By Staci Fletcher, JH/HS Science and Mathematics
Recently I read an article written by a professor from Ball State University who was curious as to why his top performing students in his chemistry and physics classes were homeschool graduates. To appease his curiosity he did some research on studies completed about such students. Consistently what this professor found was that the homeschool students outperformed all other students from public and private entities. Furthermore he came across a study performed by Canadian scientists which more specifically compared two groups of homeschool students. These two groups were those students who were homeschooled with a "structured" curriculum and those students who were homeschooled with an "unstructured" curriculum. Although the sample used for this study was small, thus making the results insignificant on a grand scale, it is still an outcome to take note of. The results were that the homeschool students in the "structured" group far outperformed the homeschool students in the "unstructured" group.
Why would this article and more specifically, this Canadian study, matter to the Bios community as a whole? It is because this small study does have a very important concept to take note of in the context of our community. I don't think there is much significance in the fact that the homeschool students outperformed their public and private counterparts in the academic realm. I think the significance lies in the framework that was used to teach the best performing homeschool students. That framework having its foundation being a structure of expectations the students were required to meet. I personally put a lot more weight in the results of the Canadian study as compared to most educators. The reason why is because I teach at Bios.
I teach at Bios because I believe strongly in the significance of a "structured" framework for educating our students. Structure which is based on clear goals and expectations for every student every day. I believe this is why day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year we see great gains in each and every child that is in our midst for many of their formative years. So when most would say, from a scientific perspective, the Canadian homeschool study produces results which are barely even conclusive, I would disagree and say the results are definitively conclusive. I would venture to say this because I see the same results year after year in our own Bios community. Our students do outperform many of their counterparts; first, because every child in our community can learn and second, because every child has a structured set of clear goals and expectations they are to meet on a daily basis without fail.
