What Are the Pros and Cons of Studying at Home?

"School at home", also known as "education at home", is an educational activity that takes the family as the main educational place and is usually organized by parents or tutors: parents give up work and start full-time parents, let their children go to school at home, and stay at home full time Educate your children. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places, there are a large number of cases where students go to school at home, covering all stages from kindergarten to high school. And its existence forms are diversified: parents teach children at home, relatives and friends gather children to study together, small private schools, etc., some of which have begun to take the form of miniature schools.

Go to school at home

At home school is a popular way of growing young people's education in western countries such as the United States: parents arrange their children's education at home. In the middle of the last century, it was mainly produced in religious families and gradually developed into a widely recognized form of education. This form brings enough flexibility to make the growth of children very personal. This is in line with the personal requirements of this era. The homeschool of Chinese society is mainly concentrated in Taiwan, Singapore and other places. The number of practitioners in mainland China is increasing. The most famous example is probably the fairy tale writer Zheng Yuanjie raised his son Zheng Yaqi at home. However, in the exam-oriented education system, there may be many potential practitioners.

"Home school" is called "homeschooling" in the United States and "home education" in some European countries. Today's home school is a form of education based on the family, children as educators, and parents as primary educators. Home school is different from school education, meaning "home-based" rather than "school-based" education. In addition to getting courses, textbooks, and other services from schools and other educational institutions, home schools can also call for more community resources: libraries, museums, sports centers, galleries, exhibition halls, and intellectual resources of relatives, friends, and neighbors. It can better meet the individual learning needs of students than school education. Home school is also different from traditional home education. It has a certain curriculum and pays attention to the comprehensive development of students' cognition and emotion. "Home school" advocates teaching according to their aptitude, focusing on personalization and humanization, and educating according to the talents and abilities of each child. ^[1]

"School at home" can make up

There are three characteristics of a successful family of "getting children to school at home":

1. Parents plan from a young age;

2. Both husbands and wives have the same concept of education for their children, and there can be no discord;

3. Most of these families are people who can make decisive decisions at critical moments.

1. Family and marriage are higher than education. Healthy families are the cornerstone of health education.

2. Schooling at home, education is real life, and family life is the cornerstone.

3. Schooling at home cannot separate children from the family. Especially before the age of 0-12.

Schooling at home and private education are enrichment and supplement to the single education model of public education, thereby increasing the diversity and selectivity of education. In theory, parents have the right to choose what kind of education their children receive. According to China's current law, it is reasonable and illegal to go to school at home, but this reality itself

(I) Legalization

As in other countries, where the development of legalization of "schooling at home" has undergone, China's "schooling at home", which is in the early stages of development, will face the biggest question of whether future schooling is illegal. At present, there are two different views.

One view is that the violation is mainly a violation of the Compulsory Education Law. Because according to the "Compulsory Education Law", children who have reached the age of six, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or race, should attend school for compulsory education for a specified number of years. Parents or other guardians must make school-age children or guardians on time and receive compulsory education for a specified number of years. In case of school-age children or adolescents who need to postpone or be exempted from school due to illness or special circumstances, the parents of the child or juvenile or other guardian shall apply for approval and be approved by the local people's government. Parents or other guardians who practiced "attending school at home" neither allowed school-age children or guardians to attend school on time, nor did they get approval from the local people's government.

Another view is that it is not illegal. All parents who let their children go to school at home are staunch supporters of this view. They believe that the Compulsory Education Law stipulates that parents have the obligation to send their children of school age to school for compulsory education for a specified number of years. The purpose of sending children to school is to allow children to receive education better and faster. As long as the family has such educational resources and can meet the requirements of the compulsory education law, the child can complete the study of textbook courses prescribed by the state. The relevant laws are not inconsistent.

At present, there is no direct legal requirement for "schooling at home", we can only refer to the relevant provisions of laws and regulations such as the Education Law, the Compulsory Education Law, the Implementing Rules of the Compulsory Education Law, and the Minor Protection Law. It should be said that "schooling at home" is theoretically valid and legally legal. The reason it appears in practice will cause controversy, so many people think that it is illegal, mainly because it is still new in today's society, there is no precedent, and there is no specific support and management measures. In practice, those who go to school at home often submit their applications in advance and retain their student status through the back door. Due to the lack of law in China, the government and schools will acquiesce to school at home when they are relevant.

(II) Socialization

The second big question about "schooling at home" is the child's socialization. Opponents argue that if the true achievements of homeschooling are difficult to determine, then the different experiences of children at home and their peers studying at school are obvious. As far as the child's experience is concerned, artificially separating the child from the normal learning life of his peers and restricting his normal communication with his peers will cause certain psychological obstacles to the child and affect the child's early socialization. Proponents believe that there are also many problems in the process of individual socialization of students in schools, such as discrimination against certain students, unfair competition among classmates, and the spread of bad information among classmates. A good social environment. Therefore, how to rationalize the socialization of individuals is the focus of controversy over the problem of "schooling at home".

