How much simpler can you put it?
If homeschooling represents an assertion of the parental right to influence how a child perceives reality, in the Millmans’ view the real point of this kind of education is to develop a person with the clarity to discern what is real. Learning, then, is less about amassing a certain body of knowledge than about cultivating the habit of asking questions and seeking true answers. First Things
And now this is pure and simple musing on my part. I have no knowledge of any study or any expert to back up what I am about to say. This is purely my opinion. Actually, it isn’t even that. It is purely my musing. Based perhaps more on my history with education and homeschooling, which includes a rather lengthy period of believing homeschooling was for over-controlling parents who desired to live vicariously through their own children.
But I wonder if, in all the accusations out there about homeschooling parents indoctrinating their children, some of it may come from memories of how most of us were taught in the public school? Where the teacher stood in charge of the classroom, the textbook dictated what we were going to learn next and the test assured all that we had satisfactorily digested the material set before us? We weren’t exactly individuals and we weren’t exactly encouraged to blaze our own trails. But at the same time, many of us also had an exceptional teacher here or there along the way and/or parents who bolstered our confidence when it was needed which helped to balance some of the…dare I call it socialization?…which occurs in the public school system.
Put all that power that was used to attempt to shape us in the hands of a single parent and perhaps we can catch a small glimpse of why it is people who link homeschooling and indoctrination seem to think the connection is self-explanatory.
I certainly cannot speak for all homeschoolers, but of all the homeschoolers I do know, this statement is a perfect summary of our educational philosophy, whether we tend toward the traditional curriculum model or the unschooling model:
To bring up children to see no real dividing line between “learning” and “everything else” is to reap adults—a whole family, in fact—for whom learning remains a lifelong journey and a habit of being. Ibid.
When I started, I was schooling my children at home. Education consisted of specific subjects delivered within specific periods of time and then it was done. Over time, however, I began to embrace homeschooling as a lifestyle, education as a process and learning as a journey of discovery that did not necessarily have a clearly defined, measurable objective waiting at the end. Asking questions, seeking answers and cultivating interests has much more to do with what I am attempting to do in my home than “indoctrination.” I emphasize attempting because one of the most difficult things for me to let go of has been the public school model of education, speaking perhaps directly to how much our education shapes us and the power that the institutional model has over us even when we have consciously selected an alternate path.
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Be sure to check out all the great exhibits over at this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling!
Visit any dance class, cheerleading competition, academic tournament, or jr. sports event to find over-controlling parents living vicariously through their children.
The idea that schools are bastions of critical thinking and diversity of opinion is ludicrous. When I read stuff about the classroom as the best venue for the free exchange of ideas, I want to not only ask what school that person attended, but on what planet?
Teachers are not immune to bias, and the best source of a variety of insight and information is not usually one’s teenaged peers. Schools have an agenda, and if parents have an agenda- SO WHAT? As long as that agenda is not immoral, illegal, or fattening, it ain’t nobody’s business, and the state has no cause for attempting to make it theirs.
And exactly what would these objectors of parental guidance like to see happen? To make it illegal for kids to wear clothing with a candidate’s name on it without a signed release from the state ensuring that the child is not doing so under duress from the parent? What gripes me is that folks who blather on about ‘parental indoctrination’ haven’t given .03 seconds of thought as to what they are proposing. It just sounds enlightened, so they say it. If we could take all the unused atmosphere trapped between the ears of these people, we could colonize Mars.
Yeah- betcha’ can’t tell that this subject really frosts my taters.;)
Good points – and I love sunniemom’s comments (although she’s not sounding too “sunnie” today). Maybe we need to make it more clear to people that we love the homeschooling lifestyle. We pursue it out of love of learning, not fear of the school system or whatever.
This is from Wikipedia, but I found it interesting:
Indoctrination refers to a wide range of different activities, and finding a single definition is problematic. In the fields of psychology, sociology and educational research, more precise terms are often preferred, including (but not limited to): socialization, propaganda, manipulation, and brainwashing.
In education, distinguishing (undesirable) “indoctrination” from the (acceptable) teaching of values is particularly problematic.
Homeschooling is only considered “indoctrination” when they disagree with us and are worried that they don’t have enough access to properly indoctrinate our children into their goals.
Make that “properly socialize our children into their goals.” Since “socialization” is the big anti-homeschooling buzz word these days.
Dana is our very own homeschooling muse!
Excellent points, as usual. I agree that people tend to complain about things like “indoctrination” when their attempts to indoctrinate are being thwarted by another.
~Luke
Well, there ARE some nuts out there indoctrinating their children to be Neo-nazis or whatever. Price you pay to live in a free society. There ARE also some nuts out there teaching some pretty craazy stuff to public school children as well.
At least I’m not paying for the Neo-nazis to indoctrinate their children, is all I have to say on that score.
Good post as always, Dana.
Excellent point, Mrs. C. There are people who truly are indoctrinating their children in the worst sense of the word. There are people doing this to adults, as well.
I don’t think this is a good thing, but we also need to resist forming policy for the worst case scenario. Giving the state the power to do this to all of us is a little more frightening than allowing the citizenry enough freedom that some abuse it.
It seems to me that in the history of the world, far greater atrocities occur when the state is given enough power to regulate all that goes on in the home, and the abuses aren’t limited by it, either.
“To bring up children to see no real dividing line between “learning” and “everything else” is to reap adults—a whole family, in fact—for whom learning remains a lifelong journey and a habit of being. Ibid.”
Very excellent quote and worth repeating.
Thanks for linking the Carnival, Dana. I kept having some moments of panic about what would not work for me on Monday after your server adventures. Shewww..
I think it all stems from the whole cultural divide in this country between those who believe in the empowerment of the state at the expense of individuals and those who believe in the empowerment of individuals at the expense of the state. The “it takes a village to raise a child” folks vs. the “it takes a family to raise a child” ones.
My belief is that this divide stems from there being 2 diametrically opposed views of fundamental human nature. On the one side, you’ve got the heirs to Romanticism who believe that humans are naturally good but corrupted by society. On the other side, you’ve got those who hold traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs in original sin and free will. The former are therefore convinced that peoples’ problems can be solved by external intervention such as the “nanny state”. The latter hold fast to the notions of individual autonomy and personal responsibility. While we all have a moral obligation to reject sin, no one can force us to do the right thing.
My favorite quote from Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card:
“And by the time they took him, it was too late. To raise Peter and Valentine in our faith. If you don’t teach children when they’re little, it’s never really inside them. You have to hope they’ll come to it later, on their own. It can’t come from the parents, if you don’t begin when they’re little.”
“Indoctrinating them.”
“That’s what parenting is,” said Mrs. Wiggin. “Indoctrinating your children in the social patterns that you want them to live by. The intellectuals have no qualms about using the schools to indoctrinate our children in their foolishness.”