Teenagers and Homeschooling

I have to say, I really did enjoy doing my research paper. It was really interesting, and I learned some things I was not expecting. As I was doing all of my reading, homeschooling kept popping into my head. Although I did mention school in the paper, I didn't talk about homeschooling because the argument was just about teenagers in general, and I didn't want it to turn out as a "Public School Vs. Homeschool" thing. But even though homeschooling wasn't the focus of my paper, as I was reading more about the way teens develop and learn, and the problems they sometimes have, I found myself thinking "This wouldn't be a problem if they were homeschooled," or "Homeschooling would probably improve that a lot, too."

For example, as it turns out, teenagers are much more sensitive to the influence of their peers than adults are. Teens are very capable and while they may be able to make good decisions by themselves, when they're with their friends they tend to make much poorer choices. So this of course made me think of traditional schools, where students spend almost all of their time with people their own age. In a homeschool setting, students don't spend as much time with peers, and so I would guess that they would be better able to make good decisions.

Also, it seems, not surprisingly, that teenagers who are given more responsibilities tend to be more responsible. One thing that I've heard from homeschool teens quite frquently is that they have to do a lot of their work on their own. I've also heard other people, such as college professors, say that their formerly homeschool students tend to be much more independant workers. I have experienced this, too, because I have three younger siblings who need my mom's help and so most of the time I am left to do my school work on my own. This seems to be characteristic of homeschooling, and I think it is something that does help students become more independant and responsible.

I just thought this was interesting, because I did not think about homeschooling at all when I first started the research for my paper.