Homeschoolers have their own unique view of the world. There are a plethora of reasons that each family chooses to forge their own route. Someone sent me a “Bitter Homeschooler’s Wishlist” yesterday. It is a little harsh, but the message behind it is not so terribly wrong. Some of the best points:
1. Please stop asking us if it’s legal. If it is â and it is â it’s insulting to imply that we’re criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
3. Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.
7. We don’t look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they’re in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we’re doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
16. Don’t ask my kid if she wouldn’t rather go to school unless you don’t mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn’t rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
18. If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you’re allowed to ask how we’ll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can’t, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn’t possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
This statement, from a homeschool mother who is at a conference in DC this week, made my morning:
I didn’t give birth to a child just to have the state treat them as a commodity in the planned economy. My child’s dreams will be determined by God as they follow Him, not the demands of the state as they follow my child from cradle to career.
As is implied in the statement, the schools in this country are being changed and your students will be tracked from the time they enter school until they die to see how effective the state has been to keep them in a single career path.
This was intended to be a semi- light-hearted post, but I just can’t let it go without some documentation of the purposes of school. Sigh. I’ll try to post some links eventually to document the school-work link, even though it is not a hidden one.
One oft-quoted phrase comes from the 1947 UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] study (Volume V):
Before the child enters school his mind has already been profoundly marked, and often injuriously, by earlier influences; but the process of schooling may exercise a decisive effect, for it is through the experience of schooling that the child applies and develops the rudimentary sense of community he has first gained, however dimly, in the home.
A few pages later:
The kindergarten or infant school has a significant part to play in the child’s education. Not only can it correct many of the errors of home training but it can also prepare the child for membership, at about age seven, in a group of his own age and habits—the first of many such social identifications that he must achieve on his way to membership in the world society.
This is for every child they can influence in the world (and our country has adopted many of these practices). The kids are to be specifically schooled in how to get along with everyone, how not to make waves. Two pages further on (remember, in 1947):
In the schools of the United States, history, geography, and civics are grouped together under the heading of social studies, a fact which illustrates their bearing on our particular problem. [...]
In our view, history and geography should be taught at this stage as universal history and geography. Of the two, only geography lends itself well to study during the years prescribed by the present survey (3-13 years). The study of history, on the other hand, raises problems of value which are better postponed until the pupil is freed from the nationalist prejudices which at present surround the teaching of history.
I like the phrase “nationalist prejudices.” The outcome of this is that, in some textbooks, the D-Day forces of WWII are now said to be “United Nations soldiers” (even though D-Day was June 6th, 1944 and the United Nations became an entity in 1945, AFTER World War II). Maybe them homescoolers is smart.
Comments
Submitted by Sarah on
I could go on a rant, but you said it with a kindred spirit to me! Absolutely the purpose of education is to shape our attitudes for the workforce.
Submitted by Chris on
You’re the reason I’m even reading the UNESCO reports.
Submitted by Sarah on
Hey, Chris,
Did you Chapter 7 (school-to-work programs) of None Dare Call It Education? High School work programs are not what people think they are. Students are tested for careers in their area. As one high school girl in Las Vegas found out, the school tested her as a bartender instead of her dream of a veterinarian because they had needs for bartenders in Las Vegas. Did the high school really think she needed to start practicing for such a mediocre career in hs?
On page 143 the book discusses a work test marketed by the same company that markets the ACT. The questions were dumb as the book said (testing students on how well they push phone buttons), but I would add that answering phones all day is a bad career for anyone. Why would we push people in that direction?
I think the part that astounds me the most is that these school-to-work programs are pushed by the NEA, who are socialists. The socialist complain and complain that the Capitalists are suppressing the poor and making them a commodity, and yet the socialists are dumb-ing down our youth and preparing them for such mediocre careers? Capitalism has more to offer our youth than that.
People think I am just a nut who believes a good o’ conspiracy. Instead they need to read the NEA. I like what John Stormer says in None Dare Call It Education.
“Conspiracies deal with what is done in secret. The education ‘reformers’ who have made America’s schools the primary agency for changing our culture and our way of life wrote and spoke OPENLY about their dreams and their goals. The tragedy is that for too long no one noticed—or no one took their words seriously.”
Submitted by netwiz on
I’m in agreement with what you’ve put together here; didn’t even find anything to argue with Sarah about. The only “balance” I wanted to offer is that we need to work on how we can avoid arrogance in our own background and realize that we are supposed to be part of our social environment where the majority of people did go through the government-run school system. Some of their experiences were more different than they were inferior. Since the majority of us don’t plan on relocating to a foreign culture my burden is for all those that are not engaging (or preparing for engagement) with society at some level. While some may do big things, and those with good parents may be more likely, many of us are called to do our part in small, quiet usage of the talents we’ve been given. Great in His eyes and very needed in a very selfish and faux sympathetic world. Do small things!
Submitted by netwiz on
Don’t think I’ve made this comment here already: most people follow. I think there’s a kernel of truth to the “talented tenth” (but I think it’s true of all mankind, not a particular race). The interesting thing that happens with liberals is that there are a lot of followers that just want to feel good about their compassion and their desire for equality, but their presence adds power to people that are driven to do something much more insidious with that power. Basically I do agree that there are those that would strive to mold our kids to a particular agenda, but that the majority of people don’t want to do that—but most people aren’t leaders. Even Obama, for instance, I see as mostly a follower. He likes being the top dog, and center of things. He is talented. But the policy stuff is left to other, driven, people.
Submitted by Chris on
I approve of this comment. B)
Submitted by Chris on
This country was originally configured to have more control at the local than higher levels. Using the mathematical inequality statements:
local > county > state > federal
One problem is that the country is currently treated in the opposite order, and to be realists we will have to address this viewpoint as well. All-in-all, I agree with you that what we do here (or there), locally, matters more than all the “grand” things.
