How SEO Helps Christian Educators Provide Better Home School Resources

Meghan Kaplan and Kevin Heimlich of The Ad Firm, an Orange County, CA Internet marketing firm, offer some advice for educators and educational material providers looking to provide convenient, easy-to-find home school resources to children who are in a Christian home school program.

There is no doubt that some of the material on the web is not accurate or may carry the wrong message to impressionable minds. Christian educators and educational resource providers will want to make sure that their children are getting the correct information they need when researching for various school projects.

In the beginning of our discussion, Kevin and Meghan introduced me to search engine optimization (SEO). I learned that search optimization can help Orange County, CA education providers gain exposure in Google and other search engine page results with the goal of getting your pages ranked on Page 1 for a particular query a child or their parent is putting in the search bar. People rarely venture past Page 1, so this helps increase chances an Internet user will click on your website over another where someone is posting content that is unsavory or has incorrect factual data.

Just about anyone can post on the Internet and we can’t control that, but Orange County home school providers can do their part to increase the chances of Christian children seeing the right content even when parents can’t always be around to monitor! The Ad Firm SEO team is really good at helping us do that!

 

The Pros and Cons of Popular Christian Home School Programs

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Home schooling is not a new concept. In recent times interest in accredited home school programs has surged. One of the most popular Christian home school curriculum is offered by ACE ministries and its affiliates, primarily based on biblical tenets with the PACEs method of imparting education — which means a parent is in charge of tutoring children in these programs.

There are advantages to Christian home school programs and also some cons that you should know before you decide to switch.

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Pros & Cons

Pros

• Accredited home school programs allow you flexibility in education yet follow standard norms.

• You have the freedom to tutor when you have time and in a manner that suits your child and their personality as well a grasping power using the Christian home school or ACE home school curriculum.

• You save on costs of transportation and time spent in commuting that you can use in other better ways to develop your child’s personality.

• You have access to affordable home school programs suitable for normal children as well as for kids with impairment issues. These children may feel out of place in public or private schools, but here they have security, warmth and comfort at home and can learn with confidence.

•  You know your child and can interact better, adapting to their pace to suit their mental capabilities.

• Christian home school programs incorporate biblical tenets so you are not just learning but also exploring cultural and age old values.

•  Your child stays out of the reach of negative impacts so commonly observed in public schools.

•  For children, home schooling becomes more interesting as you can explore various alternatives and enhancements not available in schools

•  You develop bonds with children and come closer in a relationship that lasts throughout your life.

Cons

Despite advantages, Christian home school programs or, for that matter, any home school program, do have certain cons. A few of these are:

•  One parent has to stay at home and devote time to teaching their child from an early age.

•  You too must have a good grasp of subjects in order to tutor effectively.

•  You will need lots of patience and will need to be very understanding.

•  You will have to put in more efforts to give quality education to your child through affordable home school programs.

•  Your child may miss companionship of other kids and may also feel lonely at times. The formative years are crucial for interaction, developing relationships with peers and being current.  As a result of being cut off from the other children at school, your kid may be deprived of sports and games. When it is time to join a college, it will take time for home schooled kids to adapt.

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Parenting

Still, considering that pros outweigh cons, home schooling does have its advantages provided you can dedicate yourself to the task.

Starting and Living Your Life With Christian Home School Programs

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As the parent of a child ready to enter the world of education you have the heavy burden of deciding whether to place him in a public school, a private school or go a different route and give him the benefit of an accredited home school program. Assuming only one parent works and you, the mother/father, are free to tutor your child, there are heavy decisions to be made because you will live with them the rest of your life. More importantly, the future of your child is in your hands and you do not want that day to dawn when your child turns upon you and blames you for following the home schooling rules.

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Home School Program

The first thing you must know about Christian home school programs is that these are based on biblical tenets, values that have endured down the ages and have been cherished as well as upheld by generations. It has made several strong leaders whose names are written in history. You give your child not only the comfort of learning in the security and warmth of your home (or even outdoors under open skies if the mood takes you), but you are passing on what no school ever does: age old values that have withstood the test of time.

If you are a strong believer in Christian faith and value love and kindness, you will imbue your child with these. As he grows up he will ask why he is not going to school like other children. What you tell them is crucial to convince them they are in a better position and are doing the right thing as you are — when they grow up they will likely be better model citizens.

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Student

The ACE home school curriculum is widely followed in most Christian home school programs. Known as PACE, it is designed to suit specific age groups, enabling them to learn without pressure.  However, as a parent, you must know that tutoring young children is no easy task. Their attention wanders; you cannot lose your temper and must have pots of patience.

