ONE TO ONE LIMITATIONS IN LEARNING By Domenick J. Maglio PhD. Traditional Realist Many home-schooled students have become successful adults. Certainly, they have become readers, writers, and communicators. They have excelled in many professional endeavors. Some have come from an upper economic status with highly educated family members and high socio-economic levels. Some have been provided with incredible experiences that augment their childhood education. The upper class has had the opportunity to educate their children in this unique way while the average family had to rely on government, public education. Now some families have turned to teaching their children at home. They may hire teachers to teach in their home or joined private home school groups with a few children. Some have purchased online education programs where the child sits in front of a computer for most of the day, getting an education. When compared with large public-school environments these increasingly individual learning environments have pros and cons. The student’s individual learning style can be catered to better in a one-to-one or small group of ten or less students. The smaller number of children usually means the teacher can give more individual attention to their learning. This greater individual learning time usually means the teacher can tailor make a unique learning environment and give greater attention to each one. This can be positive for the student and limiting as well. This one-on one teaching can at times have a negative impact. In a larger group of students, a group discussion will give many different viewpoints from others. These other students can stimulate other ways to view the issue. A group discussion is a wonderful method of encouraging individual thinking and skill development. Furthermore, this unique method of presenting material usually increases with the size of the group. The more people presenting slows down the completion of the topic but offers the group more methods of approaching and developing their project. A one-on-one teaching experience with a student allows the teacher to learn about the student’s learning style and overall knowledge base. However, it does not provide the student with the opportunity to learn from other students’ styles and methods of communicating their ideas. Students in school not only learn the subject matter presented in class but also must learn to follow directions and learn to interact appropriately with other students and teachers. In other words, a student learns what it means to be appropriate in an academic setting with numerous others. Besides academic subjects most discussion-oriented schools help students learn correct social skills in a well administrated school program. Home schooling often has a lack of time management opportunities as children can take their time on activities and tests. This means that they do not learn to work under stress. Parents need to be conscious of this drawback of one-to-one learning and figure out ways to make time management more prevalent. There are advantages to home schooling children in individual families, small groups, online, in homeschooling programs with several students. There are also some disadvantages that should be considered. With the changes and reported problems in public schools it is understandable that parents are looking for alternatives to public school for their children. If parents are going to home school their own children or hire an educator to instruct their children, they should consider the limitations of home schooling as well as its advantages. Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers and blogs, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and the latest book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglioblogspot.com.