14

Homeschooling – The Choice and the

Consequences
Ari Neuman and Aharon Aviram

Homeschooling in Israel

During the last few hundred years, education has been the duty of the
state which, with the help of legislation such as the Law for Compulsory
Education and the establishment of a state education system, has ensured
that the vast majority of children attend school.
During the last few decades, the accelerating crisis in education together
with increased dissatisfaction with the education system itself that has been
felt by various stakeholders (Aviram, 1999, 2003; Sarason, 1990) has been
accompanied by a bourgeoning phenomenon in the western world known
as homeschooling, in which parents choose to educate their children at
home rather than sending them to school. (Hiatt, 1994; Kunzman and
Gaither, 2013; Meighan, 1997; Ray, 2011; Tyack, 1980).
Homeschooling can be regarded as part of a trend toward increased
parental involvement in the education of their children, or it can actually
be regarded as the ultimate form of parental involvement in a child’s educa-
tion. As concern and dissatisfaction with the education system increase,
parents are electing to be more involved in their children’s education. This
increased concern may take the form of greater involvement in the educa-
tional institutes where their children are studying (for example, requesting
and receiving information from the school, participating in school commit-
tees, accompanying the children on school trips and even being active
participants in setting school policy). This concern may also include estab-
lishing alternative educational frameworks or making the choice to home
school (Neuman and Guterman, 2013).
This phenomenon is also being experienced in Israel. During recent
decades, parental involvement in their children’s education increased as
have reports of parents educating their children at home. These reports
clearly show that the number of parents choosing to homeschool has
increased. However, it is difficult to accurately gauge the exact number of
families who are homeschooling because it is assumed that at least some of

211
P. Rothermel (ed.), International Perspectives on Home Education
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2015
212 Ari Neuman and Aharon Aviram

the families have not notified the authorities that their children are being
homeschooled. (On this matter also see Lines, 1987, 1996; Natale, 1992;
Avner, 1989).
Legislation in Israel makes education compulsory for children aged 3 to
18. Children in this age group are required to regularly and systematically
attend school. In the past, families seeking to homeschool their children in
Israel were obliged to submit their request to the Minister of Education and
to receive an exemption from the requirements of the Law for Compulsory
Education. However, the increased number of families seeking to home-
school created a need for the development of regulations that specifically
address the homeschooling option. In 2003, the Ministry of Education in
Israel issued a series of regulations which were intended to regulate this
aspect of education.
Nowadays, homeschooling is a legal option in Israel, and families wanting
to homeschool in this country are required to submit a request to be
exempted from the requirements of the Law for Compulsory Education. In
addition to other documents required for this request, the families must
also submit a detailed syllabus. The exemption request is then considered
by the relevant district committee in the Ministry of Education. Families
whose requests for exemption are granted are supervised by the Ministry of
Education and are required to annually submit a new request for exemption
(Rabin and Or, 2012).

The choice and the consequences

As the homeschooling phenomenon has increased, so too has the number

of academic studies which seek to examine its various facets. One area being
examined in the homeschooling context is the reasons for choosing this
option – why do parents elect to homeschool their children? Various studies
indicate a range of reasons including belief in family values, religious beliefs
and concepts, fear of violence in the school, a feeling of discomfort with the
school system and other reasons (Anthony and Burroughs, 2010; Collom,
2005; Dumas, Gates and Schwarzer, 2010; Gaither, 2009; Isenberg, 2007;
Rothermel, 2011; Spiegler, 2010).
A qualitative study, parts of which have been published before (Neuman
and Aviram, 2003, 2008), was carried out in Israel between the years 1999–
2003. This study used semi-structured interviews with parents who were
homeschooling their children to examine both the process that led them to
choose the homeschooling option and the outcome of this choice. Results
of this study also indicate that one of the key reasons for choosing home-
schooling was dissatisfaction with the education system. The study exam-
ined the decision-making process that stemmed from this dissatisfaction
and led to the decision to homeschool. It also focused on the implications
and outcomes of this choice. Dissatisfaction with the education system is
 Homeschooling – The Choice and the Consequences 213

actually the starting point of the rational decision-making process, and

the end point of the process is parents homeschooling their children and
dealing with the complex ramifications of this choice.
The next two sections of the article present research findings which show
that:

1. Choosing homeschooling involves a rational decision-making process

that stems from parental dissatisfaction with the educational system
available to their children;
2. Choosing homeschooling results in a paradigmatic change of lifestyle1
that effects various aspects of their life.

