A response to – The case against homeschooling

While my family is finding our summer rhythm of seeing friends, the sites, being out side, and keeping our learning going over the summer as Mommy I find myself neck deep in planning not just for this summer, but next year as well. At times like these I am quick to remind myself of the reasons we choose this path. When this article crossed by path I though I would respond in my own blog and maybe this would help some others understand some of our many reasons. My responses are in bold.

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The case against homeschooling
http://teacherrevised.org/2009/05/30/the-case-against-homeschooling/#comment-928

By JESSE SCACCIA

Homeschooling: great for self-aggrandizing, society-phobic mother…… but not quite so good for the kid.

Here are my top ten reasons why homeschooling parents are doing the wrong thing:
First, as a teacher I would expect you to be less negative about a way of learning that you yourself have pointed out creates very smart students. What works for one might not work for another and I would think you would know this. If I sound a bit sarcastic, understand I did go to public school and as many people that do, it is hard to fight the sheepness and follow your tone when responding.

10. “You were totally home schooled” is an insult college kids use when mocking the geeky kid in the dorm (whether or not the offender was home schooled or not). And… say what you will… but it doesn’t feel nice to be considered an outsider, a natural outcropping of being homeschooled.

One of the reasons we homeschool is so that our child will not become like the public school students you are talking about. You know the kind who use name calling and try and hurt others feelings to make themselves feel better. Score 1 for homeschooling to create smart and kind students who can pull up their big girl panties and deal with bullies!

9. Call me old-fashioned, but a students’ classroom shouldn’t also be where they eat Fruit Loops and meat loaf (not at the same time I hope). It also shouldn’t be where the family gathers to watch American Idol or to play Wii. Students–from little ones to teens–deserve a learning-focused place to study. In modern society, we call them schools.

Homeschooling is far older than public schooling. It is family and community based. Children learned to care for a home, finances and how to live in community because they where out in the community. They learned how to thrive in a marriage because they could see one, and not for just a few hours a week. They gained real life skills that can not be gotten crammed in a small room all day with people all their own age and one adult who is often clueless as to what is actually going on in these childrens lives. (Or a cell if you want to call it that as many of the modern schools you love have the same layout as modern prisons) Score 2 for homeschooling.

8. Homeschooling is selfish. According to this article in USA Today, students who get homeschooled are increasingly from wealthy and well-educated families. To take these (I’m assuming) high achieving students out of our schools is a disservice to our less fortunate public school kids. Poorer students with less literate parents are more reliant on peer support and motivation, and they greatly benefit from the focus and commitment of their richer and higher achieving classmates.

Any parent who cares about their child enough to put them in private school or college (How many people actually go and finish in the world?) even would be thought of as selfish then because they are depriving everyone else of their bright childs presence? Wanting the best for your child does not seem selfish to me at all. Public school might well be best for some children, specially if they have parents who can not homeschool or whos path takes them in a different direction. Clearly though as you pointed out, homeschool has created some very smart students and maybe they are so not because of how much money their parents make but because of the effort those parents can put into spending time with their children. Maybe a public school teacher in the US is selfish as she could be in a third world country making a bigger difference? This is me being snippy! 🙂

We are a military family who has moved ten times in ten years. With my husband pay in the past we have qualified for food stamps, as an example of our low income. One of the reasons we choose to homeschool is to provide stability no teacher or school system could with all these moves and the hardship of deployments. Ripping our child out of so many schools would have caused more issues and not just for our child but her friends. It is hard as is on friends, but at least they are not having to look at an empty desk their best friend use to sit in, they will just miss her when they get home from school.

As for our social responsibility to others, we have more time in the day to express that with social justice and church and living green than a public school student has time for. Not to mention being a military family we are willing to sacrifice for others and are well aware of the importance of it. We see no gain to anyone with our children in public school, even if we did not move often.

Score 3 for homeschooling.

7. God hates homeschooling. The study, done by the National Center for Education Statistics, notes that the most common reason parents gave as the most important was a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. To the homeschooling Believers out there, didn’t God say “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”? Didn’t he command, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me”? From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord to the common people. (Personally I’m agnostic, but I’m just saying…)

Honestly I felt sick reading that someone would say God hates homeschooling. And keep in mind, I am PAGAN, and a unitarian universalist. How dare anyone judge another persons faith when that faith is telling them to take personal responsibility for their childs raising. I am no expert on the bible and feel no need to go find the scriptures supporting homeschooling but I know they are there and I am glad they support others in this choice. Also being Pagan, this is one of the reasons we do not do public school. Children trapped together day in and day out tend to take the opinions of others as fact when young. We want to ground our children in acceptance and understanding of other faiths before they are beaten with a bible and told that things are only one right way. This teachers idea of learning sounds a lot like only one right way for an agnostic. This is me being snarky.

I defend the right for people to believe as they wish, I just want to raise my children out of the reach of others who would push their faith (well meaning or not) on my impressionable children till they are strong enough of will to truly think about those views.

To say though that God hates what ever (If even he can hate) about a religion you do not even fallow really angers me.

