Homeschooling
Education is an essential and determines the future of every child. In order to give children a bright future and a good education, parents must choose the best type of schooling for their children. The main education systems are public school, private school and homeschool. Homeschooling is led and managed by parents and public school is led by the government and qualified teachers. The real question is, which is better? While homeschooling has its benefits, public schooling is superior because it prepares children and teens for the real world in many ways. People may believe that homeschooling is better because of negative influence and effects from public schools; however, it is better for children to be exposed to certain things early on than later in life. Taking the time to learn about the benefits and outcomes of public school over homeschool is important. Public schooling is cheaper, reflects the real world, and prepares young individuals for future obstacles which may occur.
Financial Basis
To start off, public schooling is funded by the government which makes it more affordable than homeschooling. The government guarantees all children education, no matter the financial status. However, there are private schools that can be very expensive; the most common education systems are public schooling and homeschooling. Reporter Amy Esbenshade Hebert, explained that “Whatever the advantages of home-schooling, saving money isn’t necessarily one of them. Add up the expense on books, curricula, tutors, field trips — not to mention the loss of a second income if one parent becomes the full-time teacher — and the cost of home-schooling can easily rival paying private-school tuition” (Herbert, 2007, p. 88). For public school, normally, buying supplies once or twice a year is required. But for homeschool, spending an abundant amount on the curriculum alone, not to mention textbooks and supplies including wifi and a device or computer are essential. There are costs associated with both education systems, but homeschool is distinctly more expensive than public school. Although some people might complain about the added expenses of supplies and participation in athletics, public schooling are still much more budget friendly than homeschooling.
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Availability and Diversity
In addition, public schools provide access of an education for any child no matter academic performance, income level or disability. Public schools ensure that every student has the same opportunities regardless. Given that any child is admitted, they are likely to have classmates that do not act, think, or look like them. The diversity of classmates can be a great learning experience. It exposes children to different cultures and attributes. While there is not much exposure to the diversity with homeschooled, many homeschooling programs offer dual enrollment. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education stated that
In some states, homeschooled students participate in public school athletics alongside other students. In other states, they are banned from participating. In other states, homeschooled students are barred from participation in public school athletics. The trend in recent years has been towards allowing participation, and the states are today split fairly evenly down the middle on the issue. (¨Homeschool¨, 2018, para. 1)
Although this has good points as to why and how public schooling programs are available, not all homeschooling programs have this option available in certain areas and it is not always the best economical choice.
Socialization
Furthermore, conventional schooling and homeschooling both offer their own respective advantages in preparing children for the social demands of the real, adult world. It is possible to become socially well adjusted through private schooling and homeschooling. However, it is challenging and encompassing part of a child’s formative years. Public school is a major place where kids learn to socialize, how to behave around their peers and teachers, and how to generally just communicate and interact well. Students have the ability ability to interact with people of diverse ages and beliefs. Contrarily, Calvert Education explains,
For one thing, homeschoolers do not have the same exposure to peer pressure and bullying, both of which are tied to poorer academic performance and lower self-esteem. Parents often decide to homeschool because they do not want their child’s values to be defined by their peers or for their children to face social ridicule or bullying. In private or public schools, the pressure to “fit in” or achieve a perceived level of social status among classmates can be quite great. (“Homeschooling” 2017, Homeschool Socialization Sect. para. 2-3)
As much as I would agree that these are possible disadvantages of public school, every person will go through some type of pressure or negative things in his or her lifetime. Public schooling is a way to become familiar of the real world and be exposed to problems and certain circumstances. Bullying and social ridicule are very negative and can result in many outcomes; however, they are real and whether someone is homeschooled or not, they will or may face negative circumstances in their lifetime. With the experience of public schooling, individuals may be able to handle it differently and react differently than people who are homeschooled. Experience is a number one factor that can change how someone reacts to, copes with, and manages a situation. Homeschooling limits children’s interaction with others, as well as it limits their contact and association with diverse individuals.
