Is homeschooling better than traditional education? Hmm, what do you think? I'm Nicholeen Peck,
I teach parenting and self-government all over the world but also I'm homeschooler.
I've actually homeschooled all 4 of my children and I have definite thoughts on this so we're
gonna be talking about homeschooling versus traditional education in this video.
So, what is traditional education and what is homeschooling? Do they have an similarities? What are their
difference and what really is better for you, your children and just people in general?
Well, that's what we're gonna be talking about in this video so hold on to your seats, we've
got a lot to cover. What does it mean to have a traditional education? So, when a lot of
people think about traditional education, they think public school or maybe private
school and they think you go to a class, you open a book, you listen to the teacher, you
do the worksheets, you do the papers, you take the tests, you get the thing at the end,
the little diploma or whatever that says, "I'm done," and then you move on to more education
at the college level, and this is what they think traditional education is. But if you
truly look at the history of education which I have because when I chose to homeschool
my children, I wanted to really understand education, what I was doing, what I was pulling
away from and what I was giving to my children. And so, I decided to study education and to
learn specifically how people learn. You know what I found overtime? Is that there are many
school teachers that don't even know how people actually learn. They know how to write a curriculum,
they know how to deliver it to students but they don't know how to help the child truly
learn and the process that their brain goes through when they learn. That was something
that I wanted to know. I've always loved learning because my father was a public school teacher
and a university professor, a really smart guy. In fact when I started to homeschool,
he was a little bit worried that our family might be a little bit weird. The funny thing
was after just a few years of homeschooling, he looked at me and said, "Nicholeen, I've
got to hand it to you. I never knew that a person could learn this many things by this
age," and I didn't know that homeschooling could look so incredible. He said, "If I had
to do it all over again with you, I would do it like this." So, let's talk about traditional
education. Did you know that homeschooling actually is traditional education? I know
many of us think of traditional education as what I've mentioned before. All the hoops
nd things we go through at the school, but if you really look at the history of education,
what you see is that traditionally, children were actually taught by their parents in their
homes. It really is in the history of the world, a very new approach to put children
all day in an institution in a room away from their parents, away from their siblings, isolated
only by age groups with 1 person to tell them what to do. This is new construct. Education,
the way we see it today in the public schools, began because of religious education systems
that started a long time ago. So, it used to be that boys oftentimes were allowed to
go to the church or the seminary or somewhere and they can learn religiously if they were
privileged enough to get that opportunity to grow. And not everybody got that chance
or could afford to take the time to even go and do this but this wasn't something that
happened all day everyday with tons of homework. It was just a way to go and get mentored in
some key things that maybe mom and dad didn't have time for. So then after that, it went
back to mostly parents doing the education. Over time what happened was parents started
noticing that it could be beneficial for a community of children to meet together for
maybe a few months, a certain amount of days in a year in a one room schoolhouse where
people in all different ages and they could learn some of the basics. Now, the parents
were still handling the character development, the religious and spiritual development and
making sure that the children knew how to work and got all of the information that they
need for a profession but what they were doing in the one room schoolhouse is that they were
preparing a child to be fully literate, okay? To be able to read and write and compute and
think and debate and speak. This is what they taught them. Now, I want you to ask yourself
with what you know about normal public education today, are they giving children a full liberal
arts education anymore? Do children know how to express themselves and do public speaking?
Do they know how to debate? Do they know how to extract data from stuff and formulate the
pay-in's and study things synoptically? I think you might find that the answer to most
of those questions is not so good or no, they don't. So, when we're thinking of traditional
education, please know that there's 2 different versions of that. Traditional education that
I absolutely adhere to as a homeschooler is teaching my children the liberal arts and
really helping them truly read the hard stuff, not just fascinating stuff that makes them
want to spend the time reading but where they really get into the classics and the great
thinkers and come face to face with greatness. You can do that if you can tailor-fit an education
more to someone. Right now our education is on such a mass scale that it's like an assembly
line production of children and there's always gonna be people who fall through the cracks,
maybe they get moved on just arbitrarily but really those children, so many of them are
not gonna get exactly what they need to be inspired and to feel purpose-riven for their
lives, but a parent can give that. A parent knows the child better than everybody else
and can tailor-fit the education to them and make sure that they get all the pieces that
they need if the parent wants to. I know homeschool is definitely not for everyone. So, I was
talking to a woman today and she was saying, "You know me and my husband have been contemplating
homeschooling our future children and kind of don't feel like we should or not and are
wondering if we need to prepare for that just because of all the things that are happening
educationally and in the world around us." And she said, "What do you think, Nicholeen?