Rational structured decision-making process

This study shows, among other things, that the processes and factors that
motivated the homeschoolers to choose this educational strategy involve
a rational structured decision-making process based on logical arguments
(described extensively in Neuman and Aviram, 2008).
A decision-making process is a choice between possible alternatives or a
series of processes embarked upon to solve problems stemming from the
disparity between the desirable and the available. A decision-making process
is meant to help reduce the disparity between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to
be’. (Greenberg and Baron, 2000; Huber, 1980; Luthans, 1981).
Models of rational decision-making processes describe the stages of the
process. Although the number of stages in the process depends on how
extensively the author chooses to expand it, most authors use the following
main stages, defined by Dewey, as their basis: (1) Dissatisfaction caused by a
problem that has emerged, (2) Definition of the problem and (3) Identifying
a solution (Luthans, 1981). However, a more detailed division in the context
of resolving the problems would generate the following stages:
(1) Experiencing difficulty or a problem, (2) Defining the difficulty or
problem, (3) Proposed solution, (4) Implementation and (5) Evaluation of
the solution – coping with the consequences (Gordon, 1984).
The decision-making process that came to light in this study included the
following stages:

1. Crisis – Parents become aware of the disparity between their own percep-
tion of the educational process and the educational environment on the
one hand, and the reality of schools and kindergarten in today’s world,
on the other.

Homeschoolers adopt a constructivist learning approach, which includes

authentic problem-based learning (PBL) in a real environment, driven
by self-motivation and adapted to the needs and learning style of the
student. Schools, on the other hand, do not teach in accordance with the
214 Ari Neuman and Aharon Aviram

constructivist paradigm. (See Aviram, 1999, 2003 for additional material on

the non-relevance of schools in the postmodern era).

2. Seeking an alternative – parents start looking for ways to respond to the

crisis described above. They search for alternatives within two main cate-
gories – changing the system or abandoning the system and teaching
their children at home. (See Lees, 2014 on discovering the option to
homeschool).
3. A decision in favour of homeschooling – after gathering information
about the alternatives, the parents make a decision in favour of home-
schooling. It is important to note that this is not a random irrespon-
sible decision, but one that is a result of extensive research and careful
consideration.
4. Dealing with the consequences of this decision – after the decision is
made in favour of homeschooling, parents are constantly coping with
the ramifications of this decision.

The basis for the decision-making process described here is a logically struc-
tured process made up of a central argument, which itself is comprised of
two secondary arguments as presented below:

Secondary Argument No. 1:

* Learning based on a constructivist paradigm is desirable learning.

* In general, schools do not teach according to the constructivist para-
digm. Furthermore, schools do not offer an environment that enhances
learning and teaching.
* Therefore an alternative must be found.

Secondary Argument No. 2:

* There are two alternatives – change the system or abandon the system.
* Of the two alternatives, changing the system is almost impossible.
* Therefore the second alternative must be chosen – abandon the system
(despite the consequences of this decision).

These arguments were evaluated both logically (for their degree of validity)
and scientifically (to assess how well-founded the assumptions that form
their basis actually are) and were found to be valid and credible (as described
extensively in Neuman and Aviram, 2008).
The next section describes some of the consequences of choosing to
homeschool, as they were described and evaluated by the homeschoolers
themselves.
 Homeschooling – The Choice and the Consequences 215

The consequences – paradigmatic change in lifestyle

Choosing to homeschool generates a paradigmatic change in lifestyle. This
chapter describes the main aspects of this change: education, medicine/
health, family relationships, work and self-fulfilment (a comprehensive
description of the paradigmatic change in lifestyle can be found in Neuman
and Aviram, 2003).
The paradigmatic change in lifestyle manifests in three concepts: awak-
ening and taking responsibility; flexibility and an easy-going approach; and
personal ramifications.

Awakening and taking responsibility

The interviews indicate that the parents regard homeschooling as part of a
broader awakening process. In this process, they find themselves examining
and testing various aspects of their lives in a manner that they have never
found a need for previously and casting doubt on various aspects of their
lives which had previously been acceptable. This examination sometimes
led to choices that were the opposite of those made in the past, prior to
embarking on homeschooling or prior to ‘the awakening’. For these parents,
this process affords them the opportunity to reclaim control of their lives
and to take responsibility for their lives. This process requires them to make
conscious rational decisions in areas which in the past were made automati-
cally and without due thought and consideration.
The first area to be affected by the choice to homeschool is of course
education itself. When parents take over the responsibility for their chil-
dren’s education, they are faced with the decisions and dilemmas that were
previously dealt with by the education system. They are forced to deal with
fundamental questions regarding educational perceptions such as what in
their opinion is good education, while also dealing with practical aspects of
education such as how do they implement this good education.
However, education is not the only area affected by the parents’ decisions
which resulted from their awakening and their choice to take responsi-
bility. For example, in the area of healthcare, the parents take on far greater
responsibility than they did in the past. Sometimes they choose comple-
mentary or alternative medicine over conventional medicine. They choose
to thoroughly research other options available to them and to analyze the
advantages and disadvantages of each option in order to make an informed
decisions about what is best for them and their children. And sometimes,
out of all the options, they even choose self-healing.
Another area affected by the choice to homeschool is the parents’ careers.
In this area, the parents also try to take more responsibility for their work,
which is evidenced by, among other aspects, the transition they make from
salaried employees to self-employed. Thus, they become responsible for both
what they do in the framework of their work and for when it is done. Parent
216 Ari Neuman and Aharon Aviram

careers are also affected by the fact that their work is no longer performed
in the workplace outside the home and is instead performed partially, or in
its entirety, in the home.

