also. 

It would have been far better if parents could have got offline parental classes. But it will be hard to find one here. One may try a psychologist clinic. But there is also a problem, that most of them are not properly equipped to deal with educational psychology, especially of children. 

So whatever be the source of learning, parents need to learn about education psychology and methods for the child. An additional exposure to Montessori training will create a lot of value.

Once the parents have learnt successfully then the question of probable implementation of homeschooling will arise. This is just the point of beginning for the whole plan. There is much more to plan and execute. 

The next thing that will be required is enough money. I do not say a good amount of money, so I used the word ‘enough’. Afterall homeschooling cannot be an effective option for miser parents. Not so wealthy parents can also try one, but one thing is for sure that they need to have an open mind behind the expenditures they would incur for their child’s education. 

If the homeschool arises as a choice for saving money from the school fees and admission charges, then the very essence and purpose of homeschool gets spoiled. The purpose is not to save money or find a more economic option for the child’s education. The purpose was to give even a better education to the child than that given in the schools. The purpose was to explore the child’s talents and appetite so that he could find himself at the winning advantage point in his or her life.

When a child will grow up, many options of working and earning will surface. Not all options have to be the best for any given student. Now it all depends on whether he chooses the right option or the wrong. If he happens to choose the right one, then climbing the tough ridge of high performance and excellence can be achieved without much troubles and sufferings. Thus he will easily break the barriers of medium. 

And if he somehow chooses any of the wrong options then things will just turn opposite. He will get stuck in the infinite loop of averages. Though he will also probably earn, sometimes a handsome package also, but that at the cost of his life and happiness. He won’t enjoy that life and that money, maybe his family will. But that does not make much sense because unhappiness propagates as happiness does. And if he is unhappy he will propagate the same all around. 

Not every child has to be equally talented. Assuming so will generate much extra performance pressure both on the parents and the student. That is for no good. We need to understand and accept that talent is of many different types and levels. Always expecting high levels makes no sense. Maybe a student has a talent, maybe at a feeble level, or maybe at an extreme level. Both have to be accepted as it is.

Even most of them may not have any such significant talent on any subject of pursuit. Exactly this is why I used the word ‘appetite’ above. One may not have talent but everyone has an appetite. So we need to follow the appetite and not the talent. Talent will automatically surface if the track of appetite will be followed. 

And this is what is missing from our school systems. They do not follow the appetite of the student. Instead they force the students to follow their appetite. And they are busy satisfying the parents or guardians appetite. So schools try to satisfy parents and not to explore students. Because it’s their business. And parents are the ones who will pay. 

If the parents stick to this same mindset, then again the whole concept of homeschooling will be an utter failure. Schools won’t change because it is their business. But parents can change because it is their child. And it is his or her whole life and future that is in question.