Raymond S. Moore
Dr. Raymond S. Moore, author of Better Late than Early, the book that launched the modern homeschooling movement in the United States, passed away on July 13, 2007, at the age of 91.
Moore’s book grew out of an article first published in Harper’s in 1972, at the time when California was considering a law to make school compulsory for children as young as 2 years, 9 months. The article was republished by Reader’s Digest where it was so popular, the editors requested a book. With his wife Dorothy (deceased) he wrote many books on education and other subjects.
His educational career began as a teacher, principal and superintendent of California public schools. During World War II he served on General MacArthur’s staff. After completing his PhD in Education at the University of Southern California, he held the positions of academic dean and president of numerous Seventh-day Colleges in the United States, Japan, and the Philippines. The United States Office of Education then invited him to be a higher education program officer.
But it was the research that he compiled about the effects of schooling on young children that steered his career away from higher education and into homeschooling. He and his wife Dorothy spent years working with legislatures and courts to establish legal precedents for parents desiring to homeschool their children. Dr. Moore was the world’s foremost expert witness in homeschooling appearing in courts as far away as South Africa, West Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as Canada and the United States. The Moores were strong believers in the educational principles of head, heart, and hand laid out by Seventh-day Adventist Pioneer Ellen G. White. This philosophy of balancing service, work, and study became known as the Moore Formula in homeschooling circles.
from: http://www.moorefoundation.com/
“Parents should also question much of the contemporary emphasis on special materials and equipment for learning in a child's environment. A clutter of toys can be more confusing than satisfying to a child. On the other hand, natural situations, with opportunieties to explore, seldom overstimulate or trouble a small child. Furthermore, most children will find greater satisfaction and demonsstrate greater learning from things they make and do with their parents or other people than from elaborate toys or learning materials. And there is no substitute for solitude - in the sandpile, mud puddle, or play area - for a yound child to work out his own fantasies. Yet this privilege is often denied in our anxiety to institutionalize children.”
“An alarming number of parents appear to have little confidence in their ability to "teach" their children. We should help parents understand the overriding importance of incidental teaching in the context of warm, consistent companionship. Such caring is usually the greatest teaching, especially if caring means sharing in the activites of the home.”
“Homeschool history tells of more than two centuries of home-teaching influence on American education, although it has been largely obscured by the drawn curtains of conventional bias.”
“[Homeschooling]...recipe for genius: More of family and less of school, more of parents and less of peers, more creative freedom and less formal lessons.”