The date is October 30th, 2010: you just finished a long hard day of middle school. You bust through the door and yell for you mom. She comes over to you and asks “what’s wrong? ” You begin to reply as tears start rolling down your face ” It was Tommy he was bullying me again. ” You slowly explain to her what happened, she then proceeds to call your school to talk to the principal and demand that they punish Tommy for bullying you once again. The principal replies and says “I’m sorry mam but since this happened off of school grounds we can’t do anything about it”. In a fury your mom replies “Fine! and hangs up the phone.
The next day she calls back to the school and tells them that this is the last straw and that she is pulling you out of school and will homeschool you instead. Fast forward 5 years later, you have already graduated and are starting your first year of college. The year goes by quick and the 2nd semester has already gone by; you receive an email from a guidance counselor at the college, she asks if you could meet with her tomorrow. So the next day you show up to her office and she has you come in. “Sit down” she says as she begins to talk to you about how your first year of college has gone.
She then asks you if you’ve been struggling in any of you classes , in particular your Composition class. She brings up the fact that you had not turned in a research paper and a group project which is worth half of your grade. You reply “Well…. I don’t really know how to properly write a research paper and i’m very anti social so I just decided to not do them. ” She replies in a shocked manner “Did you never write a research paper in high school, and did you never work together with other classmates on a group project in high school. ”
Then it hits you, the reason why you can’t do any of hese projects is because you never learned how to do them while being homeschooled. You look back on it and wish that you would have stayed in school instead of solving a short term bullying problem with a long term solution of being homeschooled. Sally Driscoll’s argument in her article “Homeschooling is an Effective Approach to Education” is based on mainly assumptions, lacking of credible statistical data and most of all is based on a narrow and one sided approach to her argument about the effectiveness of homeschooling. Although there are logical arguments on both sides of the argument on the effectiveness of homeschooling.
Sally Driscoll, author of “Homeschooling is an Effective Approach to Education”, approaches the topic neither unbiasedly or logically; closer inspection than driscoll provided shows true and unbiased information pertaining to the effectiveness of homeschooling. Driscoll’s claim that homeschooling is effective is based on the points that: homeschooling allows for children to learn at their own pace, that homeschooling gives students more time which makes them be more involved in their community, and most of all that homeschooling better satisfies their religious and personal needs.
Driscoll is semi correct in her article when she makes the point that homeschooling allows students to learn at their own pace. She is correct in the sense of the statement she makes that homeschooling allows student to learn at their own pace; Often in many cases parents or homeschooling instructors teach their students or children at a pace which gives them as much time needed to fully grasp and learn the information.
However she is wrong when she uses this as a point to support her claim; she is wrong when she uses this point to show effectiveness because once a child graduates and goes on to college or the real world there are always time constraints and deadlines that must be followed and or met. Unlike homeschooling time in the real world doesn’t stop for you to complete a task, similarly how a professor in college doesn’t stop for each individual student to grasp a topic. Her next point that she makes pertaining to homeschooling and its effectiveness is the point that homeschooling better satisfies students personal and religious needs.
Driscoll is absolutely correct when she uses this point to back up her claim. An example of this would be a student with ADHD having his or her personal needs being meet. As depicted by CBS writer Corey Whelan when he writes about a personal account of a student with ADHD “When my daughter started having the same types of issues, it occurred to me that her school environme holding her back in the same way it held me back. Rather than take the school system on, I decided to homeschool my daughter so she could move around freely without feeling shame and learn at her own pace” (Whelan, 2013, para 3).
This example paints a vivid picture for us of a ADHD student whose personal needs were met and therefore allowed her to succeed and excel in schooling, especially where traditional schooling had already failed her. The first incorrect point that Driscoll makes to support her claim is when she says how homeschooling allows for students to have more time to be active in their community. This point is wrong and extremely questionable because of the lack credible evidence given to support her claim and the possibility of this point being completely based on an assumption.
