TOEFL® Essay: home-schooling

[Snoopy_Blah_Blah]

Children should never be educated at home by their parents. Do you agree or disagree?

Education is very important for the future succes in life. But it's not the single factor for getting a well-paid and interesting job with good perspectives of building a career. There are many other skills that child requires to be a well-adjusted person. And while sometimes home-schooling is justified, in my essay I will discuss pros and cons of going to school and being educated at home.

I think that going to school gives much more to a child than just education. A child learns to communicate with his peers, develops interpersonal and social skills that are as valueable as the education itself. A childs learns to defend his point of view, to articulate his own thoughts and ideas. On the other hand, if a child somehow becomes an outcast or is being bullied by his less sensitive classmates, then going to school becomes a nightmare, which definitely affects his desire to study, his marks and could be a major trauma for the rest of his life. This is when both parents and teachers must intervene.

Regarding home-schooling by parents, I wonder how educated a parent must be and how much of free time must he or she have? I reckon in this situation a child will probably have less possibilities to acquire new friends, develop essential above-mentioned social and interpersonal skills, the lack of which will later affect his life, his years in college, his chances of finding a proper job.

So what are the pros of being educated at home? I believe in special situations when child is either mentally or physically impaired, then home-schooling is appropriate. But once again not only by the parents, certainly they must provide love and support and believe and understand their child, anyway no matter how educated a parent is, additional help from psychologists, doctors and teachers for children with special needs is mandatory. In my opinion this is the only situation when home-schooling is justified.

Childhood is an extremely important part of our life, this when our personality, character traits, self-esteem, the sence of self-worth is shaped. For all that any child needs unconditional love from their parents, education and a possibility to interact with other children.

As a conclusion I'd like to emphasize that though I disagree that children should never ever be educated at home, I think that whenever it is possible for a child to go to school, he should go there.

Could somebody, please, correct my mistakes and point out what is wrong with this essay structure and grammar-wise? How would you grade it?

Thanks a lot in advance