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.

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.

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.

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?

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.”

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?

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.

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 ~

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?