Recently, the topic of Formal Education VS Home-schooling has sparked my interest. Not only because I am a student but also because the future of students in the current education system is at stake.
As Albert Einstein once said,
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
Do you remember better after homeschooling or formal education? For this, we will have to take a look at what the differences are.
What is the difference?
1. Learning pace
Home-schooling enables one to learn concepts at their own pace, whether it be fast or slow. In contrast to that, a formal education in school does not provide a self-paced environment. Students have to meet deadlines for tests, assignments and examinations, which does not give them enough time to grasp the knowledge at hand. In addition to that, you will come across various kinds of teachers — mean, kind, strict, unbothered etc. Adjusting to this is a tiresome task and slow process. Homeschooling skips this and allows a student to study in a convenient environment at home.
2. Practicality
Home-schooling provides application based learning. Learning from home pushes one to explore the subject even more as textual information acts as the bare minimum to its real world applications. Meanwhile, schools just focus on the bare minimum with little to no efforts on the application aspect.
3. Attainment of goals
With interests and goals in mind, one can aim for the type of education they require. This fastens the attainment of goals. On the other hand, an educational system hinders the attainment of goals as there are several unwanted subjects to cover and learn. In addition to that, students need to prepare for tests and examinations in order to move up to higher classes. This further slows down the learning process, making it less goal-friendly and more grade-friendly. Furthermore, most of the students have a competitive mindset in order to score more marks. This is where the focus of a student shifts from learning for the sake of knowledge and implementation to learning for grades.
4. Pathway
One good thing about schools is that it provides us with structured content in a silver spoon. Although home-schooling does not provide this, the internet has made it possible for home-schoolers to check the grade-wise syllabus online and structure their learning process accordingly. It helps them to separate the relevant content from the irrelevant and generate a unique pathway for themselves. Moreover, they get more time to spend on implementing their knowledge in the real world. (Some students might still find it difficult to make sense out of the structured content provided online. In that case, hiring a mentor or seeking out their parents’ help for guidance is essential.)
5. Creativity
In a formal education, one has almost no medium to unleash their creativity. Schools provide activities and competitions to showcase things you are good at. But not all activities and competitions suit an individual’s interests. On the other hand, home-schooling itself is creativity. It starts with creating and charting your own roadmap, which further leads one to focus on the implementation aspect of learning. Through homeschooling, one has more than enough time on their hand to create ideas and build projects they are interested in.
My Personal experience as a student
I am a student who graduated from a well-renowned high school two months back. So I suppose this should be enough proof for me to talk about where the position of the educational system lies nowadays.
As a student, I have a clear view of how formal educational systems work nowadays and what kind of impact do they have on the mindset of a student. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I spent my last two years of high school studying online, which means the unavailability of activities and clubs hosted by students. What this means is that the school had nothing else to offer other than the subjects/courses that I had opted in for. This kind of educational learning showed me the relevance of what I was actually learning inside-out. So let us start one-by-one and go subject-by-subject.
1. English
Just learned two things — sentence structures and paragraph(essay) structuring. Even my little brother is familiar with all of these topics. I spent two years rote learning useless formats that I am never going to utilise.
2. Physics
Honestly, I found it to be quite interesting! Found Electronics and Modern physics to be the most relevant topics in last year of high school. Remaining topics were totally based on classical physics, which were understandable, but there were barely any opportunities provided by the school to implement and showcase what we had learned. The school just followed the normal routine where they made us do practical examinations in the lab for MARKS. Yes, you read that right! PRACTICAL examinations for MARKS. We were told to follow a pattern of steps to achieve the result and obtain equivalent grades for them. How stupid is that! When you are forcefully made to do experiments that least interest you. All these tests and experiments for grades.
3. Chemistry
Absolutely horrendous! Improper structuring of content and taught no applications of topics like organic chemistry, coordination compounds etc. Utter waste of time.
4. Mathematics
Teacher matters. Just like in home-schooling where you are the best teacher for yourself, in a formal school, having a good teacher makes a huge difference. My math teacher actually taught us the relevance (applications) of the content we were learning. This impacted the way I looked at math and led me to explore the course content outside the classroom environment. After I finished high school, not only did I have the theoretical knowledge but also a practical understanding (through numerous projects) of topics such as Matrices, Vectors, Calculus, Induction, Statistics etc. If only the education system had more teachers like him, schools could be a great alternative to homeschooling. Unfortunately, most of the teachers have limited time as they need to teach us how to earn good grades.
5. Computer Science
Procrastinated for a year! I found the content to be absolutely rubbish. There was so much irrelevant stuff included that could not only confuse a newbie but also make an experienced programmer think twice. I will never forget the day my cousin introduced me to Codecademy and DataCamp. Because of that, not only was I able to cover up and master the procrastinated content within 1 month but also ace the examinations with barely any preparation. In addition to that, I was able to learn advanced level topics (outside of the school syllabus) that interested me. This showed me how slow and inefficient the school process is, which led me to utilise the self-learning approach for the rest of my computer science journey.
No one would want to go to school if they’re spending a considerable amount of time, only to find 2–3 things (or nothing) valuable. Yet, we see people struggling to accept the reality. What is causing this to happen?
Causes:
- Myths about admissions
Many parents are worried about admissions to universities/colleges after high school. They think higher grades=better admissions. Although that is partially true, universities accept home-schooled students as well. Home-schooled students give the same certified final exams as the students in school, so they’re actually at par. In fact, top universities do not even care about grades that much nowadays. Their applications are more focused on how defined you are as a person and what kind of activities you have been involved in. As long as you are able to truly express your learnings, nothing can stop you.
2. Job applications
In today’s era, companies do not even see your high school marks. Some of them require your university degree and some do not even ask for one! All they need is skills and what value you can provide them with. Clearly, after all those comparisons, we can definitely make sure that the home-schooling approach has an upper-hand in terms of gaining relevant knowledge as well as practical experience. So as long as you have the skillset for a specific task, nobody can stop you.
Conclusion
Lastly, I would like to say that I believe in education more than anything else. It is definitely important in one’s life. But the way it is delivered in today’s world is absolutely biased to certain professions like doctors, engineers, lawyers etc. Everyone is different and it is extremely important for today’s formal educational systems to acknowledge it in order to restructure and deliver quality education to everyone.
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