Introduction
The debate about formal schooling and home schooling has become the talk of the day in the United States of America. Some people strongly feel that the formal model of schooling is better than the recent invention of home schooling. With all these differences, it is clear that both systems have benefits and at the same time, they have shortcomings. Seemingly, the debate is bound to continue since everyday each side comes up with a better argument in support of their opinion. This research will lay out facts and reasonable advantages to prove that formal education is what the Americans need as opposed to home schooling.
Body
One of the most spelt out advantage of formal schooling is the daily basis routine that a student has to consign to. This is the biggest lesson that the student get to learn and understand. Just like in school, life outside school is basically a routine especially in the working environment (Smith). The routine schedules prepare a student for the future in the sense that they are already used to the norm. Waking up early every morning and coming from school in the evening is the perfect training on life skills. Students are exposed to the reality of living with deadlines which is the normal way of life in the job market. The exams and position on merit is a very important aspect of formal education as the students learn about competition. This creates a desire in the student to get ahead of the rest and hence they get to learn on how to compete. Formal schooling also provides the students with the advantage of “physical education, music and art” (Kerry).
In the formal schooling setup, there is an aspect of goal setting as the schools set goals and teach the students how reach their goals. This is a skill that students carry on even in their individual life. Setting goals and striving to reach them is a skill that is very beneficial to a person’s growth. Learning this skill in a tender age makes an individual get better and better as he or she grows up to become an adult. Most of the home schooling supporters argue that formal schooling exposes students to dangers. These accusations if closely observed are implausible and a false impression. While there may be a few instances of students being unsafe in formal schools, home schooling has presented the most vulnerable situations for sexual harassment (Kerry). Frequent cases have been report of private tutors taking advantage of the young students entrusted to them by unsuspecting parents.
There are so many other dangerous and harmful activities that a child left under the care of a tutor can be prone to which are rare cases in a formal schooling system. Drugs for instance are prohibited in schools and students are less likely to be in possession of such prohibited substances. Home schooling does not provide for such prohibitive measures therefore the student is not under strict surveillance. This exposes him or her to drug abuse. Formal schooling also gives the student an added advantage of receiving training from qualified personnel hence increase chances for better performance. This is not true for most of the home schooling programs where the parent doubles up as the tutor. Unless the parents are qualified teachers, they may not be in a position to produce a better performing student as the trained teachers would do.
Rebuttal
The notion that formal schooling is inadequate and not good enough for America is not realistic. The advantages provided by formal schooling are far much advantageous compared to home schooling. In addition, as pointed out in the discussion above, home schooling exposes the students to many dangers as compared to formal schooling. Arguing that formal schooling makes student incompetent is another farfetched notion that cannot be true. In fact, home schooling is known to be the most incompetent system as most of the tutors are not qualified for the job. This leads the student to perform poorly and sometimes to misinterpretation of information confusing them. Formal schooling is the ideal system for the United States of America to adopt and uphold as it has been working for a long time. The students produced from the system exhibit life skills that the home schooled student do not have.
Conclusion
My opinion concerning whether or not the Americans need the formal education is that they do. The last thing the education system needs is mediocrity especially in times of such development rate as now (Gatto). Other countries are working towards establishing educational systems that would work and by undermining the already working system, America will be loosing to other nations. There is need however to update the syllabus to conform to worldly requirements and standards. Customizing the syllabus to address the needs in the job market should be the major concern currently. The country should support the formal schooling system and every parent should be encouraged to enroll his or her children in this system to cease the advantages therein.
Works Cited
Gatto, John Taylor. “The Public School Nightmare: Why fix a system designed to destroy individual thought?” Cthomeschoolnetwork. 2003. Web.
Kerry, Shaun. “The First Rule Of Education Should Be: Do No Harm.” Education Reform.net. 2002. Web.
Smith, Mark. “Informal and non-formal education, colonialism and development.” Infed.org. 2001. Web.