One more point: I have lived overseas, and in one of the countries that most see as an alternate to the united States. They have fewer freedoms there than we have even now. This is still a good country but we have a lot to fix.
Submitted by Chris on
No, I am exactly half-way through the book which puts me near the end of Chapter 4. I will hope to finish it before Wednesday, and we will see if that happens.
If the “Democratic” leaders actually stood for democratic ideals, they would be easier to deal with than with their socialistic tendencies. I have respect for the democratic ideas that this country was founded with.
On a slight side-note, I heard someone speak the other day who is writing his thesis on the emergent church and how they are a hybrid of socialism with relativist religion. A lot of things are coming together for one very big mistake. Europe went through this a few decades ago, religious changes as well.
That quote came from the introduction of the book. John Stormer makes a very good point.
Submitted by Sarah on
I couldn’t resist this quote. Do we disagree on that much? Lol.
I ABSOLUTELY agree that the homeschool community are many times arrogant. One problem I have in the conservative community is the tendency to hibernate or put our children in bubbles. Certainly I’d want my child not to go through the experiences of public school; however, its ridiculous to shelter our kids from public schoolers. I do not believe its Christian to form “homeschool” church, or tell those who do not homeschool they are in sin.
Submitted by Sarah on
ugh, subject verb agreement. Community IS.
Submitted by Chris on
Not that you disagree so totally, but I think it was a reference to your reply on the “Who said…?” post: here.
Submitted by netwiz on
Will the socialist/relativist religion gain designation as American Christianity and push someone like me into cult status? Jennifer Knapp is an interesting example of what I’m being asked to accept…and there’s no way that I can. Will certain specific issues be used to define me as not being allowed to have religious freedom? Then I will be marginalized and people with a veneer of Christianity will be further insulated from my suggestion that they examine the basis of their feel-good social club. I’m hopeful that it’s more a lulling to sleep because of our continued prosperity…and will try and welcome the trials when they come because it will hopefully be the sign that people will be roused from their lethargy.
Submitted by netwiz on
Maybe you’ve just changed my outlook on things…I generally got quickly uncomfortable with your comments, but this particular series has been very different—you even avoided one of the terms I’ve picked up from you: government-run schools.
I agreed with everything except probably the extreme of saying it wasn’t Christian to form a “homeschool” church…there’s no prohibition to it, but it’s likely they are not being Christian in leaving an existing church to form it.
You helped me think of one of the risks I see in homeschooling: a low amount of influencers in a particular child’s upbringing. Our advanced society actually enables a mother to take care of everything to run a household, and train the kids, and have the time to be there for all their emotional growth. But they are a single person. And a single point of view is especially intense. Normally the opposites-attract has been at work in the marriage so in a healthy family the father and mother provide a good amount of variety just in two people. But the extended family of years ago provided a lot more personality samples.
So while I don’t think government run schools are the solution by any means, and I’m not saying that home school children are not socialized, I think we need to give some more thought to how parents need to relinquish their extreme control and involvement in their children’s world view to let it be influenced and formed by others. I want healthy individuals, not clones. I don’t want children whose single most significant characteristic is a reaction to negative things in their upbringing.
Submitted by netwiz on
Yeah, I was wondering if she’d overlooked that I jumped in there.
Also the interesting thing about posts is that my wife will point out a particular discussion and I may absorb what was said and not agree, but then not comment. Facebook only has the “like” button to show involvement in a conversation…but I use it liberally to involve myself in things.
With Chris’ blog I essentially “like” everything (with the notifications that a registered account offers). Also, as a funny aside, sometimes my “liking” of a conversation can be seen as strange from others…so my kids are sick and my wife posts it as status and then I “like” that. Can you see the problem?
Submitted by Chris on
You and I made a lot of comments around the time that you posted that reply and I do not think that Sarah reads every blog or comment. It is hard to go back beyond the previous 10 comments without an account (I did make a page in the last week to enable me to do that better but it is not available yet).
“Like” is definitely on Facebook to show involvement, but I refuse to “like” people who are sick.
Submitted by Chris on
Will it? I sure hope not. Is there a possibility? It is already happening. I listened to a sermon a couple weeks ago where the “pastor” (I use the term loosely) said that he wished that he could have appeared on Larry King Live with Jennifer Knapp because she didn’t have an “advocate.” He wanted to be there to “just love her.”
Submitted by Sarah on
Hey, Luke. No I did not see it. You guys should give me an email next time.
I do not have a problem with homeschoolers joining together and starting a church. I have a problem with them not including people from public school. I don’t hesitate to tell families they should rethink their position on public school. But I don’t want to be so arrogant as to call them not a Christian.
Submitted by Sarah on
but I did reply
Submitted by Lisa on
Just saw this & read through. Very interesting thoughts.
Sarah’s 2nd to the last comment to Luke is what provoked me to comment
All I could think of was “Don’t worry, Sarah, God has a way of showing arrogant home schoolers where they are wrong” Been there, done that
IF they let Him though. I Peter 5:5b *continues to read* Actually 6-12 is good too 
Submitted by netwiz on
As one of the first wave of homeschoolers (I just turned 34), I just wanted to give a push so that other homeschoolers could realize a little sooner what they might be missing. Following Him will consistently lead to the right path, just wanted to encourage people to carefully consider what they could do to adapt appropriately to the world in which they are entering.
Submitted by netwiz on
Ah, yes, then I totally agree. A church that excluded anyone except for a Biblical reason would be non-Christian.
Submitted by netwiz on
where’s the “<shudder>” button.