日趨增長的美國家庭教育

教育，貫穿人的一生，一向都是熱點話題。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的興起和蓬勃發(fā)展，使得人們獲取信息和知識的方式更趨多元化且越加方便，這無疑給傳統(tǒng)的學校教育帶來諸多挑戰(zhàn)。傳統(tǒng)的學校教育發(fā)展到今天，在開發(fā)人的潛能、創(chuàng)造力等方面一直飽受爭議。于是，一些人漸漸把目光聚焦于更有針對性的“家庭教育”。例如，國內(nèi)著名的“童話大王”鄭淵潔就直接對學校教育說“no”，幫兒子辦了退學手續(xù)，在家自己編教材、當老師，做得不亦樂乎。

父母是孩子人生的第一任老師，家庭教育對孩子的影響極其深遠。不過，目前在國內(nèi)，家庭教育更多局限于學前教育時期。而在美國，家庭教育已成為獨立于學校教育之外的另一種教育模式，其涵蓋范圍遠遠超過學前教育。這種新趨勢引人注目，值得探究一番。 ——Maisie

The first thing you notice about Karen Allen’s house is that it is spotless. Even in her teenage boys’ bedrooms， not a thing is out of place. And her boys， Thomas and Taylor， are polite and 2)engaging. The Allens are home-schoolers. Instead of sending their children to a public (non-fee-paying) or private school， they teach them at home. A generation ago， home-schooling was rare and， in many states， illegal. Now， according to the Department of Education， there are roughly 1.5m home-schooled students in America， a number that has doubled in a decade. That is about 3% of the school-age population.

Why do people teach their children at home? Many of the earliest were 3)hippies who thought public schools 4)repressive and 5)ungroovy. Now they are far more likely to be religious conservatives. At a public school， says Mrs. Allen， her boys would get neither much individual attention nor any Christian instruction. At home they get plenty of both.

In a 2007 survey by the Department of Education， 88% of home-schooling parents said that their local public schools were unsafe， drug-6)ridden or 7)unwholesome in some way. Some 73% complained of 8)shoddy academic standards. And 83% said they wanted to instill religious or moral values in their children.

Those who teach at home are passionate about it. They have to be: it is a huge undertaking. One parent， usually the mother， drops out of the workforce and devotes her life to teaching. The family must 9)subsist on a single income while still paying the taxes that 10)finance public schools. Home-schooling is not for the 11)faint-hearted.

“It becomes a lifestyle，” says Mrs. Allen. She teaches her boys English， history and Bible studies. Maths comes on a DVD. When they go shopping， she teaches them economics. On holiday in Alaska， they made 12)moulds of a wolf’s paw print， a “science adventure”.

Not all home-schoolers 13)shun the public schools for religious reasons. Anne Mitchell， for example， pulled her son Gordon out because she did not like the way his school dealt with his 14)cerebral palsy. Rather than helping him to do things himself， it assigned a helper to follow him around and do everything for him. A tenth of home-schooling parents say that one of their children has a physical or mental problem that the local school cannot or will not 15)accommodate. And some parents teach at home because their children are brilliant and public school fails to 16)stretch them. American public schools are rigidly 17)secular. Private schools are expensive. For parents who want their children to grow up relatively unexposed to doubt or 18)indecent 19)lunchroom 20)chatter， home-schooling offers hope.

Opponents of home-schooling—and some of them are 21)vehement—argue that it is socially divisive. Also， since it is regulated lightly or not at all， it is hard to tell whether children being taught at home are receiving an adequate education. “Unregulated home-schooling opens up the possibility that children will never learn about…alternative ways of life，” writes Rob Reich of22)Stanford University.

But parents make no apology for 23)shielding their children from what they see as bad influences. They 24)hotly deny that children learn better social skills on a school playground than at home. The children we met in Georgia were confident， 25)gregarious and socialised a lot， 26)albeit mostly with families doing the same thing. They were also at ease with friends of different ages. Public-school kids， by contrast， live in an “age-27)segregated herd”， scoffs Michael Farris， the 28)chancellor of 29)Patrick Henry College， a Christian university in Virginia most of whose students were taught at home.

Whether teaching at home yields better or worse academic results than the conventional sort is impossible to say. Its 30)boosters argue that one-on-one instruction helps children learn， and point to the 31)striking number of home-schooled children who win debating contests and 32)spelling bees. A study of 20，000 home-schooled students in 1998 by Lawrence Rudner of the 33)University of Maryland found that they scored well above average in academic tests， and subsequent studies have found similar results. This is impressive， but does not prove that the method is superior. Parents who teach at home are deeply involved in their children’s education， and the children of such parents do well in normal schools， too.

Some states try to regulate home-schooling. Twenty-six require parents to provide regular test scores or professional evaluations of their children’s progress. Of these， six， concentrated in the north-east， require much more， such as the use of approved curriculums or home visits by bureaucrats. Fourteen states demand only that parents tell the authorities that they are home-schooling. And ten do not regulate it at all. Some children taught at home， undoubtedly， receive a poor education. But so do many children in public schools.

The 34)movement will probably continue to grow. For one thing， it is getting easier. The Internet lets parents discover teaching materials and communicate with each other， 35)swapping tips online. They lobby vigorously against anything that might 36)cramp their freedom. Moreover， having Barack Obama in the White House may cause more people to pull their children out of public schools， predicts Mr. Farris. Views of the government are 37)coloured by views of the president， he says， even though the president has little control over education. And Mr. Obama is far too liberal for most of America’s home-schoolers.

在凱倫·艾倫的家中，你注意到的第一件事就是那一塵不染的家居。連她兩個十幾歲的兒子的房間里也沒有一件東西是亂擺亂放的。她的兩個兒子托馬斯和泰勒，彬彬有禮且可愛迷人。艾倫一家是家庭教育實踐者。他們不把自己的孩子送去公立(免費的)或者私立學校，相反，他們在自己的家里教育孩子。約二三十年以前，家庭教育還很少見，而且在很多州屬于違法。而現(xiàn)在，據(jù)美國教育部的數(shù)據(jù)，在美國接受家庭教育的學生大概有150萬，這個數(shù)字十年來翻了一番。其人數(shù)大約是學齡人口的3%。

為什么人們要在家里教育孩子呢?最早的實踐者中很多都是嬉皮士，他們認為公立學校壓抑而糟糕。……