Answering the Same Homeschool Objections . . . Again

I started home educating my oldest son when he was in first grade. Unhappy with the private school he was attending, and a bit concerned about the condition of the public schools in the area, my husband and I decided to try homeschooling.

I was working for a large mortgage bank in the legal department, but I had attended college in order to become a teacher. The idea of teaching my own child sounded like bliss. So we went for it.

In these last 20 years, I have heard the same objections to homeschooling again and again. They have been addressed over and over, in newspapers, magazines, by educational establishments and research projects, but that doesn’t stop people from asking as if they are the first person on earth to imagine them.

Moderndaychris is a blogger, and a junior at Gettysburg College, studying American Studies, Music, and Education, with many exciting opportunities in his future. To that I say, “Congrats, and go for it!”

He is again asking questions, often in the form of accusations, at this post “The Home School vs The Public School.” So I thought I’d answer a few of them.

First, I want to say that I do not view public education and home education as opposites or adversaries. They are both legitimate options for parents. Private education is also in the mix as a valid choice when deciding where their child will receive academic instruction.

I can understand that for many people, having only experienced public education or the traditional classroom, it is difficult to imagine that a parent could provide anything similar in their own home.

Of course, that assumes that I want to provide something similar to public education.

However, the idea that public schools are the only place where students can learn teamwork, converse about modern culture and entertainment, or debate ideas, is incredibly narrow-minded for someone who claims to have a broad view of the world.

Are we supposed to believe that a classroom is the only way to learn about the ‘real world’? How much ‘real world’ experience happens in a classroom? I’ve been in the world for 47 years, and the last time I was in a classroom as a student was in 1989. The rest of my life has been ‘real’, I am almost sure of it. I’ve married, had a couple of careers, four children, read books, traveled a little, and enjoy being involved in our community. I’ve been a volunteer in nursing homes, helped train service dogs for disabled children, and learned sign language in order to communicate with the deaf. My Spanish really stinks, though. But I am really, really sure that this is the real world.

We are also supposed to believe, according to Chris, that only in public schools are we going to meet folks of different ethnicities and cultures. That is certainly news to all of us who have not been in public schools for lo these many years, and yet manage to have many friends, acquaintances, and business associates who are from a variety of backgrounds. Since, as a homeschooler, my kids are not excluded from these regular interactions, as well as forming relationships on their own, I am sure that this news about how their black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, Christian, and agnostic friends are quite possibly figments of their imaginations will be a great disappointment to them.

Oh, and while every private school in America is also only attended by people of one ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic background, somehow every public school is rich in ethnic, socio-economic, and religious diversity. Apparently even the ones in suburbia and inner cities. Neat-O. And in public schools, kids are introduced to new ideas, allowed to make their own decisions, and never forced to comply with or internalize what the teachers believe. Ever.

Chris asks some specific questions that he believes will get to the heart of the difference between public schools and homeschooling:

Does your child feel comfortable interacting with students the same age? Are they able to work with students they generally don’t feel comfortable around?

Yes. They are around all kinds of people for various reasons at regular intervals. I’m not going to expound on where we go and what we do and how we live our lives.

But wait—Chris says that social situations can be manufactured by the parent to ensure the child’s comfort, thereby robbing him of any social challenges.

[I]f the child is involved in tennis than [sic] the students that child is working with are also interested in tennis, where as [sic] the students in public school all share a diverse interest and you can maintain a friendship whether child A likes tennis or child B doesn’t like tennis.

To which I say, “Huhwha?”

Chris is attempting to point out the flaws in the ‘homeschool system’, because no system is perfect, and apparently he has had some unpleasant experiences with homeschoolers who have claimed to be perfect, or that homeschooling is always flawlessly performed by perfect homeschooling parents and perfect homeschooled children.

Okay—valid point. People aren’t perfect, therefore any system or methodology invented by or utilized by man is highly unlikely to ever reach perfection. Except for coffee makers and curing bacon, without which the world would dissolve into oblivion, as life would no longer be worth living.

Homeschooling, however, is not a system. It is an education method used by individual parents who wish to have the freedom and flexibility that homeschooling allows.

Some families are religious, some are not. Some are two-parent homes, some are not. People of various ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds are homeschoolers. Many military families are able to provide a consistent education experience in spite of moving from base to base at regular intervals. Athletes often opt to home educate so that they can focus on their sport. Musicians and artists also are grateful for the freedom to spend time honing their skills.

Homeschooling isn’t just about parents wanting their kids to receive a top-notch education, although that is often a motivating factor at the outset. Once parents begin the homeschool journey, they realize the abundance of opportunities available for their kids to get a taste of the real world by living in it, volunteering in it, apprenticing in it, and getting a job in it. As opposed to spending day in/day out in the same few rooms on the same campus with 30 kids their own age.

By the way, Chris, have you ever seen a John Hughes movie? Just askin’.

