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Here?s a radical idea?

Let?s find a way to bring back the one-room schoolhouse as an alternative to traditional schooling.

There are plenty of places online to discover how many children are currently being homeschooled in the United States.

That number is somewhere around 2 million, or about 3% of the population.

Couple that figure with the percentage (10) of families who have chosen to send their children to private or religious school instead of to the local mainstream school.

With such a large number of American families following a different educational path, the burning question is why?

Also scattered around online are surveys and statistics showing that families homeschool for religions reasons or ?other? reasons, and this distribution is about half and half.

The overarching reason parents choose to spend vast amounts of time, and in the case of private schools, money, to offer their children an alternative education is because deep in their hearts, they believe they owe it to their kids something better than the status quo.

It wasn?t always this way, of course.

Modern institutional schools weren?t prevalent until the mid-1800s. Prior to this time, children were taught in the local one-room schoolhouse.

The group included multiple ages and learning skills with the older pupils helping with the education of the younger children.

The smaller group, the individualized attention and warm sense of community brought together these students for a rich learning experience.

Today, smaller charter schools are the nearest (but not quite) example of the old time one-room schoolhouse outside of homeschooling.

If there were affordable alternatives to institutional schooling and a way to keep classrooms small, even tiny, my guess is there would be a lot more U.S. families choosing to follow this style of education for their children.

I use the term one-room schoolhouse as a catch-all.

A group of dedicated parents who form a co-op and share teaching moments would qualify.

A tiny, low-cost office space that affordably serves families from one small local area is the same thing.

The options are countless.

Shunning the factory-driven traditional schools is not a fad, nor will the number of parents opting out of the ?system? decrease any time soon.

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All of these families are eagerly searching for options. Those who choose homeschooling are strong, determined and willing to spend their time and money to create the most enriching educational environment possible for their children.

 

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