Environment
In addition, the main difference between homeschooling and public schooling is the environment. In homeschooling, there are no distractions because children are studying at their own risk. David R. Hodge stated, “for instance, the most widely cited reason by parents which accounted for 88% of all homeschooled students was concern about school environments and the associated detrimental effects related to substance use, peer pressure, etc” (Hodge, 2017, p. 274). Parents feel that the public school environment is dangerous and will cause their child to rebel. Also that it may teach a different set of values and beliefs than what parents believe and want to instill in their child. In a homeschooling setting, parents are able to watch over their child, help them develop, and teach them morals. Homeschooling provides students with a calm, safe, and comfortable environment. However, even though public school classrooms do not always have the same calm and peaceful atmosphere, the disarray of the classrooms is helpful to children. This is because, in reality, the real world is not so calm and peaceful. Therefore, the children who live sheltered and preserved from real life are the ones who commonly have difficulty adjusting to reality. It is necessary for children to learn to interact and work with one another to build the dynamic skills needed for the real world. Both homeschool and public school provide helpful opportunities for children to learn, but public school is more impactful in assuring a children’s future success and adjustment to the real world.
Education
Lastly, public schools provide children with certified teachers who are committed educators. Where in homeschooling, children are taught by their parents who only need a highschool diploma or G.E.D. to homeschool. Parents do not have the same level of education or experience as teachers. As well as, parents have to be fully dedicated to their child’s’ education for them to succeed. Many parents have jobs; therefore, balancing a job while trying to educate their children can be difficult. In addition, while parents are directly involved in the education of their children, it may be difficult to teach certain subject without experience. Therefore, homeschoolers may have to invest in a tutor or educational professional for support which defeats the whole purpose of homeschooling. Although homeschooling may teach a student to become more independent and do things on his or her own, it is not always best to just rely on oneself. Tara Jones expresses that “it may be that home-educating parents have more opportunities to be influential, supportive and encouraging in their children’s education as well as having more control and power over their children’s learning” (Jones, 2013, p. 117). However, she also contraversed that “home-educating families argue that they are not able to access the funding and services that schools have in order to educate their children” (Jones, 2013, p. 118). Therefore, even though homeschooling allows parents to have more jurisdiction and opportunities for their children, many may struggle to provide his or her child with services and education the education they need.
Conclusion
To conclude, public schooling has its advantages financially, socially, environmentally, and educationally. However, it is important that both the advantages and disadvantages of public schooling and homeschooling are taken into account. Homeschooling can have a more direct role on a child’s daily learning and help protect a child from bullying or other negatives aspects of reality. As well as, being in a friendly environment, having less distraction from students, and becoming more self motivated and independent are all aspects of homeschooling. However, children lose out on social interaction with peers while homeschooled.
In addition, fewer resources such as technology that may be available in public school are not provided and with parents having to dedicate time and money to homeschooling it can result in a loss of income or reduced working time. Not only do students that are homeschooled miss out on the interaction with peers and diversity of people, they lack the real world experiences which are the reasons why parents decide to homeschool their children in the first place. With homeschooling, parents or people in general are afraid of the negativity that is exposed to children in public schools. This includes, bullying, violence, peer pressure, and many other negatives influences. Furthermore, while homeschooling can provide a wide variety of courses and curriculums that are not available with public school, homeschooling is much more expensive than the traditional government funded public school. Whether the differences between homeschooling and public schooling it all comes down to each parent’s learning goals for their children.
Homosexuality: Where Does It Come From? Where Does It Go?