Flexibility and an easy-going approach

The second area in the parents’ lives that undergoes a paradigmatic change
as a result of their choice to homeschool is their approach to life. The parents
choose to adopt a more ‘go with the flow’ approach to life than they had
done in the past. They no longer try so hard to adapt the reality of a situ-
ation to suit their own desires and exhibit a more flexible and easy-going
approach to the natural flow of life.
For them, life is full of surprises and unexpected events, making it diffi-
cult and impractical to plan too far ahead. Planning too far ahead might
result in disappointment, whereas going with the flow and maintaining
flexibility may contribute to successfully achieving goals. This approach is
both ideological and practical.
As an ideology, the parents believe that this is the desirable state, that they
should strive to achieve this state and that this is the model to follow for the
education of their children. For these parents this flexibility and easy-going
approach is both a life goal and an educational goal.
In practical terms, they claim that life is unpredictable, affected by a
significant degree of randomness and in most cases cannot be controlled.
Consequently, even if they want to, there is no point to long-term planning.
There is every likelihood that long-term planning will go awry because
events that cannot be controlled by the plan-maker will affect their reality.
Furthermore, for these parents, even when they do make long-term plans,
it is important that they remain flexible and ready to change these plans
according to the changing reality.
In educational terms, the significance of this approach is that given that we
have no way of knowing what reality will look like in the future, there is no
point creating a long-term educational plan to prepare us for this future. We
should only deal with acquiring skills that will be needed in the present.

Personal ramifications
Because homeschooling necessitates the physical presence of an adult – and
in most cases the adult will be one of the parents, usually the mother –
the choice to homeschool impacts considerably on the private life of the
parents. The question of personal ramifications prevailed in the interviews
and was clearly an issue that generated considerable concern and evoked a
great deal of thought and consideration among the homeschoolers.
This section, which addresses the issue of personal ramifications, is divided
into three sub-sections. While section (1) on Self-sacrifice/Waiver addresses
the issue of the costs involved for parents who opt for homeschooling, both
section (2) Self-fulfillment and Finding Meaning and section (3) Personal
 Homeschooling – The Choice and the Consequences 217

Development look at the possible gains or advantages of this situation. The

presentation of cost versus gain is derived from the way this matter emerged
during the interviews.

1. Self-sacrifice/Waiver

Some of the interviewees expressed concern that the homeschooling choice

would require considerable self-sacrifice on the part of one, or perhaps both,
of the parents. This concern was clearly significant at least during the deci-
sion-making stage and the initial homeschooling period.
The interviewees identified three areas in which they would be required
to make personal sacrifices and forgo aspirations. These included their rela-
tionship with the outside world in general, their contact with the profes-
sional world (career, studies) and their relationship with themselves.
Given that one parent must constantly supervise the children for a consid-
erable part of his or her waking hours, that parent would have almost no
opportunity for ‘alone time’.
Regarding their relationship with the outside world, the parent would
be unable to perform simple day-to-day functions such as interaction with
other adults, hiking or walking for pleasure, shopping and so on, unaccom-
panied by children. The parent would be obliged to perform these activities
when he or she is accompanied by the children. Furthermore, given that in
some cases the children are not independent, not only does the parent have
no privacy, he or she is also obliged to care for the children while they are
partaking of these activities.
Regarding their relationship with the professional world, the constant
presence of children in the home forces the parent to make changes in their
professional environment and work set-up. They might find it necessary
to reduce their number of work and/or study hours, or they might need to
change their place of work and/or study or perhaps even take a complete
break from their work. The interviewees noted that they made changes and
adapted their careers to enable them to stay with the children.
Regarding the interviewees’ own relationship with self, some of the inter-
viewees noted that they were struggling with the fact they needed to be
constantly available to their children throughout the day. In addition to
the physical difficulty, they struggled with the fact that they had no time to
invest in themselves for study, rest, hobbies and so on.
It is important to note that in cases where both parents are at home for at
least part of the time, the abovementioned difficulties are likely to be some-
what less serious. However, most of the interviewees clearly displayed their
anxiety about the cost that homeschooling exacts from the parents.
Furthermore, with the shift to homeschooling, there are more areas of
shared responsibility and also an increasing number of areas in which the
parents would need to divide up the areas of responsibility. This would
218 Ari Neuman and Aharon Aviram

inevitably lead to discussions between the two parents about the personal
cost of homeschooling and the extent of the costs that each parent is willing
to carry.