(Three) the effectiveness of learning and quality assurance issues

According to relevant statistics and media reports, the effect of "learning at home" seems obvious. However, skeptics believe that, first of all, this effect cannot be exaggerated infinitely, which at best only shows how much time it saves and how much knowledge it has learned. But more important than this is that compared with the learning of his peers in school, what he did not learn, what opportunities he missed during his personal growth, what he should have lost. The difficulty is that for a person's healthy growth, what opportunities are missed and cannot be determined; what is lost, and what sequelae are left in the personality and knowledge structure, will not be seen for a long time, and this potential consequence Once it is displayed, it will be irreparable and even a lifelong regret.

Therefore, questioners believe that the effectiveness of "learning at home" and how these children eventually develop will depend on future follow-up investigations and case studies. Judging from the current practice of "attending school at home" in China, the effectiveness does take time to test, and quality assurance is highly random and subjective. Therefore, it remains to be seen how effective the school at home is currently.

(IV) Information communication and professional development issues

According to the above survey results, the main confusions of parents at home at present are "insufficient activities of mutual aid groups", "unclear policies and regulations", "limited learning resources", "lack of professional guidance and difficult implementation", and "inaccessible textbook selection" , "Insufficient economic power" and "school and government intervention." To sum up, it is nothing more than two points. First, parents urgently need a platform for communication, and second, parents urgently need professional guidance. The goals are the same, communicate with each other, exchange experiences, and avoid mistakes.

However, at present, the information sharing channel for home schooling is mainly the Internet, and there are fewer local group activities and national mutual aid exchanges. Parents also said that the most needed support and help was "regular mutual assistance group activities", followed by "domestic and domestic related information sharing", then "professional guidance in teaching methods, selection of teaching materials, etc." and "educational resources" Expansion ", and finally" policy and legal support. " It can be seen that homeschooling at this stage urgently needs to establish and form a relatively standardized, scientific information sharing platform and professional guidance development plan. As for the support of policies and regulations, parents know that this is a long-term process, so they have no high expectations for it.

(I) Strengthening continuous attention and in-depth research on "schooling at home"

In view of China's national conditions and insufficient research on "schooling at home" students, the urgent task of educational research institutions is to conduct case-based empirical research on the phenomenon of "schooling at home", including the characteristics of "schooling at home" children, family conditions, Learning content, assessment methods, etc. Use case studies to summarize the common characteristics and rules of schooling at home children, and explore the schooling at home model with local characteristics, so as to establish corresponding regulations and social support systems to ensure the right to learn at home and the right of parents to children Educational options.

(2) Establish a long-term mechanism for communication within the industry

At present, practitioners of "school at home" mainly spontaneously carry out communication through online channels such as the "school at home alliance" website, Weibo, QQ group, etc., lacking effective communication between self-organizations, national industry forums, annual meetings and other platforms Relatively few, making effective communication difficult to form. It is recommended that the relevant self-organizing organizations start from the needs of students' growth, "go out" and "please come in", and communicate with each other. If necessary, establish a regular "visit to school" mechanism to exchange children's confusion in growth and learning, and let children feel Different forms of education, to receive a variety of education.

(3) Respect and encourage diversified independent exploration

At present, China's "schooling at home" is in the early stages of development. How to develop and where to go in the future needs to be based on diversified independent exploration. Each practitioner who goes to school at home has its own different education and training concepts, and will gradually form an education model suitable for the development of his child in a gradual exploration. We must respect and encourage these diversified explorations. It is their first try that lays the foundation for future development. At this stage, we are not discussing how to "standardize development at home", but let different practitioners explore an education model suitable for the growth and development of their children outside the school education system. When these diverse models are sufficiently rich and mature, our educational options will also be enriched.

(4) Integrate social resources and build a social support system

Today's society is a society with extremely rich social resources and highly open information, which also provides rich external educational resources for home schooling. The reason why it is external is mainly because of its parents' educational philosophy and sensitivity to educational resources. In view of the current situation where professional guidance is urgently needed for home schooling, it is recommended that home school practitioners fully seek the advice and opinions of education experts when forming their own training plans, education models and curriculum systems; parents are advised to make full use of museums, libraries, and art galleries And other social education resources; parents are advised to take advantage of the community's resource advantages to concentrate community power to provide children with opportunities for practice and exercise in various aspects; parents are advised to allow their children to participate in various social experience activities so that children can fully integrate into the society in the activities.