Do you think homeschooling is the best choice," and to be completely synced, the shorted answer
possible, the answer is yes, I do, if a parent can do it and if they want to do it. Now,
not all homeschoolers are created equal. I'm sure you've met a few that are you know, a
little off or you think, "uh, they might not socially turn out," or something like that.
There can always be that but please remember that if you analyzed all the home situations
in a public school classroom, you would see many, many that do not have good social skills,
that won't turn out right, that can't carry on a proper conversation with people. There's
a lot of weird out there. In fact, I think it's strange that we are categorizing just
someone who is outside of the normal as weird but everybody else who does everything the
same is somehow okay, even if they don't turn out. That's a little strange, isn't it? As
a homeschooler, my children and I that we would embrace weird, that we knew many people
thought that we were weird because we chose to homeschool but it was absolutely one of
the best decisions I've ever made for my family and for our relationships. We truly became
united as we embarked upon each day as a new learning experience as a family. We discussed
all of the cool things. I got to see all the sparks fly instead of just hope they were
flying somewhere else where I wasn't. And so we decided weird was good and so we would
say things like, "Oh yeah, we're weird," and we were okay with that. So, it is true that
some people might think homeschooling is unusual or different but if you feel like is this
something I should do for my children? Probably there's something in you that is preparing
for the fact that the answer might be yes. Homeschooling can preserve principles, liberty,
families, all the kinds of things right now that sadly are under attack. Homeschooling
is the type of environment where the parent and child discuss things that matter. The
parent can bring books to the table that the child could experience transformation from
instead of just random fluff books that mean nothing. The parent can truly groom the child's
character and help them find that life is hopeful, joyful and full of purpose instead
of overwhelming, anxious and fraught with anxiety and frustration and social displeasure
which is what the social looks like at school nowadays. Before I tell you this personal
story about a conversation that I had with somebody about homeschooling really recently
and some of the things we've done as a family to really own homeschooling, I would like
to invite you to subscribe to this channel. There are multiple videos on this channel
about homeschooling and about parenting and self-government. To be a successful homeschooler,
you've got to be a successful communicator and these videos will definitely help you
so click subscribe now. I speak at homeschool conferences all over the world and as one
of those premiere speakers at one of those conferences, I feel that it is my duty to
explain to the people that homeschooling is not about reading, writing and arithmetic.
So, I want to make sure that's clear. Homeschooling is about family. Homeschooling is about bonding,
its about who we are and it's about learning in general. It's about sparks flying and you
know what? Many people are highly successful at it. But at the end of the day, even if
my children did not really do well in Math, I would not consider myself to be a failure
at homeschool because what we have as a family is something that other people are jealous
of and it only comes because we had time together. The family wasn't an afterthought to homework
and school, the family was the thought that lead to school and learning. That's what homeschooling
is about. If you want that for you family, then yes, homeschooling is better. It is the
epitome of traditional education. It's exactly what most people are looking for. Don't be
afraid of the little failures. There will be many days that are not perfect. In fact,
speaking of those imperfect days, I want to share a special gift for you. So, I've created
a video on this channel called "The Expectation Trap vs. The Cycle for Success." This a class
that I often teach at homeschool conferences so that parents can understand how to fix
their homeschool days when they go off course. This class will be very helpful to you as
you are embarking upon your journey of homeschool and if for some reason you choose not to homeschool
your child, don't feel like that means you're a failure either. Just keep a homeschool mindset.
When your child is home there with the family, it's about the family. Don't push them out
the door all the time. They need your strength now more than ever. Click the link to "The
Expectation Trap vs. The Cycle for Success" and I promise you won't be disappointed.