I have been trying to contemplate this entry since I read it Thursday night: I’m so over homeschooling.
But may I ask why you feel the need to take the overachiever angle? Don’t you think you might be raising expectations a bit high as you step on our heads to reach the summit? Do you really think people like to hear about how brilliant you are? Don’t you know they snicker about you behind your back? ‘Oh, homeschooling is soooo superior. Homeschooling is in the gifted program. Homeschooling can spell onomatopoeia backwards!’ What about that time you told me it was okay if we didn’t have the times tables sealed up this year? You said everyone can go at their own pace, that was what was so great about you, you said. Reaching your own potential and all that bs. Were you mentally scratching us off of your go-to list for your Washington Post interview even as you soothed? You can’t have it both ways, Homeschool. You can’t be a friend of the working man and scratch the backs of the CEO’s all in one swoop. You are not Bill Clinton.
Kim’s thoughts are well-written and she makes an excellent point. But I am still trying to figure out whether or not I actually agree with what she has to say. Now, I have only been homeschooling for (almost) four years. I do not know what homeschooling was like in the days when people looked at you suspiciously for having your children out during school hours. I only know it personally in its current form…its current state of “popularity.”
What Kim describes reminds me of the little bit of Hegel I remember from college. I know Hegel’s dialectic did not actually use these terms, but this is how the philosophy was summarized in my philosophy class. So I’m sticking with it for the purposes of this post.
The thesis, for those of you who might be fuzzy on college philosophy, represents the main ideas of the time. Say the Educational Establishment. Its fundamental opposition is represented by the antithesis. Say a bunch of anti-institutional hippies. (I think Marx talked about the bourgeois and the proletariat or something, but they aren’t as interesting.) Out of the unavoidable conflict comes the synthesis, a sort of wedding of the two ideas. Like the corporations going green in Kim’s post. Or like the influence that the same philosophies directing the first wave of modern homeschoolers had on the public education system.
This synthesis becomes the new thesis. Perhaps, if we want to try to apply this philosophy to the history of the modern homeschooling movement further, we can then look at the Christian homeschooling movement. The ones who used to think that the hippies were a bunch of nuts and who were supportive of the public schools. Until certain philosophies began creeping into the curriculum. And they started to look like the antithesis.
So where does that leave us now? “Purists” may lament the direction things have gone. Rather than homeschooling being about individual families choosing a lifestyle, we have become a movement. A not-so-easily quantified special interest group with a powerful lobby. We are a force to be reckoned with in local elections where turnout is small.
Is that all bad? What did a small band of anti-institutionalists bring to American education? Popularity certainly comes with a price, but it brings with it something else that I think is important to not overlook. It brought with it choice. A real choice for many Americans. Not only do we have public schools and private schools, but now we have charter schools and magnet schools. We have virtual charters and other means of attaining an accredited education at home in many states. We have cottage schools and homeschool coops. And we have support groups across the nation. Even Ravenna, Nebraska with its 1300 citizens boasts a homeschool group.
When a family is dissatisfied with the education system, they no longer have to think “What else is there?” Nor do they have to break ground to create an option that did not already exist. Even parents who have no real philosophical objections to the public education system can homeschool simply because they like the family togetherness or they have a child who was struggling or just because they want to.
I do not think that is a bad thing.
And now, as we are feeling the pressure of the centralization of our education system, I think it is important to note that the system, too, is feeling the pressure of the success and popularity of homeschooling. How that will pan out, I do not know. Part of it, I suspect, will have to do with the increase in this public school at home option. And the ability to operate under an umbrella school. So long as that does nothing to interfere with the educational choices of those who choose to remain independent, I think those advances are beneficial. The more options, the better.
As we chip away at the establishment, however, I think that we have to keep the true goal in sight. We no longer have to “prove” ourselves. Some information is probably necessary, but the continual appeal to standardized test scores brings with it the inevitable question, “So why do you object to them?” The real goal is to value each child. Regardless of ability, talent, interest, etc. Every morning, my son digs out everything he has done so far for our whaling project and just looks at it. He asks me to read all the things he dictated to me. He tells me more things and asks me to write that, too. Isn’t that more what this whole thing is supposed to be about than a test score?