Let’s get to the point: this means that public schools aren’t perfect either. There are awkward and shy and sociopathic kids in public schools. There are learning gaps, and some kids still fall through, no matter how much we try not to leave any child behind. There are teachers who are unbelievably dedicated and awesomely creative, but are hamstrung by NCLB, CCS, and teaching to improve standardized test scores. There are also teachers who are violent, sexual predators. There are kids who don’t want to learn who consistently disrupt the class, thus ensuring that the material is not covered properly. There are buildings in disrepair, and schools that do not have the staff or funds to provide teaching and training in the use of new technologies.

If I were to employ Chris’ debate methods, I’d make a case against public education by pointing out that jails and mental institutions all over America are jam-packed with people who graduated from a public school. But I am not going to pit one straw man against another in a divisive attempt to ‘prove’ that public education can make you criminal or make you crazy.

Chris is right though—no system is perfect. So I traded in the imperfect public school experience for the imperfect homeschool experience. My kids and I can live with that.

Chris ends his blog post with this statement:

In order to better understand the world you must interact with it, become apart of it, and understand it.

I agree, Chris. That’s why we homeschool.

Susan R Bio

Susan is West Virginia born and raised, and now lives in SW Ohio with her loving and supportive husband. She has four energetic and imaginative kids, an elderly-but-feisty mom, and an attack Yorkie. The Rabers have been dedicated homeschoolers since 1994. Their firstborn graduated in 2006 and has gone on to serve in the military and start a life of his own.

Discussion

Chris’ tennis observations… I just had to add a couple of [sic] s to Susan’s post.

Please see Than vs. Then

And “whereas” vs. “where as”… “whereas” usually functions as a conjunction, but “where as,” in Chris’ usage here, isn’t capable of what he’s trying to make it do.

That said, I’m sure you can find plenty of grammar gaffs in my writing… and missing words and mispells. Still, it’s ironic that a post claiming the superiority of public education didn’t manage to be a bit more educated.

Oh, and if you’re curious about [sic]…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

I’m sure you can find plenty of … gaffs …

Yes, actually; here’s several I just happened to have lying around. Not so good for the gaffing of grammar, perhaps, but that big one should be able to handle just about anything one might want to haul over the gunwale.

:D

I think that sometimes a family’s passion for whatever they love may translate into arrogance or hard selling, especially when expressed in toneless, faceless black&white words on a screen.

I doubt any homeschooling parent believes that home education means they are perfect parents, or that their kids are perfect, or that homeschooling is a magic bullet of some kind. But when describing why you chose to homeschool, and all the things you love about homeschooling, it can sound like it.

Funny- people never have a conniption if you go all ooey-gooey and starry-eyed about football or knitting.

What would be helpful is if folks who have questions or doubts about home education would spend just a little bit of time finding out more about what it entails. Homeschooling is different for every family- all 2 million+ of ‘em.

It’s just ludicrous how often people speak as if homeschoolers never leave the house or interact with other human beings. Maybe we could talk about the problems that homeschoolers do face if we didn’t spend so much time answering questions and objections that are just plain silly.

[Susan R] Funny- people never have a conniption if you go all ooey-gooey and starry-eyed about football or knitting.
Also funny that despite the relatively small percentage of students whose parents actually do homeschool in the U. S., you can’t find more of the representative majority of parents ooey-gooey and starry-eyed over their choice of education for their children (like many homeschool parents are.)

Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?

[Susan R]

Here’s another example of someone wasting time and money raising objections and trying to solve problems that don’t exist.

http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2013/02/rep_woodrow_stanley_d…

FLINT, MI — State Rep. Woodrow Stanley, D-Flint, introduced legislation that aims to crack down on truancy among home school students.

And again I say, “Huhwha?”

Oh yes, that is a problem that most definitely exists.

We homeschool ourselves and are in various homeschool co-ops and I can emphatically say that a too-large percentage of homeschooling parents do not take it seriously enough or care enough. Much of the heat being put on homeschoolers is self-induced and if homeschooling becomes illegal at some point, homeschoolers will have to shoulder a big portion of the blame.

[GregH] Oh yes, that is a problem that most definitely exists.

We homeschool ourselves and are in various homeschool co-ops and I can emphatically say that a too-large percentage of homeschooling parents do not take it seriously enough or care enough. Much of the heat being put on homeschoolers is self-induced and if homeschooling becomes illegal at some point, homeschoolers will have to shoulder a big portion of the blame.

Sure, Greg, but by whose measure? Who decides ‘how much’ homeschooling is enough, or how organized it should be, or what form education should take?

Homeschoolers are still doing better, statistically speaking, than their public schooled counterparts. The state certainly isn’t doing better, so for officials to think that a child being present in school is some kind of guarantee of an education is just as wonky as the idea that homeschooling is a guarantee.

