JJ Ross pleads with homeschoolers to think a little before writing.
Homeschool advocates, please, please educate yourselves first before you “defend” homeschooling freedom in the public square, lest you make our community’s thinking skills seem inadequate and thereby bolster the regulators’ case or the standardizers’ case or the social worker-teacher union-UN case. Cocking a Snook
I always have a little difficulty with the various discussions about how certain segments of the homeschool population need to back away from certain lines of reasoning lest we all suffer. To be honest, most of them come across to me as “If only those whacked out conservative evangelical types would shut up already…”
But is there one way, one right way, to engage the public in homeschool discussions? I can be both snarky and serious, dismissive and cordial. It all depends on who I’m talking to and whether or not I think they would listen. Of course, the problem with blogging is that everyone can listen, but in so doing I ask them to do a little reasoning of their own.
I agree with JJ Ross when I listen to a Senator who introduced a restrictive homeschooling bill say she received emails calling her a communist. I agree when I see in an official report to the English government that no one in the Local Authority would be the intellectual equivalent of their child. Those are stupid things to say to a government official who is looking at regulating homeschools. But does that mean we all need to follow the talking points?
I’m going to borrow a bit of philosophy from evangelist Ravi Zaccharias and adapt it to my purposes. Essentially, the apologist must argue from three levels simultaneously: the theoretical, the arts and the “kitchen table.” All three are important. All three influence how homeschoolers are perceived. All three are valid, depending on context. Context is key.
Refining the philosophical is of importance in communicating with academics and policy makers. When speaking with researchers, we need to speak their language. They like statistics, but in a field where valid, scientific statistics are lacking (and often vociferously attacked) it is difficult to give the peer-reviewed, double-blind study they are looking for. And that in and of itself raises concerns for many.
But how important is that to the rights of homeschooling families? Does our freedom to educate our children rest in the hands of Rob Reich and Kim Yuracko? Perhaps not as much as we think. Certainly their writings give a level of credence to other attacks against homeschooling in media and in government. They certainly shouldn’t be ignored and their arguments should not go unchallenged.
The objections raised by politicians are certainly more immediate. They have the power not merely to influence opinion but to change law. Historically, however, we have been able to hold our own against the state.
Over the last twenty to thirty years, it does not appear to me that the arguments for and against homeschooling have changed much. I have not been involved in homeschooling for even half that time, so perhaps my impression is inaccurate. Still, we have made decisive gains in the acceptance of homeschooling. Perhaps it is because of the amazing rhetoric of a skilled few. Perhaps it is because of the deafening noise of the many when homeschooling is challenged.
But I believe it has primarily to do with that “kitchen table talk.” Every time the Department of Education asks, more people indicate favorable views toward homeschooling. I seriously doubt most of the people in those surveys have read Nicky Hardenbergh’s response to Rob Reich. Somewhere along the line, however, I bet they met a homeschooler. Somehow, they were able to overcome their stereotypes, their reflexive fear of what is “different” and see homeschooling in a different light.
I am thoroughly convinced that the future of homeschooling rests in the opinions of my friends, neighbors and others in my community rather than in the hands of a few highly educated objectors. For that reason, I sincerely believe that the casual conversations I have at a ball game, in line at the grocery store, sitting in the doctor’s office, etc. are far more important to the future of homeschooling than anything I have ever written on this blog.
That is the level at which we act and interact. It is where the abstract becomes concrete. It is where the homeschooler ceases to be part of the “Other” and becomes part of the community.
Well said, Dana, and I agree. I think most of the reason homeschooling has gained the acceptance that it has is simply that one generation of homeschoolers has grown up and gone on to adult life and society didn’t collapse. In a way, it’s a bit like the Y2K hype.
I live in a very small town (pop. <400) and saying you’re a homeschooler is a little like saying you’re from Mars. (After three years, I think people are finally getting used to us.) When I meet new people, if I am not their first encounter with a Martian, oops, I mean a homeschooler, the first thing they tell me about is so-and-so that they know who also homeschools (and what they thought of that person/family!) But usually, I’ve been the first real live homeschooler that someone has ever met. It’s a lot like being the first and only Christian someone has ever met (I’ve been in that situation too.) I can’t help but think that someday, they’re going to meet their second homeschooler. And then they’re immediately going to tell that person about ME!
Winston Churchill:
“True genius resides in the capacity
for evaluation of uncertain,
hazardous, and conflicting information.”
Dana makes good points and I hope she’s right, that many of us can and will continue The Conversation at this high level of thinking and understanding.
I agree we need to keep showing homeschoolers are not “other” and casual, friendly conversations do help. Unfortunately at the public policy level that’s necessary, but not sufficient.