6. Homeschooling parent/teachers are arrogant to the point of lunacy. For real! My qualifications to teach English include a double major in English and education, two master’s degrees (education and journalism), a student teaching semester and multiple internship terms, real world experience as a writer, and years in the classroom dealing with different learning styles. So, first of all, homeschooling parent, you think you can teach English as well as me? Well, maybe you can. I’ll give you that. But there’s no way that you can teach English as well as me, and biology as well as a trained professional, and history… and Spanish… and art… and counsel for college as well as a school’s guidance counselor… and… and…

The teacher who wrote this if you have no picked up on it sounds a bit defensive and thus, more name calling. Certainly homeschoolers can be arrogant, we are all human, but that does not mean all are. Shouldn’t one be able to teach what they know? So if a parent when to a public school then if that education was worth anything shouldn’t that parent then be able to teach it? They do not have 30 or more students to try and learn their learning styles and what works for each one, they have just one or a few students and can cater to them like no public school teacher is able to. So while I do not know any homeschool parent who thinks they can teach all subjects as well as a professional, we all know and have the time to teach what our children need to know in ways they can best learn it! Another point for homeschooling.

5. As a teacher, homeschooling kind of pisses me off. (That’s good enough for #5.)
This is me being really snarky. #5 sounds kinda pathetic! No other response needed.

4. Homeschooling could breed intolerance, and maybe even racism. Unless the student is being homeschooled at the MTV Real World house, there’s probably only one race/sexuality/background in the room. How can a young person learn to appreciate other cultures if he or she doesn’t live among them?

It could. Score 1 for insecure public school teacher. We can not control what others teach in their homes much more than we can control what color kids Gangs pull into their ranks and what color kids they kill on the way home school school. I think homeschooling has as many risks with this as public school does. But on a personal note I can battle this in my own home by teaching tolerance and by getting my children out into the world, after school classes, going to UU church that is all faiths and all colors and all sexualities even.

3. And don’t give me this “they still participate in activities with public school kids” garbage. Socialization in our grand multi-cultural experiment we call America is a process that takes more than an hour a day, a few times a week. Homeschooling, undoubtedly, leaves the child unprepared socially.

Here I am confused, what kind of socialization goes on in school? Very very little of it I see as positive and most of it gets in the way of learning because kids feel they are stealing time with notes and relationships the school would rather they not have. Most learning in school is at a desk reading a book or listening to a teacher and very little is interactive learning with others. Taking turns reading a book does not count! Homeschoolers have proven time and again to thrive in social situations in the real world. Public school in my opinion is as real as prison! Homeschoolers are social in the real world with people of all ages and types, not just the neighborhood kids all their own age and a distant teacher that knows nothing about them. Another score for homeschoolers!

2. Homeschooling parents are arrogant, Part 2. According to Henry Cate, who runs the Why Homeschool blog, many highly educated, high-income parents are “probably people who are a little bit more comfortable in taking risks” in choosing a college or line of work. “The attributes that facilitate that might also facilitate them being more comfortable with home-schooling.”

More comfortable taking risks with their child’s education? Gamble on, I don’t know, the Superbowl, not your child’s future.

Lets take the name calling out of this and add the truth. Homeschoolers and their parents can be more confident in their choices, they see the progress and they feel comfortable trying new things. They are less like sheep. (hehehehe I really do love sheep and wool!) Another score for independent confident human beings!

1. And finally… have you met someone homeschooled? Not to hate, but they do tend to be pretty geeky***.

I have met some amazing homeschoolers. I have met some amazing public schoolers. I have met public schoolers who call themselves Geeks, or those like me who went to public school and jokingly call ourselves popular kids who where undercover nerds. Negative Labels really do not help anyone. Not the ones in this article and not the ones I have used. If we want to teach, if we want to learn, I think we need to be more positive and speak in ways others are open to listening to. For this teacher and all of us, if we need validation, there are better ways to get it!

*** Please see the comments for thoughts on the word ‘geeky.’ But, in general, to be geeky connotes a certain inability to integrate and communicate in diverse social situations. Which, I would argue, is a likely result of being educated in an environment without peers. It’s hard to get by in such a diverse world as ours! And the more people you can hang out with the more likely you are to succeed, both in work life and real life.

One last note, to those homeschooling parents out there: it’s clear from the number and passion of your responses that TeacherRevised is missing an important voice in the teaching community. If any of you are interesting in writing for us, send me an email: jessescaccia@gmail.com. I would love to have you as part of our conversation.

One has to laugh about a teacher trying to upset homeschoolers and then asking for help writing for her site! LOL

We homeschool because we have a passion for learning, for being together, for exploring the world, for having more time for friends and fun than we would if our kids where in school all day and doing homework all evening and worried about tests all weekend!

No matter how you school, because not all of us can homeschool or even should, know that your efforts are supported. That you can be a great parent no matter what kind of education works for your children. Just be there and be willing to change something, take the leap, if what your doing is not working! You can not hope to change the world for the better if your home life does not give you the joy to take out into the world first!

Bright Blessings!