Children learn best about getting along with other people through interaction with those of all ages
No parents would tell their baby, "You may only spend time with those children whose birthdays fall within six months of your own. Here's another two-year-old to play with. You can look at each other, but no talking!"

John Taylor Gatto, New York State Teacher of the Year, contends, "It is absurd to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life."

A child learns best about the world through first-hand experience
No parent would tell her toddler, "Let's put that caterpillar down and get back to your book about caterpillars." Home-schoolers learn directly about the world. Our son describes home-schooling as "learning by doing instead of being taught." Ironically, the most common objection about home-schooling is that children are "being deprived of the real world."

Children need and deserve ample time with their family
Gatto warns us, "Between schooling and television, all the time children have is eaten up. That's what has destroyed the American family." Many home-schoolers feel that family cohesiveness is perhaps the most meaningful benefit of the experience. Just as I saw his first step and heard his first word, I have the honor and privilege of sharing my son's world and thoughts. Over the years, I have discovered more from him about life, learning, and love, than from any other source. Home-schooling is always a two-way street.

Stress interferes with learning
Einstein wrote, "It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion." When a one-year-old falls down while learning to walk, we say, "Good try! You'll catch on soon!" No caring parent would say, "Every baby your age should be walking. You'd better be walking by Friday!"

Most parents understand how difficult it is for their children to learn something when they are rushed, threatened, or given failing grades. John Holt warned that "we think badly, and even perceive badly, or not at all, when we are anxious or afraid... when we make children afraid we stop learning dead in its tracks."

While infants and toddlers teach us many principles of learning, schools have adopted quite different principles, due to the difficulties inherent in teaching a large number of same-age children in a compulsory setting. The structure of school (required attendance, school-selected topics and books, and constant checking of the child's progress) assumes that children are not natural learners, but must be compelled to learn through the efforts of others.

Natural learners do not need such a structure. The success of self-directed learning (home-schoolers regularly outperform their schooled peers on measures of academic achievement, socialization, confidence, and self-esteem) strongly suggests that structured approaches inhibit both learning and personal development.

Home-schooling is one attempt to follow the principles of natural learning, and to help children retain the curiosity, enthusiasm, and love of learning that every child has at birth.

Home-schooling, as Holt writes, is a matter of faith. "This faith is that by nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest.

Extracted from:
www.naturalchild.com