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M O D E R N T H O U G H T
JUNE 2000
http://www.worldandi.com/public/2000/june/mondloch.html
Education Hits Home
by Helen Mondloch
Homeschooling is now a robust grassroots movement that is uprooting the educational status quo.
s the school day begins, the three oldest children in the Rowson family--Daniel, 10; Annie, 8; and Lauren, 6--gather around a table in the basement "school room" of their home in Fairfax, Virginia. They are surrounded by books, maps, and various homemade accoutrements, including a battered chart of "school rules" and a life-size crayon diagram of the human anatomy. Lynne Rowson, their mother and teacher, is poised before a large marker board that reveals today's learning goals, while the younger children--Emily, 4; and Will, 2--play and chatter boisterously.
After bringing the children to relative order, Rowson leads them in prayer: "Lord, please help us to be diligent all through school ... help Daniel not to tease his sisters ..." Later in the day, even the younger children will join in a recitation of the Hail Mary in Latin, a subject Daniel has enthusiastically pursued in his fourth grade studies.
Rowson, who holds a college degree in political science but no teaching certification, has just
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Through it all, the movement's youngest proteges--homeschooled students themselves--have by all accounts fared consistently well, in academics as well as that enigmatic realm called socialization.
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completed her third year as a homeschooling parent, despite living in a county whose schools are ranked among the nation's best. After Daniel's hapless first grade experience in his neighborhood school--where, says Rowson, her son languished at the hands of a "burned out" teacher--she and her husband decided to radically change course. Inspired by her acquaintance with several homeschooling families whose children were thriving, she soon began shopping around for the big binders that house her children's curricula. Since then she has networked with other families for regular shared lessons and has found both enormous gratification and frustration in providing what she calls a "better moral and educational basis" for her children. Rowson attends a yearly conference of Catholic home educators, an energizing "shot in the arm" for those caught up in this monumental task of homegrown tutelage.
Similar organized efforts aimed at lending a boost to parent-educators are cropping up across the country as the homeschooling movement gains momentum. Approximately 1.5 million American children have now retreated from traditional classrooms in favor of learning at home--a more than 30 percent increase since 1991.
What is the impetus in following this path of the homeschool, which, considering the extraordinary sacrifices it demands, seems so unlike other rising trends in the American lifestyle? Once defined as the exclusive realm of the religious Right, homeschooling has infiltrated the mainstream, becoming a robust grassroots movement that is radically redefining family values and uprooting the education status quo. It has spawned a vast network of support systems, including a prolific legal defense group bent on safeguarding the rights of homeschoolers from coast to coast. The surge of parent-educators poses new challenges to public school systems and in some communities has generated bitter animosities. But through it all, the movement's youngest proteges--homeschooled students themselves--have by all accounts fared consistently well, in academics as well as that enigmatic realm called socialization.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
A common thread in the fabric of the homeschooling consciousness is clearly a desire to get back to basics: As the new millennium dawns and newscasts across America often resemble scenes from a doomsday novel, homeschoolers are ringing in a simpler, more wholesome way of life that places the family at its center.
Those within the ranks of this growing counterculture often shoulder a vivid awareness of its historic underpinnings. They will tell you that family instruction was a mainstay of American life until the mid--nineteenth century, that public schools are a relatively new phenomenon with dubious merits for individuals and society.
In fact, when the first town schools were established in the New England colonies around 1650, attendance was voluntary, designed to help parents meet compulsory education laws. The first state law mandating attendance was born in Massachusetts in 1852 as an effort to forge a common culture and value system. By 1920, nearly all states had adopted similar laws, though these were decried by a few vocal groups. The protesters included the Roman Catholic Church, which had already begun fighting for the right to establish its own institutions to spread the faith (hence, the advent of Catholic education). By the mid--twentieth century, homeschooling had become rare, except in remote areas and among religious groups like the Mormons and Amish. As a mainstream practice it virtually died out even though, as many contemporary homeschoolers will point out, it produced such leaders as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt.
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Today's diverse homeschoolers include " entecostal snake handlers in the hills of West Virginia, New Age philosophy professors at Amherst College, and everything in between." [Guterson] defines the "in between" segment of contemporary homeschoolers this way: "They are [members of] the same American mainstream that once frowned on homeschooling."