But then I wonder…can we effect the culture around us without being changed ourselves?
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And a treat for those of you who made it this far: a video. What’s not on the the test? Who cares? It’s not on the test.
Image credit: cropped from graphic available at The Calverton School.
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
I guess it depends on what you are thinking when you say “I’m so over homeschooling”. I started HSing in 1993, after the big battles had been won, but before HSing was ‘mainstream’. There was a period of time where you couldn’t go to the store or or get your hair done without complete strangers having their say (at 137 decibels) about home education. That is no fun when the person lecturing you has scissors in their hand.
Then there was a lull of sorts- HSing was accepted, but not ‘hot’, so people just smiled at you and your kids, and left you alone. Now that HSing has become popular and controversial, the media prints ooh-aah articles about home educated children winning this bee and that scholarship, attending real honest-to-gosh major universities, and lo-and-behold- even Black People home educate- as if they aren’t caring parents just like the rest of the planet. Give me an ever-lovin’ break.
I know that we must defend HSing as a viable option, and that home education has brought attention to some very important factors (the value of certification, for one), but the basic premise is FREEDOM, not just home education. Either we are free to direct and determine our kid’s educations, or we aren’t. Either we can practice our faith or culture in our homes, or we can’t.
Home education as a ‘movement’ is also wearying to me, with entities like the HSLDA promoting themselves as the agents of All Homeschoolers Everywhere, when indeed they are not. As a Fundie Baptist I am supposed to swoon when I hear Mike Farris’ name, when what I really want to do is destroy something with a baseball bat.
So I get it when Kim says she is ‘over’ homeschooling.
I “get it” too. But I don’t know that anyone in particular can be blamed for the media attention. And media attention isn’t all bad. The only thing that will secure the liberties which have been worked for is a society that supports the option.
It shouldn’t be that way, but we seem to be redefining everything recently and “rights” are one of many things falling prey. Now we have a right to an education. And that means a specific kind of education…something modeled after the public school.
I get it too. I too, started homeschooling well before it was mainstream. I have been contiuously homeschooling since 1989. I have seen many forms and facets and factions and I suppose those of us who have been around forever look at the newer homeschoolers a bit like the parents who went through the depression looked at their kids who lived in the post war economy of the 1960s. “You don;t know what we have been through”….
I think many of us have realized that our high expectations and the belief that our children would be perfect because of homeschooling have been disappointed…
And yeah, why do homeschool kids have to be rocket scientists? Why can’t we just BE.
Perhaps it is a bit like Princess Diaries…overnight you go from being the nerd to being someone important who must lead by example. Not always fun.
SOrryt his is so long..think I will take some of these thoughts to my own site….
Dana,
Enjoyed your response to my original post, which was mainly a personal (well, open but personal) letter to homeschooling and how he/she has managed to tick me off over the years even while making us unbearably happy! I like that you took the broader sociological view. There are definitely benefits to schools and society from all the work the early homeschoolers did to secure the homeschooling laws that exist from state to state.
Thanks for stopping by, Kim! I loved your entry. I almost just posted a link with a sort of “what she said.” But I had just written my post for that night and decided to wait for today. In the meantime I started thinking more.
Would we really want the “green” movement to have stayed what it was? Isn’t it better that corporations are a little more conscientious? Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone, even those in the “establishment” were more conscientious, even if it isn’t quite what we would want it to be?
Frankly, I found the tone of the post to be completely obnoxious. I can’t stand when I hear “trendier-than-thou” hipsters whining about how something they like has gone mainsteam…
[As we chip away at the establishment, however, I think that we have to keep the true goal in sight] Beginning with the end in mind, an important first step for any family looking to define their educational approach. I remember Hegel from college too. But, when Hegel “stuck” was when I read an article by Paul Proctor, “The People’s Church. Part of the reason I learned Hegel the second time is because I was older. Mostly, I learned Hegel the second time because I had assumed a stance of absolute truth. If your thesis is true, any concensus moves you away from truth and toward some degree of not truth.
