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Comparing Homeschool to Public or Private School

Are you comparing homeschools to public schools?

Interviewer Rob Vail of This Side of the Country Radio Ministry and Harriet Yoder chatted about Comparing Homeschooling to Public or Private Schooling. These mp3 audio files should open automatically.

Transcript: Comparing Homeschooling to Public or Private Schooling

Rob:

How do homeschoolers deal with the fact that they do not have the multimillion-dollar budgets that the school districts do to provide textbooks computer labs and all kinds of things?

How do they deal with that issue?

Harriet:

Well, you have to die to the notion that we’re trying to match public school or private school when we are teaching our children at home. We really at this point can’t compete with their budget. We can’t compete with the ability to download factoids into our children’s’ brains.

That’s not what we’re here for.

We are here first to teach our children to love God and then to teach them to love others. I go back to the verse, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and HIs righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” {Matthew 6:33]

If the first thing we are seeking is to teach our children about God and then to teach them to love others, then all these things which are the academics and the factoids and what they need to know when they grow up to be able to do what God has called them to do will be added unto them.

Sometimes people think that sounds like you are not really into academics. That’s not true at all but that’s not [our] primary focus. In homeschooling what we want to do is teach our children the basics: reading, writing, and arithmetic and then direct them toward their life skills, their life talents, and what God wants them to do. And give them that ability to learn on their own–to learn whatever it is they need to learn.

We’re still learning. I’m still learning, and you’re still learning today. It’s a gift to be able to keep on learning when you are out of school.

Rob:

I guess with the advent of technology and the internet, that a lot of those factoids that we do need to impart to them are a lot more accessible to them.

Harriet:

Exactly, you pointed out with the internet they can get online and find a picture of a tree frog in less than five minutes. That’s an ability that is something that they need to learn. Like you said the gap in closing with that computer encyclopedia and internet capabilities. The gap between the public school libraries and multimedia presentations and what homeschools can offer is narrowing rapidly.

Rob:

I can see where if a student needed to [find] a picture of a tree frog, they can get it when they need it and want it as opposed to waiting for their class half the day to be able to do that. They can work on projects when they have the opportunity.

Harriet:

Which brings up another wonderful point about homeschooling. Like I said before, we want to find out what our child’s talents are. Some people call it their bent–which way are they going. With homeschooling, if they’re musically gifted, you can give them more time to practice their music. If they’re going to be a nuclear physicist, you can arrange their learning to gear them towards being a nuclear physicist. In other words, you give them a lot more math and science than you would a child who is going to be a lawyer.

One of [our children] said she wanted to be a lawyer. I said hey, you need to know vocabulary and Latin words. She was in about third or fourth grade. We found her a curriculum that worked for her.

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