Nowhere in the article does she cite any research that backs up the claim: it is just as likely for homeschooled students use their increased time to play video games and do other counter productive activities. Alongside Driscoll’s incorrect point about homeschooled students being more involved in their community she also makes an erroneous and very controversial point dealing with the practice of unschooling and its role in the effectiveness of homeschooling. Homeschooled students parents often resort to unschooling due to the unfavorability of many course and in general the mandated curriculum.
In the article Driscoll states “Unschooled students typically take whatever class they want to, for example if a student doesn’t want to learn skill A they don’t have to they can merely skip the class” (Driscoll & Wagner, 2016. para 17). With this in mind parents ultimately control what classes their children take, according to Monica Fuglei of Concordia University “The Coalition for Responsible Home Education warns that the quality of homeschooling depends largely upon the parent in charge.
Parents must not mistake unschooling’s rejection of formal curriculum for an overall devaluing of education”(Fuglei, 2015, para 13). On the surface the practice of unschooling looks like a great learning approach and alternative to traditional education, however once a student graduates and moves on to college or real life they must ensure that they have learned the basic skills necessary. For example a homeschooled student who partakes in the practice of unschooling might be interested in being an engineering major in college, so he or she might decide to neglect taking classes in composition or english.
Due to the lack of writing skills the student has attained they are not sufficient in skills necessary to write a rebuttal paper for their composition class or a research paper for their physics class. For unschooling to be an aspect which highlights the effectiveness of homeschooling it is necessary that there would be certain classes and basic skills that students must learn even if it doesn’t directly pertain to what they want to do in college or life. Driscoll’s argument throughout the article is unethical and inaccurate due to the very one sided and biased approach that she provides.
Throughout the article she only discusses an opposing viewpoint when she is bringing it to attention to say how it is false. When discussing the potential negatives of homeschooling she merely says “Although opponents of homeschooling often paint a picture of the lonely, isolated home school student, most children socialize frequently with other homeschoolers, In regions where homeschooling is especially popular, a family may be able to choose from several homeschooling organizations that offer social and educational activities. ” (Driscoll & Wagner, 2016. Para 29).
She responds to he point with a counter argument about how in many cases there are organizations which provide social activities for those homeschooled. However she doesn’t really give any credible research or data which backs up her reasoning for saying the claim that homeschooled students are lonely and antisocial is false. Along with the lack of response to the anti social aspects of homeschooled students Driscoll also neglects to mention or respond to the aspect of homeschooled students being taught in a single point of view which often reflects their parents beliefs and views.
As stated by Lee and McMahon “many parents who pull their children out of traditional schools do so because they wish to protect them from exposure to ideas and influences that they feel are incompatible with their own moral or religious values. They see the ability to control the boundaries of their children’s learning as a parental right” (Lee & McMahon, 2016, para 7). When taught like this homeschooled students tend to miss out on learning part of a curriculum or in worst cases a class entirely.
Likewise Driscoll also fails to mention the pessimistic aspect of homeschooling with its lack of instruction and testing of students. In most cases students who are homeschooled are tested insufficiently and have no proper form of guidance. A great example of this is when Dana Goldstein depicts a personal homeschooling account of Astra Taylor by stating, “we were never tested, graded, or told to memorize dates, facts, or figures. …
Some days we read books, made music, painted, or drew”(Goldstein, 2012, para 1). In accounts similar to Astra Taylor’s the lack of testing and instruction is generally detrimental to the quality of education that homeschooled students receive. In conclusion Sally Driscoll’s argument in her article “Homeschooling is an Effective Approach to Education” is faulty and flawed due to its lack of credible statistical data its narrow one sided approach and most of all its argument revolving around primarily assumptions.
Although there are valid and compelling arguments on both sides of the argument on the effectiveness of homeschooling. Sally Driscoll, author of “Homeschooling is an Effective Approach to Education”, approaches the topic neither unbiasedly or reasonably; closer inspection of the argument provided shows us true and unbiased information pertaining to homeschooling’s true effectiveness. Nonetheless homeschooling for the most part is a short term alternative for traditional education that can be very treacherous and detrimental to its students.
