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In a group of mine, it was asked "Why do regular school teachers need a degree, but homeschoolers do not?". I replied with the following.
- Feb 16, 2010 at 8:00 AM
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Here are a few reasons, that I can come up with, for why regular school teachers need to go to college and get a degree to teach, while homeschooling parents do not.....
1. Public and Private school teachers are teaching, sometimes, 30 children (Per class....for a potential of, up to, 180 kids.... per day, if their classes change).
**Homeschoolers
are only teaching one, or a few higher if they have multiple children.
These children do not change...they are in the same classroom, with the
same teachers, year after year. This creates, for homeschoolers, an
ability to really know and understand the full needs and strengths of
their students, as the years go by, They have years invested in their
children, while regular teachers have a year or two, at best, before
the kids move on to other teachers.
2. They are teaching all those children for a 7 hour day.
** Homeschoolers only have to "Formally" teach for 3 - 5 hours per day, due to the fact that they only have one or a few children...and it is primarily one on one teaching. We can cover a lot more in less time, because of the ratio of teacher to child.
However, we actually teach 24/7. We are not bound by switching classes, bells, or time constraints. We get our formal education finished, and then the rest of the day becomes a classroom of informal education.
The
grocery store becomes a math and literacy playground. The Mall becomes
a lesson on community and social studies. A hospital visit for a
busted chin, after a bike accident, becomes a field trip on emergency
workers and how they help the community. Going to the play ground,
running around and playing sports with all the kids there, is a 3 hour
gym class. Dinner becomes a lesson on math and home economics. Even
vacations to the beach, for a week, can become an entire science unit
study on ocean life, beach erosion, and tidal/moon associations.
3. They are working in a classroom environment with different rules and regulations.
**homeschoolers are not bound by the same rules and regulations, due to the fact that we have complete free range of movement, a select set of children that never change, and we are not teaching in an environment that is primarily geared towards auditory and visual learning.
4. In their classrooms, they have a different dynamic that must be adhered to.
***We do not have to stay with one set curriculum. We have more freedom with time. We are not bound by the clock.
If our kid is having an off morning, and does not want to do science at 9 a.m., we can move on to something else, and come back to the science at 11:30. If our kid wakes up and does not want to do language arts, simply because language arts is penciled in on our 8 a.m. schedule time slot...we can do something else, and do Language Arts later.
In public school the schedule is firm and laid out. At home, the schedule is as flexible as it needs to be to ensure learning happens. Learning, for many children, happens better... without a lot of pressure dealing with time constraints.
We, also, can take more frequent breaks. Our teaching can happen all at one time, or it can happen in blocks throughout the day. We can do two hours of homeschooling, take an hour off, do two more hours of homeschool, take another hour off...etc.
If
our children have ADHD type behaviors and issues, we can work for 1/2
an hour and take a 15 minute break, then come back and do another half
an hour...etc.
PLUS, we have a bunch of aides a lot of the time, because many of us do co-ops. So, while regular teachers have all those children with one aide....we have only one or a few, and can have up to 20 or so aides, depending on what is going on.
5. Some of them may not have children of their own, and may never have worked with kids before.
***Parents have had at least one child, that they have taught how to walk, talk, use the potty, to walk without plowing into their friends, to do their abc's and 123's, to identify shapes, to walk with scissors, to use a glue bottle.
We have taught them how to get along with their siblings and other people's children, and we have done that for 5 years before school even is supposed to start.
Some
teachers have no children, no siblings, and no experience with, even
babysitting. Of course they would need more education. Especially
since their bosses..the school board and the parents, do not know what
experience they bring to the table. As parents and teachers...we know
what makes our kids tick, because we have been with them for years
before school even starts. (And we ARE the bosses)
6. Most of the children that they work with are not related, and will change often....creating a need to understand more about discipline techniques to accommodate those changes.
Our children do not change classrooms each year. We always have them as students and so we get to know them better than public school teachers are able to get to know their students. Our children are often related, and so discipline is something that is 24/7..and thus more easily managed.
When they are working with other students that are not related, such as in a co-op or homeschool group classes, all the parents are involved as teachers and aides. We have a lot more help than regular teachers have.