There is also the fact that at home, we can accomplish so much more in less time. The average child, in my experience, can complete their studies every day in about 4 hours. Would they be ‘truant’ according to the state if they aren’t sitting in a desk with their nose in a book until 3pm?

I am merely saying that a problem DOES exist in response to your claim that it doesn’t exist.

But no, I don’t have a problem with the government stepping in to try to save some children from their lazy parents. It is a tough world out there. US children are going to need all the help they can get to compete with the rest of the world for jobs. Not preparing your children for the world they are going in to is not doing your job and could be considered neglect.

So, for those children who are being “homeschooled” but really aren’t, I am all for the government stepping in. And yes, they have to create the standards. It will not be perfect, and you could argue that they don’t know much more than anyone else, but it is a job that unfortunately is necessary just like protecting children from other types of neglect or abuse is necessary.

The problem, Greg, is the underlying premise here.

How much should the gov’t step in when

  • kids spend too much time in front of the tv instead of doing homework
  • kids eat too much junk food and are obese
  • they don’t get enough sleep and can’t stay awake in class
  • they aren’t being taught personal hygiene

So then- who decides ‘how much’ education is enough? What are the standards for being ‘prepared’?

Is the gov’t going to penalize anyone for the children who graduate from public schools without the skills necessary to compete in the world’s economy? Why aren’t schools being sued for educational neglect? After all, a significant number of students are promoted every year who have not achieved proficiency in core subjects. Check out your state’s NAEP.

It seems odd to accuse parents of not providing an education for their children when the state can’t guarantee results either.

Parents and schools can provide the opportunity for a child to learn, but no one can force another person to learn anything. They can sit in class and even complete the homework without learning anything. You can beat them, bribe them, duct tape them to a chair- they will internalize what they want, and discard what they don’t.

There is simply no plausible way for the gov’t to determine when a homeschooled child is ‘truant’. It’s another money/power grab.

No, I am not seeing the problem you are. The government is responsible to protect its citizens. That means it comes up standards (100% of the time imperfect standards) and does its best to enforce them. It has to protect children from their parents and I am sure you would agree that there is a time and place for that.

So, the argument is about where to draw the line. The fact that I draw the line in a slightly different place than you does not mean my premise is a problem.

Here is a practical example. You can think all you want that your children do not need to wear seatbelts. You can even think wearing seatbelts is unhealthy. But the government is going to trump your opinion and force you to make your children wear seatbelts. They may be wrong, but their opinions still trump yours. Their standards are what count, not yours.

So, to recap, you keep asking who is going to come up with standards. Here is my answer. The government has the right to come up with standards, even though they may be imperfect and even though they graduate some kids that shouldn’t. The fact that they are not capable of coming up with perfect standards or achieving 100% success with their public schools is not relevant really.

And frankly, from what I have seen, the government, while not perfect, is still much better equipped to come up with legitimate standards than many homeschool parents.

I might add that truancy has been on the rule books for decades I suspect and no one is complaining. Why should homeschooled children get exempted from truancy laws?

The problem is proving ‘truancy’ in a homeschool. How many hours should a child be ‘doing school’?

In Ohio, we send in a notification form that says we will provide a minimum of 900 hours. I can choose any hours of any day. We take the entire month of December off. If we were required to keep them, our attendance records would look hilarious. And some gov’t official who knows as much about homeschooling as I do about deep sea fishing would decide whether or not to charge us with truancy.

Homeschools are exempt from truancy laws because they do not attend gov’t schools. If I wanted to keep the same schedule as a gov’t school and give my kids a gov’t school quality education, I’d send them to a gov’t school.

I think you are confusing truancy laws with compulsory education laws, in which parents are required to provide their children with an education. Truancy laws only apply to unexcused absences from a traditional school.

You have failed to demonstrate how a governmental mandate to “protect it’s citizens” extends to monitoring the truancy of homeschoolers. This is a very large leap.

You also seem to assume homeschooling should be conducted only under the auspices of the government. Why do you feel the government should be involved in monitoring homeschooled children?

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Tyler, the government has had laws about truancy for decades. I think they are good laws and I don’t see why homeschoolers should be exempted from them. What Susan describes in Ohio sounds fair enough: a certain number of hours as a minimum but no requirements on what hours those actually are.

And to your second point, it is a shame the government has to be involved in homeschooling, but the fact is, based on the way many homeschool, they need to be. The government is involved in private schools as well as public schools. They require a minimum number of days, etc. Again, I am not sure why homeschoolers should be exempt from government control.

Government is increasingly secular. Condoning government monitoring of homeschooling opens the door for mandating the specifics of various topics. This will increasingly infringe on Christian liberty in the areas of science, anthropology, etc. The Christian perspective, the only true perspective, will be mandated away eventually due to the concern of ridiculous bureaucrats that we “shelter” our children too much. This may even extend to a series of “approved” homeschool curriculum, with a stamp of approval from the state government. This is why government should not be involved in monitoring homeschooling.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.