Is Homeschooling Best?
First, I shall establish that I speak from experience: I was homeschooled for 11 years, I have had and do have homeschooled friends, I do now have friends who are homeschooling mothers, and for four years I have taught classes to homeschooled students. I cannot, however, establish that I speak with authority or wisdom.
In conversations with long-time homeschooling mothers and fellow mothers who are thinking for the future, the term homeschooling has come to bother me. Many homeschooling mothers are so emotionally tied to their homeschool that to question it is to raise all their defensive shields and trigger the artillery barrage. And that bothers me. It bothers me when people speak about homeschooling as if it were The One True Way. It bothers me when people speak about homeschooling as the sure-fire way to get smart kids. It bothers me when people speak about homeschooling as though the word meant something.
Yes. I do not believe homeschooling means much of anything, and therefore I do not think it is worth defending beyond maintaining legal right to do so. Homeschool. School at home. That is all the term entails. Homeschool does not assume a Christ-centered education. Homeschool does not assume any specific philosophy, curriculum, or standards or even that such things crossed the family’s mind. Homeschool does not even assume actively involved parents.
Homeschooling has become mainstream. It was not so when my mother and my mother-in-law began almost 20 years ago, but it is so now. On the radio Rush makes fun of “government skrools” and Glenn Beck (Mormon) and Dr. Laura (Jewish) support and encourage families to homeschool. Often it’s assumed that if you’re homeschooled, you’re smarter than average. But what is average now-a-days? Is better than the government schools our only goal? The ability to write a complete sentence and have the attention span to read something longer than a magazine page – that’s better than the public school average. If that’s what you want, sure: homeschool your kid, go to church, throw him a book and make sure he does a few math sheets a week – tada!
But does homeschooling even ensure that? Homeschooling has become so mainstream that working parents whose children are expelled simply keep their children home and “homeschool.” I have heard of families pulling their kids out to homeschool because they wanted their kids to be on the sports team, but they weren’t making the grades to cut it – and homeschooled kids had no such grade requirement. People homeschool for a year to catch their child up, then toss them back to the school in which they fell behind. Among principled homeschoolers, you find everything from “structure-is-evil” to “the-schedule-is-the-law.” When you say homeschool, what do you mean? Do you mean that simply keeping your child at home, simply keeping him from a classroom, is best, no matter what goes on at home? Perhaps some might, but I daresay most would find that ridiculous. Of course that’s not what most mothers mean when they defend and promote homeschooling; yet, is that ever communicated? The word homeschool does not communicate any more than that. In my opinion, it is not a useful word to use in any conversation on education. Defend what you believe about education, but let us not assume a particular word – a particularly-charged word nonetheless – means something more than it does.
Very good Mystie! You’re absolutely right – before you pick “homeschooling” as your own hill to die on, you should probably define the term. :-)
Good points. That reminds me of my feelings about “courtship” – which is an extremely vague word that can mean just about anything. You would think the way some people choose it as their hill to die upon that it was mentioned in one of the 10 Commandments.
Mystie, I have been wondering for quite some time how the first generation of home schooled young women would approach schooling at home once they had children of their own to actually do it with. I still run into many many young women who are wanting to home school, but so far have not encountered a true home schooled woman who is thinking of home schooling. I do not yet know what my own daughters will choose. But I still find this a fascinating topic to think about and to see what your mindset is regarding this issue. For me, it is a little like my grandmother chiding my generation, (or yours) for not caring about voting after the women of her generation worked so hard and diligently to make sure that we have that right. Each woman with children must make her own decisions about what is right for schooling those children, but my generation worked long and hard to give you that right. I know people who went to jail to give you that right. My grandmother’s generation also was very emotional and had defensive shields concerning that right to vote I mentioned before, so we must be careful to tread to lightly over their hearts. Personally, I believe in homeschooling as being a superb choice for my children. But I agree that it is not for all families. One must also realize that there are church bodies where the pastor will stand in front of the congregation and preach that unless you homeschool, you are raising your children in sin basically. It happened to me, I have first hand experience with that. So again, we need to tread lightly on people’s emotions and beliefs.
Good for you for intelligently thinking this through. It is a great privilege you have been given by my generation, and my prayer is that those of your generation who chose to use that right will remember the pain that made it possible.
Love you dear!