Last week for example was Loving Day, reminding us that despite comfort with individuals — “some of my best friends are [fill in the blank]” — group stereotypes arising from hate/fear of cultural change burrow into public policy and may take a century to reverse, getting even likable individuals controlled and restricted, discriminated against, imprisoned, sometimes murdered.
The best defensive weapon against such Other Oppression that any society and especially any minority (homeschoolers for example) can build, is universal public education (education of the public.)
Ironic, isn’t it? For homeschooling to rail against “public education” is to demonstrate how dangerous its lack can be, and then to turn it on ourselves and fire! If we really stop think through our connectedness to our communities, the society and the human condition worldwide, is inevitable that undermining education makes us more vulnerable, not less.
Dana’s earlier post, Don’t Be Psychotic! — good advice! — included these wise words from her in the comments:
“Honestly, I have serious concerns about the intellectual responsibility of anyone who connects homeschooling to abuse. They are either:
1. Intentionally inflammatory to garner attention.
2. Honestly believe that anyone who disagrees with them is abusive, or
3. Are incapable of viewing the world in any way other than through their own stereotype.
Any of these sort of undermines any attempt at rational communication and productive dialog.”
I urge each thinking parent to read Dana’s words again with one tiny change, “homeschooling” to “schooling.” Our online community has prominent hs bloggers sounding psychotic on all three points right now in ongoing discussions many of us no doubt see or even participate in. They (we) thereby raise the exact same concerns about whether homeschooling is intellectually responsible.
I don’t think it raises concerns about whether homeschooling is intellectually responsible, but certain voices within.
But the same arguments could (and have) been made about all sorts of groups within America.
Pick any issue of concern to Americans and you will find people making both intelligent and ridiculously emotional arguments on either side of it. Did the left’s references to King George, Bu$h, etc., hurt the arguments despite their decided lack of any real argument?
If positive individual encounters with the public can help homeschooling as a community, then surely negative individual encounters can hurt us with the public?
Yes, but there is a difference between a personal encounter and an encounter on the web.
Most of a website’s readers are those who agree, so a bit of over the top positioning really does nothing but appeal to the emotions of those who are inclined to agree, anyway.
Obviously, some do scour the internet and use forum and blog postings to come to an opinion about homeschooling. But I have less respect for their research methodologies than I do for the people who are a bit careless in their online writings.
Again,it sounds like a blind spot, a double standard, to say two individual professors should be criticized for poor research and poor thinking because it leads to narrow-minded education, but to excuse the same in homeschool teachers and advocates, as if it doesn’t have the same effect. You said then:
” A liberal society is nothing if it cannot tolerate opposing viewpoints. Once it attempts to regulate and control ideas, it is no longer “broad-minded” nor tolerant of the ideas of others. It instead becomes narrow-minded, judgmental and controlling, furthering a single mindset and pressuring groups to conform.
In other words, it ends up creating an educational system committed to “teach[ing] only the ideas acceptable to ideologues who fear the contaminating influence” of anyone who disagrees.”
I AGREE. Completely. And I apply it to home education too.
I think you misunderstood my point. I’m not excusing it in anyone. There is a difference between what a professor writes in an academic journal and what he says to some friends over coffee.
Here, on the internet, you are observing an awful lot of random thoughts and there is some responsibility on the part of the reader to discern that.
If certain people went to a hearing and spoke like they do on their blogs, I’d think they were nutty. On their blogs, I don’t think all that much about it. It is a different medium, a different register. It is informal rather than scientific. And I think even those using “lower level reasoning” benefit from participating in the discussion in a public format.
Ah, you are right that I misunderstood. Homeschool advocates blog informal random thoughts of course, but also some DO take some anti-government extremism to hearings and “tea parties” and events/meetings with politicians, into televised and published interviews, sometimes into their own campaigns for office, set up petitions and websites to publish and proselytize a dangerously narrow ideology of home education.
“Here, on the internet, you are observing an awful lot of random thoughts and there is some responsibility on the part of the reader to discern that.”
Um.
More than there is on the part of the writer? Seriously?
For example, a blog with “Homeschool” right in in the title, had a recent commenter note that “I am a talk radio and internet news junkie, and an active grassroots conservative Republican, and this stuff scares me to death.”
Part of the problem is that the most extreme nutcases on the right are, for the most part, reinforcing the stereotype of homeschoolers. That makes their nuttery that much more powerful and damaging. Their effect on public opinion is amplified by the very fact that it reinforces what many already believe. People in general ignore outliers that don’t conform to the stereotype, so it takes a long and concerted effort to overcome said stereotypes. Every single nutcase that gets some attention in the public square counteracts 10 more mainstream conservative or liberal homeschoolers that are trying to make the case that we all don’t worship at the alter of Rush Limbaugh. Every HSer that writes a letter to the editor blasting the “evilutionists” working at the local public school sets us back that much farther from the sort of mainstream acceptance (both political and social) that we all supposedly want.
