Copying quality of life to another country is an opening for amazing opportunities for each member of the family. For the children, this is an exciting and sometimes frightening change, in which they are exposed to a new culture, a foreign language, social norms and various behavioral codes.
And alongside the opportunities, there are also challenges. In this article we will touch on one of many challenges, which is the educational aspect: Will the transition be in the middle of the school year? How different is the curriculum? Will the boy or girl adapt to studying in another language? Can we afford quality education in the new destination? Will we meet the criteria of the new school? All of these and more are questions that come to mind of all the parents who are facing a transition.
There are those who ultimately choose public education, there are those who choose privately, and there are the parents who make a courageous decision and take a home-schooling approach, or dare home schooling. If you are considering the home education option, it is very useful to examine both the advantages and disadvantages, and to introduce into the considerations the unique needs of your family members.
Advantages and disadvantages of home education
Home education is not the Wild West. Although it is legal in most countries, it has regulation and the policy varies according to the destination. There are countries, such as Germany, for example, that home education is not approved by the government. Therefore, prior to the move, check the local policy on the subject. You can do this through government websites, ask at the local Israeli embassy, or consult groups and forums for mobile people in that country.
Let’s talk a little bit about the bonuses and minuses of the move:
Benefits of home education
- Full control over the educational material that the child is exposed to, as well as its progress and results.
- Freedom of choice in the method of study and curriculum.
- Strengthening the family bond by sharing opinions and ideas.
- Saving the time of travel back and forth to school. While you’ve been spared, you can wander around the new surroundings or embrace other hobbies.
- The home environment is less stressful than the school environment, so you may see an improvement in concentration levels.
- Home education allows for more flexibility. For example, you can go for a walk on a school day and complete the material in the evening or on the weekend.
- If you move for a short period of time, home education can be the anchor, the stable place of the children, no matter where you are.
- If you ask in the various forums, you may find more families in your surroundings that advocate home education, thus winning membership.
Disadvantages of home education
- The responsibility is very heavy on the parent because the education of his children depends entirely on him. A good way to overcome this difficulty is to use organizations that specialize in home education (they provide study brochures, advice from educators, etc.), even though this option makes the process more difficult.
- If your child isn’t at peace with the move, it won’t be easy to execute. We updated the child with the home education taps to get his approval.
- Since home education is mostly done from home, you need to find creative ways to enrich children’s social life.
- It takes a lot of concentration and seriousness abilities to implement home education, both on the part of the parent and the children. Both parties must be 100% committed to the process in order for it to succeed.
The challenges of home education
Ann Moss of Kiryat Ono transferred her young son to home education while he was in fourth grade. Today, four years after the decision was made, she has no regrets.
“Our children went to a democratic school and the young man did not connect to school. After many attempts and a joint decision with the pedagogical staff at the time, we decided that he would move to home education. The bigger one was at school until two years ago. He actually enjoyed himself there but decided that he wanted to move faster in school than the school allowed him. He received special permission from the Open University to start a degree at the age of 14 and is currently doing a bachelor’s degree in computers and mathematics.”
What are the benefits of home education for you?
“Home education allows us great flexibility, both in terms of content and in terms of how to study. It’s also a great experience for us as a family. Both me and their father teach them. Even Grandpa attends and gives them a lesson once a week. A lot of parents are surprised to hear that you can teach their children and that it’s even fun, but for us it works (most of the time).”
And what about the challenges involved in the process?
“The most significant challenge is social. We moved two years ago to Kiryat Ono. In the previous settlement they had a lot of friends and they kept in touch with them in the afternoon. When we moved, naturally it was less working out. If they went to school, they’d probably find new friends. But since they are in home education, the main social connections are with the members of the previous settlement.”
Ann says that in order to overcome the social barrier, they try to bring them together with their friends on weekends and when they have freedom from school.
Myths of home-schooling
Shir-Lee Shani of Georgia, USA, also decided to educate her 6-year-old daughters at home. “The decision on HNA began to fall when the girls were around the age of two. Until then, they had to be out of the frame, because their immune systems, as premature babies, were not strong enough to risk a large frame. Those were their discharge orders from the hospital. You could say, our HAB started out as a constraint. During those two years, I was exposed to this idea, and I began to think about it.”
What enters your set of considerations when you come to the process of home education?
“There are a lot of considerations, as far as I’m concerned, for H.N.C. First of all, schools are increasingly going towards teaching children what to think, instead of teaching them critical and independent thinking. Secondly, it is true that in school the children are with other children all the time, but there is no natural interaction. One in which the adult does not instruct on what to do at any given moment, but rather let the children learn how to get along with each other, in a normal and natural way. How much time of your life, as an adult, do you spend with others who are exactly from your birth year, and tell you exactly how much to talk to them, what to do with them, etc.? In HNA, the children spend time with other children in games, in open conversations, and when there are confrontations (and there are), those who solve them are not a random person in their lives (who is likely to want more industrial quiet than a solution), but their parents. These kids don’t need to be ‘turned on’, they’re running themselves.’
According to Shir-Lee, children aren’t supposed to physically, sit for so long and play and do so little. “We are choosing, at the moment, to take ensequaling. We teach on demand and request from the girls and not according to a curriculum. At the same time, Georgia has a large variety of curriculums ready for any subject, and you can choose this path as well. It’s much easier here than in Israel, it’s acceptable, it’s known, it’s familiar.”
Are there any downsides to home education in your eyes?
“The main disadvantage of HNA, in my view, is the loss of the independent identity of the main H.I.P. parent. Instead of a man in his own right, we’re now a mother or a father of that. Of course, it’s both temporary, and changeable. Today, for example, I’m doing a master’s degree, which three years ago might have been more complex. My identity is rebuilt, but at first, it disappears a little bit and disappears.
The second disadvantage, which many Israelis consider main, is that we have to work to find good and stable groups that will give children’s society and also a tribe to parents.”
Shir-Lee seeks to disprove two myths about home education:
- Home education doesn’t happen at home. We’re out there a lot, lots of meetings, really not “homey.”
- Children acquire the language of the place from the moment the door of the house opens and exits it, until the moment they go back to sleep. You don’t have to be alone in school for that.
Have you decided to move into home schooling, too? Tell us in the comments