By the time our kids get to the classes that are run by other people, such as a gym class, karate class, gymnastics, music lessons, or a library workshop.....a good many of our kids know how to function because they have been diligently worked with about it. (most times...not all.)
Of
course, there will be issues with some, just as in public school.
However, I have found that homeschool children tend to have less
behavior issues when they are out and about. But that is not to say
that they are perfect, and never have issues...they do, just not as
many...at least, that is how it seems to me.
7. Because they are very limited in their mobility to move out of a classroom. This creates a need to have the techniques to be able to focus ALL educational needs to a specific classroom, within the limited space that teachers find themselves in.
***In school, you have just a few classes that you work in through out the day...as you get older, you can work in more classrooms..but they still have four walls and the same basic set up. Periodically, they can work outside..and a few times a year, they might go on field trips. BUT, the basic line up is limiting.
With homeschool...we have classrooms, sometimes, but other times...our classroom is the world. We can do field trips once a week, or more. We can educate our children in a room at home, at the kitchen table, at the library, at the park, on the front step, in the back yard, in a restaurant over lunch, at the grocery store, in the kitchen, at a friends house, next to a creek, or over vacation at a beach. We are dynamic...and can go anywhere to teach and learn. We do not have to schedule it, nor do we need permission slips. If we want to go on a field trip, we jump in the car to go.
This creates a fantastic learning environment because we can change things up, in ways regular schools are not set up for.
8. Teachers face a whole set of different learning spectrums, different educational requirements, different children, different parents, bosses, and colleagues to be accountable to.
***Out of all the children that regular school teachers see, there will be slow learners, fast learners, average learners, speech problems, autism, adhd, ADD, ODD, eye problem related learning problems, general learning disabilities, Aspergers, bored students, exceptional students, slackers, drug induced lack of learning, kids who need to be challenged more than others, kids who are having trouble learning due to bad home environments or changes to family dynamics, etc.
At home we do have many of those same issues...but not all of them, in many of the same classes, on any given day.
My
son has eye related problems with reading, dyslexia, needs to be
challenged more than others, and has ADHD. All the other things that I
listed are not on the menu for our home school.
Comments:
great..great!
Homeschooling is a wonderful option that should be embraced, not shunned :)
Great post! Voted up!!
As a former teacher and home-schooled student: Educators get a degree to learn classroom management and techniques, not curriculum. Mom's know their children best. Most home-schoolers do not need to learn management and techniques for teaching their own children.
Bloobird, I looked up your state and you're in Wisconsin. What school district was this that was hiring teachers without education degrees? DH doesn't have a teaching degree, just a German degree but has been teaching English here in Korea. We're from Wisconsin and he's subbed but only for smaller school districts since the larger ones won't take uncertified subs.
Definitely a good post though. We plan to homeschool, I'm just not sure about MY ability to do so and I think DH would be much better at it.
Thank you for posting this! Our son is currently back in public school, but he was homeschooled first. I miss it entirely.. This is an EXCELLENT article and should be published where many more people can read it! :) Thanks so much for posting!!!!!
All you have to do is pull up the requirements for an education degree to see that a large amount of the course study is sociology, theory of learning, etc. Very little of it is science, math or history.
thats why so many teachers/instructors have to take continuing courses in "HOW TO TEACH MATH" and HOW TO TEACH LANGUAGE ARTS... and the ones who TEACH those courses are instructors themselves with as little as 4 yrs classroom time under thier own belts as well... my kids are currently in private and i have one in public Special Day Class, but i am preparing to take my my SDC child out of hte system and do it at home because he isnt learning anything useful... :(*
love it!
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Most people assume there childs teacher has a degree. BUT in most private schools teachers to not have credentials sometimes even the administrators have no teaching credentials. These people could have never spent a day in college in their life and people pay top dollar thinking they are getting a better education because it's private.
In my childs previous public school they are hiring anyone with any type of degree because there are not enough teachers. Each classroom had 3 "teachers" but some where just there getting training. A few of them where parents who they hired with no training.
I guess around here this question would be laughable because our public school system is horrible. Only 39% of our students graduate and most of those only have a third grade reading level. SO... there is no way I can do worse than that! LOL It makes me think that the parents who do send there children to our schools should be charged with neglect.
- BlooBird
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