Homeschooling

  

We've Always Homeschooled

More and more parents and their children are grumbling about having school at home, but little did they know or have already forgotten that schooling in the U.S. actually started at home and has been like that before there were public schools.

Parents were, and still are the first teachers of their children. And are oftentimes, their best teachers.

History

Four hundred years ago, learning happened inside the home. Parents taught their own children or if their families are well off, or if the parents cannot do it themselves, they would have relatives or hire private tutors do it for them.

Public School

Now the concept of public schools is also old as well. In fact, the Puritans first established the public school system, established schools in the 13 colonies over 300 years ago. They taught the bible, core values and family virtues, along with how to read, write and do math.

Mandatory

Massachusetts passed the first compulsory school laws by 1852. New York followed the next year, and by the 1920s all states required all American children to attend public or private schools.

Back to Homeschooling

Less than 50 years later, by the 1970s parents have had enough with the problems we've been having with the school system and a movement of having children homeschooled again started gaining momentum.

By the 1990s close to a million American children were being homeschooled for a variety of reasons, and the numbers have been growing 15 to 20% every year.

Pandemic

Come 2020 and the pandemic virus closed down schools forcing all the other parents to teach their children at home once again.

For the start of the 2020 - 2021 school year, many parents have opted out or have taken their children out of schools and jumped right back and are homeschooling again.

Public and private schools are still being mandated to keep the children to stay at home and do their classes at home as well.

After a hundred years, like the pandemic, we have come full circle and I'm not entirely unsure that this is not a good thing.


Image Credit: hslda.org