I don’t want to sound like home educating is a Biblical mandate, I don’t think it is. But, for my child there are specific goals I have for her. Those initial truths or my “thesis” are the things I am willing to fight for. And for me, that means I will continue to fight anything that assumes that I will follow the state mandated scope and sequence and the testing that goes with it. I simply do not agree that we can operationally define what an educated person is, set that as a standard and apply it across the board to all people.
Enjoyed this post ~
Very true, Julie. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I always liked Hegel, Marx…and Nietzsche, too. The best paper I wrote in college was on Nietzsche.
But you can see it in about any “movement. Eventually, some key ideas are taken over by the majority. The two major parties swallow the ideas of third parties as soon as they start getting enough membership to be a threat, and the market will change to cater to any demographic as soon as it is large enough to sustain profits.
My only disagreement is there view of the end. I don’t believe there is this perfect synthesis that has no antithesis. Even if it takes us back to something we’ve already done, there will always be a “new” idea to follow.
People are too varied to follow something completely.
When I first read the essay, I read into it specific events by specific groups. When I reread it after thinking about it, I think I saw a little more of what you are talking about.
Particularly with the green thing. If we want to take a lesson from the “greenies” shouldn’t it be that a small group of passionate people can effect even the corporate culture? Is that a bad thing? Were the “greenies” in it for the attention? Or for the environment?
Do I homeschool to be different? Or to satisfy the educational needs of my children? Does my status as a homeschooler change when it becomes popular?
This post reinforces the idea that all homeschoolers should have 12 children and teach each of them to vote. Then we will take over the entire world! There will be no way anyone could quash homeschooling legally. ;]
As the “homeschool movement” grows we’ll have different kinds of homeschoolers like “unschoolers,” Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, Christian homeschoolers, libertarian homeschoolers, etc. etc. You know, like we have now. Hopefully we’ll all get along well enough that we can band together to protect the rights of every family that homeschools.
Naturally, any group of people gets lumped together by those who are on the “outside.” Just travel internationally and see what people think of “Americans.”
You know, we do the exact same thing when we post about “public school” or the kids who attend them. Everyone stereotypes to some degree.
And how can we ever hope to have the media see as as a thing when we can’t even agree on what that thing would be?
My criticisms of public school are usually directed at the system itself, and not those who use it, just like I might make judgments about the nutritional value of the offerings at McDonald’s, but this does not necessarily reflect how I feel about those who eat there.
And public education is a system that does have identifying characteristics, while home education is not a system, but the choice of individual families. The homeschooling stereotypes are based on those home educators who have been promoted in the media for whatever reason, but not on the reality of the immense diversity that exists in the vast homeschool universe. So we have been presented with the Super-Achiever Homeschoolers and the Locked In Cages and Beaten Twice A Week ‘Homeschoolers’. Just how many light years are there in between those two extremes? But you’d think that is all that exists if one were to take the stereotypes seriously.
I didn’t read deeply into Kim’s post, assuming it was a rant and treating it as such. Maybe if home education really were a very new idea, I could understand why it gets the attention it does, as well as the nature of the attention- but Good Night Nurse- people have home educated since the T-Rex bit the dust, and the taxpayer supported compulsory system has been in place for the last 5 minutes as history goes, so the ooh-aah-gee-whiz of the media and the shocked horror of the critics are patently ridiculous in my never-to-be-humble-opinion.
I wasn’t talking about you.
But when we say something like “one more reason to homeschool” and post a link to some kid getting abused by a teacher or another student, it is sort of the same.
I doubt we get much nuance in reporting of homeschooling. No other group really gets it.
As long as people buy newspapers or click on headlines because homeschooling is in it, it will get reported. And most of the news is sold because it shocks or is the extreme. Headlines like “Guess what? Homeschoolers are just like you!” don’t really make news.
It is just the reality of media. And right now with the CA stuff, it is hot news just beginning to taper off. Soon, we will again be relegated to the occasional human interest story until the next abuse case or spelling bee finalist makes headlines.
Oh…and I didn’t take Kim’s post for anything other than what it was. Her personal feelings about homeschooling and its direction. My post is a little different.
I wish I didn’t feel the pressure that somehow my kids need to be better because they are homeschooled, but why do I feel that? It really is my own fault because really I still want to “prove” something. I don’t know what or to whom, but likely I’d be the same way if they were in school.