<<  <  >  >>

Page 4

The Origins of Homeschooling: Raymond Moore

The seeds of what has grown into the modern-day Ameri-

can homeschooling movement were planted by two unrelated

individuals about 30 years ago.  In 1969 Raymond Moore, a

former U.S. Department of Education employee, laid the

groundwork that would legitimatize homeschooling as one of

the great, populist educational movements of the 20th centu-

ry.

Moore, who holds an Ed.D. from the University of South-

ern California, along with his wife, Dorothy, a reading

specialist and former Los Angeles County elementary school

teacher, initiated an inquiry into previously neglected

areas of educational research.  Two of the questions the

Moores and a team of like-minded colleagues set out to

answer were, Is institutionalizing young children a sound,

educational trend, and what is the best timing for school

entrance?12

They sought advice from over 100 family development

specialists and researchers, including Urie Bronfenbrenner

of Cornell University, John Bowlby of the World Health

Organization, and Burton White of Harvard University.  Those

professionals recommended "a cautious approach to subjecting

[the child's] developing nervous system and mind to formal

constraints."13  Psychologist Bronfenbrenner maintained that

subjecting children to the daily routine of elementary

school can result in excessive dependence on peers.14

In the process of analyzing thousands of studies, 20 of

which compared early school entrants with late starters, the

Moores began to conclude that development problems, such as

hyperactivity, nearsightedness, and dyslexia, were often the

result of prematurely taxing a child's nervous system and

mind with continuous academic tasks, like reading and writ-

ing.

The bulk of the research, which overwhelmingly support-

ed distancing young children from daily contact with insti-

tutionalized settings, convinced the Moores that formal

schooling should be delayed until at least age 8 or 10, or

even as late as 12.  Raymond Moore explained the upshot of

his research, stating, "These findings sparked our concern

and convinced us to focus our investigation on two primary