Small Businesses, Home Schooling

Although I respect the dedication of those parents who choose to home-school their children (“Home Schooling--The Best Education,” Voices Platforms, Sept. 28), I am always saddened by their decision. I have spent most of my life in the public school system--as a student and for the last eight years as a high school teacher--and, quite honestly, I believe in it.

The complaints against public schools voiced by home school advocates are reasonable: large classrooms, undisciplined students, the risk of indoctrination by teachers with hidden agendas. But the benefits of public education outweigh these potential concerns.

First, an educator is a specialist, trained by theory and practice how best to help students learn.

Second, attendance at a public school teaches a child important life skills which a home school cannot provide: the discipline required to get up, dress and leave for school on time; the confidence and esteem necessary to speak to adults other than one’s parents; the ability to interact with other children, to resolve conflicts, and the need to be tolerant of students from different races and religions.

Finally, public education exposes children to a variety of ideas. Many would argue that this is its primary flaw, but actually it is a great strength.

Parental participation in their children’s education is essential. I would only encourage those who home-school to consider investing their effort in the public school system--to volunteer in their children’s classrooms, to help them with their homework, and, as they reach the upper grades, to discuss with them those controversial ideas to which they have been exposed. A student would then have the best of both worlds, and we, no doubt, would have a better one.

SHARON SPIERS, San Juan Capistrano