Are you prepared to live with that till the time they are ready to go do college? Ask this of yourself and if the answer is a affirmative, then you can follow this path because the Christian home school curriculum insists on the parents being tutors and responsible.

While you teach, you too will learn. There is one great advantage to this process: you spend so much of quality time with your kid and bonds become so tight, it becomes everlasting.

5 Advantages of Christian Home School Programs You Must Know

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ACE or Accelerated Christian Education has been around for quite some time. Working silently but efficiently in the service of the Lord since Dr Donald Howard and his wife started the program of education with biblical overtones sometime around 1970. Widely used in over 3000 schools across the country, the system was disrupted by the tax ruling in 1983 as a result of which many schools closed their doors. Faced with the option of shifting to public schools, many families opted to follow the ACE home school curriculum at home.

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Father & Son

Christian home school programs are going strong and will become stronger as parents realize the inherent benefits of affordable home school programs.

A few of these benefits are…

1. When a student joins an affordable Christian home schooling program they become part of a nationwide network with a supporting team of caring, committed and dedicated Christian professionals who are also true practitioners of the faith and all that it embodies. General education today is dehumanized and teachers do not care about their students, nor students for their teachers. The basic values such as respect, love, cherishing something of value and appreciation of age old values are all lacking in general education schools but significantly present in Christian home school programs.

2.  It is easy for young minds to adapt the PACE system of learning. Study lessons are adapted to suit their level of mental development and a student goes from one stage to the next without any great effort.  In fact, just as much as it is useful for normal students, it is even more beneficial for young students with mild impairments. Away from ridicule of teachers or other students and safely cocooned in their homes these disadvantaged students learn faster and gain in confidence rather than develop complexes. Parents are primarily in charge of tutoring in the ACE home school curriculum.

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Mother & Daughter

3. Typical affordable home school programs follow the individualized mastery based learning process in which children develop their full potential, turn into rounded personalities and have a global perspective and view of education, humanity and relationships instead of the narrow focus advance traditional education forces upon them.  A student from a home school program may not be the most brilliant performer in life but you can be sure they will integrate into society, contribute to the community, take care of his family and are responsible citizens.

4. Students learn from home and can pursue other interests in their spare time. Since they do not have to commute to school, they can utilize time saved to focus on other areas of study and life, develop social contacts, work for the community or engage in positive activities instead of crumbling under peer pressure and succumbing to drugs and alcohol.

A Brief History of Christian Home School Programs for Your Knowledge

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Back in the 1800s and centuries before, education was mostly on a one-on-one basis with families employing governesses to raise and educate their children. Even when legislation was introduced in the USA in 1852 to make school attendance mandatory, there were many who still continued with the old tradition of home schooling. Famous personalities such as Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Dickens and Benjamin all had home schooling. Going to school became the norm in most cities and rural areas except for far flung places and home schooling receded in the background until recent times.

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Blackboard

Modern education reformers question the current style of sending children to school. No doubt children benefit by being in the company of peers and learn about competition, sharing and interactions to develop personalities but the crux or core, which is education or transfer of knowledge, suffers. The present day home schooling movement, which is proving highly popular these days, can be traced back to the 1970s when John Holt, a public school teacher made efforts for reforms and founded the Growing Without Schooling Magazine. Dr Raymond and Dorothy Moore were the other activists who promoted home education.

When one talks specifically of Christian home school programs, it is traced to 1983. During that period Christian schools were accused of discrimination and were under scrutiny and tax regulations — in fact, a majority of Christian schools across the USA became ineligible for tax exemptions. Naturally, the only way out was to increase tuition fees, which in turn put education beyond the pale of poor families. The net outcome — small private schools ceased to exist and parents had to shift their children to public schools or opt for home education. Home schooling was a better option and it has prospered.

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Home Schooling

However, true Christian home school programs can be traced back to the 1970s when Dr Donald Howard set up the Accelerated Christian Education program based on an educational curriculum with a biblical slant that was adopted by many private Christian schools. He promoted his ACE curriculum and encouraged the establishment of such Schools, with the first one being set up in Garland, Texas, carrying 45 students on its rolls. In less than a year six new schools came up and by the 1980s there were 3000 such schools affiliated with ACE ministries throughout the country. The tax imbroglio saw school attendance education being supplanted by Christian home school programs.

The ACE home school curriculum is individualized, has a biblical basis and aims to build character through affordable home school programs relying on workbooks labeled PACEs comprising of modules in English, social studies, word building and science. Despite the fact that the program has come in for a lot of criticism, students score lower than those from public schools, yet this system is here to stay.