We’re All Home Schoolers

Messiah College professor Milton Gaither, author of Homeschool: An American History, reviewing a study of the effectiveness of the Building Strong Families parent education program:

…this study serves as a good reminder that “home schooling” doesn’t have to mean a mother teaching her own children in the kitchen as an alternative to formal schooling. For centuries the home has been used by private tutors, circuit-riding teachers, clergy, and, as this study reminds us, extension agents and social workers, to offer education to family members, both children and adults. Today’s homes are if anything even more important in the educational ecosystem of most Americans….the home is the location of so many of the commonplace educational practices in which so many engage — adults taking correspondence or online courses, living room reading circles, “cell groups,” a good documentary or quiz show on television–one could multiply examples. When thought of like this we’re all home schoolers in one way or another.