Roughly ninety-four to ninety-eight percent of men and ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of women have a primary orientation towards heterosexuality. If any likelihood of lowering successful reproduction would be selected against by nature why is homosexuality a thing that exists in the world? One explanation of this would be the kin altruism theory by Edward Osborne Wilson in 1975. This theory would suggest that genes for homosexual orientation could have been evolved if they led homosexuals to invest heavily in their genetic relatives to offset the cost of not directly reproducing. This was proven wrong by David Bobrow and J. Michael Bailey in 2001. They found that gay men did not differ from heterosexual men when funneling resources towards kin and they found that gay men were more estranged from their genetic relatives. This would suggest the opposite of the kin altruism theory. Another theory that supports homosexuality is the female fertility hypothesis.
This hypothesis suggests that the genes for male homosexuals can be evolved if they increase reproductive rights in female relatives. This happens by having more male relatives around causing the boyfriend of the female relatives to experience sperm competition which would cause the males to produce more sperm and increase the likelihood of the female to reproduce. In 2009, Francesca Lemmola and Andrea Camperio Ciani found that, in fact, female relatives of gay males produced significantly more offspring than female relatives of heterosexual males. Another theory that supports that existence of homosexuality is the alliance formation theory made by Frank Muscarella in 2000. This theory suggests that male homoerotic behavior by young men with older men provides a strategy for gaining more resources and higher social status and ultimately giving them a greater excess to reproducing with women. Although, there is no evidence that young men who form these alliances with older men succeed more than those that do not form alliances. (BUSS, 2016, pg. 151)
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Mate Preferences
These theories help us understand why homosexuality exists, but how do homosexuals choose their mates? In an article published online on April 4th in the journal Behavior, Howard Russock of the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences studied the differences in mate preferences in heterosexual and homosexuals. (Brill, 2011) In Howard Russock’s study of 800 personal ads from print and online media to determine the mate selection criteria of heterosexual and homosexuals, Russock found that heterosexual males prefer younger mates, cared about attractiveness less often, and were more committed and sought resources less often than heterosexual females. Homosexual females differed from heterosexual females by the same four criteria in the same way as homosexual males, this would suggest that homosexual males differ from heterosexual males in only that heterosexual males seek attractiveness more than homosexual males and the fact that they offer fewer resources. In conclusion of the study, homosexual males valued attractiveness more than heterosexual males because they were unaffected by female sexual strategies.
Homosexual males were also found to provide resources less than heterosexual males in relationships. Homosexual females were similar to homosexual males in their differing from heterosexual males and females in the same four criteria that the males were assessed in. (Russock, 2011) Another study that supports this is the study by Kyle L. Gobrogge, Patrick S. Perkins, Jessica H. Baker, Kristen D. Balcer, S. Marc Breedlove, and Kelly L. Klump. This study was composed of two groups of internet ads that were placed on lavalife.com, they recorded the reactions of people to the two different ad groups, they found that Russock was correct in his finding of the differences between heterosexual and homosexual males and females, further supporting his statement that homosexual and heterosexual males and females only differ in two categories. (Gobrogge et al., 2007)
Parental Investment
These theories give us an understanding of why homosexuality exist but what are the consequences of its existence. A parent having a child that is homosexual is reported to invest less in the child’s development and is more likely to abuse or neglect the child which may hinder or stunt the child’s growth. This can be caused because parents will view the kids as not being as useful since they are unable to carry on the parent’s genes so, the parents will not view their homosexual child as successful and will be more likely to neglect or even harm their child. This is supported by the parental investment theory because, as the theory states, the parents don’t want to waste any time or investments on a child that cannot carry on their genes. Because of this, they will neglect or even abandon the child so they can put their time and resources towards another child that will be able to carry on their genes. A study by Evans R. B (1969) found that homosexual male and females were often accepted less than other siblings especially by the father and were emotionally distant to both parents when compared to their heterosexual siblings. This led to increased suicide rates in homosexual children due to the increased emotional and physical abuse many of them endured. This increased rate was found to directly correlate to the parent’s ability to identify their child’s sexuality. When the parent was able to identify the child’s sexuality easier it led to an increase in the emotional and physical abuse of the child. This was particularly strong for biological mothers, and for biological fathers who were still contributing to the child’s development.
