While H.o.p. is learning about how rats at a temple in India are revered and that at the end of the day people drink from their milk bowls with the hope of acquiring luck (his interest in the creatures that populate the Redwall world has him daily eager to learn more about rats, mice, moles etc., which leads to other learning opportunities), I went back to the Huffington Post to locate Russell Shaw’s post: Let’s Restrict Homeschooling.
When Russell Shaw says “restrict” he means when your child is “immobile” or if you live in a remote geographical area, maybe then you can homeschool if you’re deemed to have the proper credentials.
Russell Shaw seems to be convinced that most homeschoolers are Christians determined to deprive their children of science and interactions with a broad range of people who would open their minds to the great cultural panorama that is humankind. He writes (and I quote too much):
I’m troubled by the fact that a significant percentage of home schooling parents choose this option because of an overriding feeling that they want their children to pursue curricula from theology or received wisdom rather than a scientific perspective.
I wonder how many of these types of home-schooled kids take the assumptions of say, 6,500 year-old earths and other lack of respect for scientific inquiry into adulthood. Will these people be on equal preparatory footing for jobs where scientific inquisitiveness, technical insight or critical thinking skills are far more necessary than rote recitation?
I’m also troubled, frankly, by parents who find the world overly complex, and want to keep their students at home in the service of simplicity and protectiveness.
I’m equally troubled by the fact that a non-trivial number of home-schoolers are taught in that way because their parents are overly rugged individualists who lack the impulse or skills to mix in as collaborative members of everyday society.
Well, the world is overly complex. Lots of different types of people, of cultural forces. Hiding off somewhere and teaching your kids away from the influence of a socially formative school environment can make it harder for your children to learn about the give-and-take of life in our present-day culture.
I did a search for homeschooling on Huffington and come up with it being referenced only in respect of, again, Christian homeschoolers and I think those two blogs are about it at Huffington. At least it’s all I could find.
So if Huffington Post is supposed to represent Democrat/Progressive voices in general, where the hell is the pro-homeschool post? Google homeschool and progressive and you’ll find there are a number of us out there, and a readily communicable focus seems to be science with a number of these homeschoolers, which should please those whose nightmares flail them about their beds with visions of homeschoolers teaching their kids that dinosaurs are no longer around because they didn’t make it on Noah’s boat. So, shouldn’t be hard to find progressive science-minded homeschoolers to educate Huffington Post on how the face of homeschooling has changed considerably over the past twenty years?
Or has the face of homeschooling changed that remarkably? Was it always the domain of science-fearing Christians, as we’re led to believe?
How many hippies chose to homeschool their children back in the 60s and 70s, helping to jumpstart homeschooling? I don’t know. But I remember noise made about it at the time and the desire to bring up independent thinkers in their own system of values that ran counterculture.
The July/August 1980 issue of Mother Earth News was an interview with John Holt who was given “at the center of a home-schooling network that almost resembles an underground railroad for children”. It starts out with Holt’s experience of school as an institution that deprives children of a natural love for learning and a game which can be learned to simply be played well by some.
In fact, I think that our society expects schools to get students to the point where they do things only for outside rewards. People who perform tasks for their internal reasons are hard to control.
Though homeschooling is much more prevalent today, society is most comfortable with families who pursue homeschooling like public, government schools, but this wasn’t part of John Holt’s vision.
In some instances, the parents have rather old-fashioned ideas and end up scheduling their programs sort of like miniature schools. On the whole, though, people soon tend to get away from such restrictive approaches . . . because they find–from experience–that children learn better if they direct their own educations…I think that learning is not the result of teaching, but of the curiosity and activity of the learner. A teacher’s intervention in this process should be mostly to provide the learner with access to the various kinds of places, people, experiences, tools, and books that will correspond with that student’s interest . . . answer questions when they’re asked . . . and demonstrate physical skills. I also feel that learning is not an activity that’s separate from the rest of life. People learn best when they’re involved with doing real and valuable work, which requires skill and judgment.
When Mother Earth queried Holt on the idea of homeschoolers being reactionaries opting out of established educational systems for negative reasons, he responded,
No, indeed . . . (they homeschool) because it has such incredible positive benefits for children. True, people often start teaching their children at home because they see bad things happening to the youngsters at school. Many such parents, though, find that their children soon become happier, nicer, and more inquisitive human beings than they were when enrolled in educational institutions.