“More than there is on the part of the writer? Seriously?”
No. But the original point was that the cause of homeschooling is thwarted by internet rants. If so, the cause is pretty weak. Are there counterproductive arguments out there? Certainly. Are there blogs garnering attention through inflammatory and indefensible positions? Certainly.
Do Americans who want to even pretend to support freedom of speech and freedom of expression need to sort through some of that? I believe so. Blogging is a powerful medium because it allow all of us to engage in conversation about the news of the day.
But “Court Criminalizes Homeschooling” will always attract more traffic than “Divorced Parents Can’t Agree on How to Educate Children.” The medium molds the message, rewards polarity with traffic and comments, socializes participants into this battle line mentality.
COD, not all of us want mainstream acceptance, and you are touching on another point I wanted to make.
When we talk about extremes, and nutcases, and fear, can we include those on the left who have this irrational fear that somehow this 1/7 of the estimated 2% of the population that has dominionist goals in education are going to overthrow the government and institute a theocracy?
The right may be “scared” of certain government encroaches on individual liberty, and we can could go around in circles as to whether that is real or perceived, good or bad, but the left has its fears, too.
When I see sensationalist and inflammatory rhetoric, I generally see a movement in decline.
So I understand you to say then, you see homeschooling in decline?
I agree and love your last two paragraphs. Blogged my agreement & will retweet your post too.
Something happened in CT last week that I purposefully didn’t blog but just might as it is a related topic to this, about how CT homeschoolers should or should not react to a news story that ran here about HSing.
http://tinyurl.com/lkt5gn
To be clear, when I said “not all of us want mainstream acceptance” I wasn’t referring to myself. I was referring to those like the ones I discussed in this entry. Spunky has brought them up as well, but I can’t find The ones you are most afraid of are the least likely to care about the criticism.
I can almost guarantee that any criticism leveled by an atheist will be seen as fulfillment of the scripture and taken as proof that they are doing something right and for God. Look at the whole TOS boycott fiasco.
So I understand you to say then, you see homeschooling in decline?
No, quite the opposite. But I do see the power diminishing of the more doominionist segment of homeschoolers who are now lashing out at other Christians for not being Christian enough. Homeschooling itself is mainstreaming, and some are losing their power due to that change. They are the shrill ones.
Whew! More along the lines I was thinking.
//When we talk about extremes, and nutcases, and fear, can we include those on the left who have this irrational fear that somehow this 1/7 of the estimated 2% of the population that has dominionist goals in education are going to overthrow the government and institute a theocracy?//
Absolutely! Although if that 2% has the right Congressmen and President in place, they can do a lot of damage. That was after all the primary strategy of HSLDA! Obviously, it’s a lot less of a concern these days!
More opportunities like this would be cool, too.
I agree that talking one-on-one in informal settings is the best way to get the homeschooling message out and that the highly educated objectors will eventually get hushed out by the “one-two punch” of increased mindshare over true homeschooling and the continued positive statistics suggesting that homeschooling works.
And I really think the next level of educating the mainstream folks should be focused on the people who have influence over education policy.
Perfect illustration is as follows:
Here in the state of Texas, a bill was just passed (SB 1440) which allows state welfare officials to seize your child without parental permission so that they can interview that child by transporting him/her to a place that the officials deem appropriate.
Now, I know this bill wasn’t aimed at homeschoolers per se, but it does have some really bad consequences for the homeschool community since any Child Protective Services official can basically ignore the 4th Amendment and take your kid away to eventually make the child say anything the officials want (and in Texas, CPS and homeschoolers aren’t exactly the best of friends, so you can connect the dots and draw your own conclusions as to how this bill, if it becomes approved by the governor, can easily be used to punish/harass law-abiding homeschoolers).
Did you know that in the Texas Senate, this bill was passed unanimously? That’s right, not one Senator voted against this bill.
Like I said, informal chats are best for democratizing the homeschool message, but focusing on communicating our message to someone who “has a seat at the table” when it comes to deciding homeschool rights is also critical.
Yes, you are quite right. But don’t you think that if the general populace were better educated, such offenses would not take place in our government? We rarely get past the sound bytes, and I fear our legislators hardly have time to read past the titles.
It takes vigilance and some amount of organization to even know what is going on, much less formulate a response to it and begin to build enough support to pressure lawmakers.