2. Self-fulfillment and finding significance

While foregoing a professional and/or academic career is regarded as part of

the cost of the decision to choose homeschooling, some of the interviewees
indicated that this stage caused them to reconsider how they defined self-
fulfillment and to renew their search for significance in their lives. In the
past, before the emergence of homeschooling, self-fulfillment was closely
linked to career. The question of whether or not the parent was fulfilled was
measured in career-related terms such as the professional field, job defini-
tion within this field, opportunities to develop and advance, rate of advance-
ment and so forth. Although the parent may feel unfulfilled because they
must stop pursuing their career, what actually occurs is that the criteria
used in the past to measure self-fulfillment become irrelevant and must be
replaced by new criteria that are then used to redefine self-fulfillment.

3. Personal Development

Some of the interviewees described the transition to homeschooling as

a turning point in their own personal development process. These proc-
esses evolve from identifying new areas for development or alternatively by
emphasizing existing processes
Staying with the children for extended periods of time and the constant
need to consider educational aspects of the parent-child relationship requires
the homeschoolers to reassess the behavioural patterns that they had previ-
ously adopted. This re-examination of familiar patterns in turn generates a
process of self-examination and reassessment of their world view and values.
This reassessment helps facilitate the personal development processes.
One example that occurs repeatedly in some of the interviews refers to
organizing the homeschooling day. The interviewees explained that initially
they tried to create an orderly programme for the day that included blocks
of structured study or at least activities that had been planned in advance.
However, often because they were receptive to changing situations, and some-
times because they had no choice, they realized that there was no need and/or
possibility of creating a structured day. Once freed of this need for structure,
they discovered that there truly is no need for it because the learning processes
occur despite the absence of planning. Recognition of this fact contributed
greatly to the interviewees’ ability to free themselves and let go of the need to
plan, and in their opinion facilitated the process of their own personal devel-
opment based on acceptance and their ability to go with the flow.
The processes involved in the personal development also occur in other
areas such as discovering new aspects of parenting and family relationships
 Homeschooling – The Choice and the Consequences 219

and changes in perception regarding qualifications and social aspirations.

For the interviewees, homeschooling is closely linked to the personal
development process, and there is a reciprocal relationship between home-
schooling and their personal development. When progress occurs on one
side, it generates progress on the other.

Conclusion

We have endeavoured to show the following in this article:

The choice to homeschool is based on a rational decision-making process
that addresses the disparity between what is available and what is desirable,
in terms of education.
Part of the decision-making process involves evaluation of the results of
the decision to homeschool and coping with the subsequent consequences.
The decision to homeschool dramatically and paradigmatically changes the
families’ lifestyle as described above.
The link between the decision-making process and coping with the
consequences provides a richly detailed picture of the choice and its conse-
quences – the reasons for the choice, the decision-making process and the
consequences of choosing to homeschool.
Figure 14.1 illustrates this ‘picture’: the decision-making process which
is based on an outline of logical arguments, and the consequences – the
lifestyle of the homeschoolers is paradigmatically changed on three main
fronts.
It is important to emphasize that, according to the study presented here,
the choice to homeschool is not a decision made irresponsibly. In fact, it is
the complete opposite – a rational and conscious choice made as the result
of a logical decision-making process. The process begins with the identi-
fication of a problem, continues with a search for possible solutions and
is followed by the choice of a reasonable alternative. Once the choice is
made, the homeschoolers must deal with the multiple consequences of their
choice.
The problem that pushed the parents to choose homeschooling is not
theirs alone. In fact, this same problem, which can also be called the ‘educa-
tion crisis’, has been getting worse over recent decades and is actually
having a detrimental effect on more and more children, parents and educa-
tors throughout the world.
The choice to homeschool should therefore be regarded as a courageous
one. Although many stakeholders recognize the existence of a crisis in
education and its negative effects, they choose to ignore it. However, those
parents who have made the choice to homeschool their children are endeav-
ouring to counter the educational crisis with an appropriate response that
matches their educational perceptions and are also endeavouring to deal
with the consequences of their choices.
220 Ari Neuman and Aharon Aviram

Arguments Rational decision-making

The basis for the decision- process
making process

Crisis

Search for
alternatives

Decision

Consequences:
Paradigmatic
change

Awakening

Flexibility

Personal
ramifications

Figure 14.1 Choice and the consequences

Note
1. This term was coined by Kuhn (1996).

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