Robert Trivers found that parents often disputed over the allocation of resources due to differences in genetic interest, this allocation of resources is known as parental investment and is defined as “any investment by a parent to an offspring that increases the offspring’s chances of survival and reproductive success, at the expense of the parent’s ability to invest elsewhere, including in other offspring.” (Trivers, 1972) When parents detect homosexuality in their offspring they often decrease the resources that are available to the child and they decrease their investment to them. In a “normal” heterosexual family the cost for supporting the child outweighs the burden on the parents slower than in a homosexual child where the cost to support the child could be considered to outweigh the cost to the parent much faster, thus causing the parent to stop supporting the homosexual child faster than a heterosexual child. (Trivers, 1974)
Parent-Offspring Conflict
When the child detects this change in the parents’ behavior they often attempt suicidal acts in an attempt to regain the parent’s involvement this is supported by the parent-offspring conflict. These attempts have caused an outcry in the United States and around the world to increase awareness for homosexuality and other sexuality in an attempt to increase the support that these communities receive from their family and community. The increase in the awareness of homosexuality has helped to decrease the suicide rate among homosexual children. By increasing the acceptance of the children’s sexuality by their parents, the difference in resource allocation between the homosexual and the heterosexual siblings is minimized. Sexuality is often a disputed and touchy subject in many cultures and societies across the world. Some view sexuality as a choice that people choose to make when they ‘decide’ to like a certain gender, while many others have come to accept that sexuality is not a choice and that it is, in fact, a trait that is beyond our control. This change in sexuality in males can be evolved if they increase reproductive rights in female relatives. Sexuality is a cause of conflict between parents and children as many parents divert some of their resources from the homosexual children to the heterosexual children enforcing the parent investment theory. A consequence of this is the increased suicide rates in homosexuals. Sexuality exists in the world due to our genetics and is completely uncontrollable, our response to this is also genetic however and many parents do not realize they are reacting to their child’s sexuality in a negative way.
Now that we know this information we are able to make a life for homosexuals easier. If the parents know that homosexuality is normal and that it cannot be controlled. Just because there is a homosexual child in the family does not necessarily mean that the genes will not be passed on. One thing that I would like to do is to research the fertility theory to see if, in fact, genes for male homosexuals can be evolved if they increase reproductive rights in female relatives by having more male relatives around causing the boyfriend of the female relatives to experience sperm competition which would cause the males to produce more sperm and increase the likelihood of the female to reproduce. This will show that having a homosexual child doesn’t mean that they can’t pass on the parent’s genes. Hopefully, parents will think of their homosexual children as a successful gene “passer” and will treat them the right way and that will decrease the number of suicides and the amount of abuse between the parents and homosexual children.
References
- Brill. (2011, April 11). Evolutionary interpretation of how gender and sexual orientation affect human mate selection preferences. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 13, 2019, Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110411084330.htm
- BUSS, D. (2016). EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY. 5th ed. 711 Third Ave, New York, NY 10017: ROUTLEDGE, p.151.
- Gobrogge, K., Perkins, P., Baker, J., Balcer, K., Breedlove, M., & Klump, K. (2007). Homosexual Mating Preferences from an Evolutionary Perspective: Sexual Selection Theory Revisited [Ebook]. Springer Science+Business Media. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.515.9009&rep=rep1&type=pdf
- Russock, H. (2011). An evolutionary interpretation of the effect of gender and sexual orientation on human mate selection preferences, as indicated by an analysis of personal advertisements. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/23034195?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
- Trouton, G. Factors Influencing Parental Investment: Does Parental Financial Allocation Vary As A Function Of Perceived Child Sexual Orientation? [PDF]. New York. Retrieved from https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/61399/Grant_Trouton_Thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=yquence=1&isAllowed=y
- Trivers, R. (1974). Parent-Offspring Conflict [Ebook]. Cambridge: American Zoological Society. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/icb/article/14/1/249/2066733