Must disagree, Dana. If the general populace were very well-educated, and if such education occurred in public school, it would defeat a major PRO-homeschooling argument. Usually, when I see someone opposed to home education on the blogs, etc., they make exception for “really bad schools.” Or if I bring up what happened to my son, it seems that oh, it’s ok for parents of disabled kids to do, too, because it’s not like we need to train those kinds of people to be independent anyway.
It seems, somehow, that YOU, good parent, should never take the “school’s job” unless the school somehow proves itself to be awful. So, more schools becoming truly awful would propel more “regular” parents to homeschool.
I find the argument against religious home education a bit odd myself. I was a conservative Christian BEFORE I began home-educating, but I began home-educating for secular reasons.
Of course, now that I AM teaching at home, when I pick out curriculum it has God and stuff in it. (Eeek!)
PS. FWIW that was not me saying that I WANT schools to be crummy… more that, in the opinions of others (which is the subject of this blog post) better schools would mean less “good reason” to homeschool.
I sure hope I made some sense! But I think it’s an important point to make. Maybe it’s just a theoretical one, because we all know all schools aren’t “good” schools or “bad” schools, which makes your newest post more relevant. :]
Homeschool advocacy has a built-in flaw that hurts us imo. We love the heady philosophy of education choice and education freedom and speak so effectively of it, but then in the political tug-of-war we lose sight of freedom to learn and get caught up in freedom to teach. We wind up making every issue about the parent’s rights and the parent’s values and the parent’s beliefs, the parent’s authority — and most pile divine authority on top of that.
Ten years ago Nance and I tried to respect the concerns of homeschoolers who didn’t want us to call our family’s education freedom “homeshcooling” so we started using the phrase “parent-directed education” — but we quickly realized that wasn’t it. What we believe in isn’t parent-directed but parent-PROTECTED education.
Real education freedom is for the learner and that means no ruling authority, not merely exchanging one ruling authority for another.
Wherever the basis of instruction is control, coercion and compulsion, we use other words: training, schooling, programming, conditioning, remediation, indoctrination.
But real education, learning in individual freedom? Hardly.
It’s not real education freedom when church, state or even the parent-teacher controls what the child learns, knows and believes.
That means there’s a lot about homeschooling that isn’t real education freedom then. I happened upon the Sonlight commercial curriculum site today for the first time, where I found a list of pros and cons for homeschooling. Guess what the number one “pro” reason was? CONTROL.
JJ, you’re right. On this page, CONTROL of what your children learn and when they learn it is listed at the first of the Top Benefits of Homeschooling. But I think it means something slightly different than what you are bagging on here.
This parental CONTROL over a child’s education is not so much about gaining ruling authority as it is about giving your children the content that is right for them when they are ready. It’s about using your knowledge and love as a parent to give your child what is perfect for them. In some ways, what you say: Parent-protected learning.
On the other hand, it is true that Sonlight encourages parents to control/guide what their children are learning and how. This does go against the completely open “unschooling” method, and does reject the idea of a child’s complete “individual educational freedom” is paramount.
Why?
Because our job as parents is, I believe, to see what our children are capable of doing/their direction/purpose and point them down that road so they can run down it. For some, they have found that directed “unschooling” is the best way for them and their family. And that’s fine. For many, many families, however, Sonlight continues to provide tools and resources that help parents more easily encourage, grow, and inspire their children into a life-long love of learning.
In fact, giving children complete freedom–without input/guidance/control from parents–has led to many of today’s issues, as Dr. Sax points out so well in his book.
But beyond this, I encourage you to read more about Sonlight, and why parents both love and dislike Sonlight, and also some of the company’s stated goals. This may not be what you are looking for for your family, but by rejecting Sonlight you are choosing to give your children something else… which is making a choice for them… as you should.
~Luke
Luke, I wasn’t arguing for or against your product. I know nothing about it, and rejecting or using it wasn’t the point.
JJ, I did not mean to make a mountain out of a molehill at all. And while your comment may not have been directed for or against Sonlight, I felt that it rather negatively portrayed what the company stood for and I wanted to present the more positive perspective.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify!
~Luke
“But is there one way, one right way, to engage the public in homeschool discussions?”
I think a lot of it depends on the context. Who are you talking with? What is their interest? Are they just being polite?
One of the things I find effective is to just give out little bits. Most people who ask about homeschooling don’t want the two hour lecture. I have a thousand facts and ideas about homeschool, but I try to give a short answer. If the person is really interested, they’ll ask for more.
That is very true, Henry. I’ve never launched into a discussion of founding principles, socialization, or anything like that when people ask me in person about homeschooling.
Their questions are normally very polite and curious…like what you’d ask when you meet someone from another country.