Public School, Private School, Or Homeschool: That Is The Question

Public school, private school, or homeschool are the current options available for today's parents. With educational statistics proving to be scarier than the latest thriller movie, many parents find themselves losing sleep over choosing the best school option for their family.

There is no such thing as "one size fits all" when it comes to education. It would not be a surprise to learn that mainstream education is failing at equipping our children for life in the real world. Many kids are not only graduating with no idea of what they want to do as an adult, but have no idea how to chase after their dreams. Worse yet, some of these kids cannot read, write, or solve basic mathematical problems. So where should parents look for information to solve their own children's educational needs? In the mirror and around their own dinner table.

Get a Proper Prospective
Take a long look at your children. I recently saw a cartoon that gives a proper perspective to what I'm about to share. Imagine an educational system represented by a person sitting behind a desk addressing a group of 8 different animals. The person declares that in order to maintain a fair evaluation that all students would be required to take the same "standard test". He addresses the group and says their test will be for each one of them to simply climb the tree behind them.

The issue? The group is: an excited monkey, a penguin, a snake, a toucan, an elephant, a shark, a kangaroo, and a dog.
See the problem?

I say study your kids. Each one is so uniquely knit together that quite honestly, you are the best judge as to how they need to be taught. Some kids will absolutely flourish in a public school/standardized testing environment (like the excited monkey in the cartoon), however some kids will wither away in the same environment. The same is true for any educational environment.

Unless the uniqueness of the child is taken into account, any setting will likely miss the mark and cause the child to miss out in reaching their full potential.
So I say again, study your child.

What makes them tick? What is their learning style? What are their interests? What subjects or activities make their hearts skip a beat?

Once you know the answers to these kinds of questions you can look at different educational settings and wisely choose the best option for each of your kids. If you skip this step, you are banking on luck to land on your child's side.

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