At the time, Holt estimated about 10,000 families participating in the homeschool movement. He expected that figure to grow and believed it was good fo schools.
If–in the long run–schools are going to have a future, they will eventually have to function as learning and activity centers which more and more people come to voluntarily . . . and the sooner our institutions begin to move in such a direction, and some community schools already are moving that way, the better off they’ll be. Homeschooling is good for society as a whole, too. Most young people come out of high school today with feelings of alienation, self-hatred, bottled-up anger, and the sense the life is useless. Such emotions constitute a large-scale and potentially dangerous social problem. I don’t entirely blame the schools for this situation, of course, but they have pretty well demonstrated that they can’t change it . . . and I don’t expect home-schooled teenagers–since they’ve grown up in contact with serious adults who take young people seriously–to have the same problems.
When H.o.p. was three and we realized we’d likely be homeschooling, and began preparing for it, wishing to bring up H.o.p. with a love for learning and ideas, not wanting him to feel imprisoned by a desk and time schedule, aside from books by John Holt and John Taylor Gatto there were slim resources out there for individuals pursuing secular homeschooling, and I think it is partly because they are inventive and resourceful and didn’t need the back-up of a traditional curriculum which many Christian homeschoolers appear to desire and with which they have felt most comfortable. So, when homeschooling hit the internet, Christian traditionalists (and literalists) were at the forefront with homeschooling materials. But a lot has changed in the past six years. The internet has dramatically altered information access and delivery, and today we are able to subscribe to a number of purveyors of quality educational content. Though not essential, these internet resources are more than simply convenient. Access to museums in Atlanta isn’t absolutely essential either (which have only one “free” day a year for children) but it is desirable, so we feel fortunate to be able to make certain personal sacrifices that provide our son the experience of frequently visiting them, whereas the majority of children in Atlanta haven’t this opportunity.
Today, the number of homeschooled children is estimated at between one and two million, with a projected growth rate of seven to fifteen percent a year. If you believe it’s all Literalist Christians, you’d be wrong, just as it wasn’t all Literalist Christians back in 1980.
So, what is it with Democrats/Progressives who are so behind the times (and uneducated) that they only comprehend homeschooling as isolationist and regressive? Who perceive it as dangerous? Who believe all children should be brought up as educational wards of the state? Not to mention, how limited is their vision of the modern working world that they know only a “Leave it to Beaver” wonderland of 9 to 5, Monday thru Friday salary/wage earners, with evenings, weekends, holidays and summers reserved for recreation and family time?
And how elitist and cynical of them that they are perfectly amenable with monied families opting out of public schools, providing a private, academic, tailored education for their children.
The idea of a level playing field in child opportunity and education in this society is complete BS. I’m sitting here looking at this summer’s program from Fernbank and its summer camps for children which are $300 a week for members and $350 a week for nonmembers. “Educational activities to inspire young scientists!” Yes, whose families have the money to send them. Just as it is with so many children’s programs. You want science for kids? Why not ensure they have regular free admission to museums?
I’m reading right now a woman’s description of an experience where she and about 60 others showed up for an advertised Fernbank Museum of Natural History free day, coupons in hand, only to be told that it wasn’t a free day, that they were all mistaken. Seems that Fernbank had canceled its participation at the last moment. Eventually, they admitted they were at fault and allowed the individuals inside. “Next year, I will be calling ahead on free day, just to be sure,” the woman ends her story.
So, not even an advertised free day might get you into a museum. Parents with eager children, though they have a coupon in hand, wanting to learn about Natural History, are not only nearly turned away by the museum but are told they are at fault.
We love the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. We go to it frequently, and sometimes the Fernbank Science Center, which is free and has wonderful volunteers. But I’m aware, with each of our visits, that there are many individuals who are unable to provide their children this experience.
The number of homeschoolers is quite small. Though the movement continues to grow, I imagine it will remain a relatively small one. If you’re so worried about children growing up with respect for scientific inquiry, why not ensure they have adequate access to resources reserved for the more privileged?
If 51% of Americans don’t believe in evolution but are of the opinion that God created humans in their present form, and only 2.2 percent of American children were estimated as homeschooled in 2003, then y’know we’re not talking a homeschooling problem here, and it’s ridiculous to assert it is one.
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