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Homeschooling as a recent movement is rooted in the work of Raymond Moore and his wife, Dorothy, educators who, beginning around 1965, conducted large-scale, widely published studies on the damaging effects of early formal schooling. They developed the well-known Moore Formula for homeschooling, which stresses a child's developmental readiness for learning and a balanced blend of work, study, and community service. Another educator-reformer, the late John Holt, further spearheaded the movement with his 1964 book Why Children Fail and the magazine Growing Without Schooling, which he founded in 1977. Holt pioneered the branch of homeschooling known as "unschooling" for its rejection of textbooks, rigid schedules, and other institutional "trappings," which he believed defeated a child's innate drive and enthusiasm for learning.
The criticisms voiced by homeschool pioneers seemed to find corroboration in a 1983 government study titled "A Nation at Risk," which exposed alarming problems on the education front.
Nonetheless, forerunners in the movement were often perceived as weirdly subversive; many followed their conscience in fear. Homeschooling author David Guterson reported in Newsweek that, as recently as 1992, he was alternately brandished a "religious zealot" and "left-wing eccentric" for choosing a path that many wanted banned. With the movement's rise, however, public approval has also climbed steadily: The New Republic reports that approval ratings increased from 16 to 36 percent between 1985 and 1997, a trend that is clearly continuing thanks in large part to media spotlights on homeschoolers' accomplishments. Last year, thirteen-year-old David Beihl, a homeschooler from South Carolina, made headlines as the winner of the National Geography Bee.
Much of the positive publicity also comes from within: The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), founded in 1983, appears to be the movement's greatest advocate and popularizer. Boasting fifty thousand members nationwide, the Virginia-based association provides low-cost legal defense to parent-educators and uses its lobbying power to harness public support and combat government interference in the homeschool domain. Heading up the organization is conservative activist Michael Farris, whose passionate words linking homeschool freedoms to this nation's founding principles appear frequently in the Washington Times and Wall Street Journal.
PROFILE OF CONTEMPORARY HOMESCHOOLERS
Much has changed for homeschoolers in recent years, including the profile of those journeying this road increasingly traveled.
Early on, the movement was composed mostly of Christian fundamentalists heeding the call to shepherd their children to righteousness. Even Christian private schools failed (and still fail) this group's standard of holiness, as revealed in Greg Harris' 1995 guidebook The Christian Home School. Harris accuses most Christian institutions of proffering a merely "cleaned up version of the public school approach" and inviting parents to "abdicate their God-given responsibility for the education of their children." In recent years other religious groups, like Jews and Muslims, have entered the domain of homeschooling for much the same reasons as the Christian Right.
While the religious component clearly endures, many in the newest wave of home educators are motivated by secular goals. Dubbed homeschooling's "progressive wing" by Washington Post columnist Judy Mann, they criticize inept teaching and the defeating, sometimes dangerous, culture of schools. A 1996 survey conducted by the Florida Department of Education revealed that 61 percent of parent-educators in that state ranked this type of dissatisfaction as their primary reason for homeschooling, surpassing religious reasons, claimed by 21 percent, for the second straight year. According to Scott Somerville of the HSLDA, quoted in U.S. News and World Report, today's diverse homeschoolers include "entecostal snake handlers in the hills of West Virginia, New Age philosophy professors at Amherst College, and everything in between."
Guterson defines the "in between" segment of contemporary homeschoolers this way: "They are [members of] the same American mainstream that once frowned on homeschooling."
SOMETHING ROTTEN IN SCHOOLS
Religious or secular, today's home educators generally concur on one major premise: There's something rotten--or at least absurd--in school.
Betsy Kocsis, a homeschooling mother of two in Chantilly, Virginia, recalls that whenever she volunteered in her son's kindergarten class, much of the day was devoted to tasks like "lining up." Moreover, Kocsis says her eagerness to help out in the classroom was thwarted by the need to find babysitting for her younger son, whose presence was prohibited.
Other school defectors complain of the countless minor indignities imposed on schoolchildren, including the bells and blinking lights that command them as they are hushed and rushed from one place to another in this "hive world."
Moreover, like the early pioneers, many home educators blame large classes and a one-size-fits-all curriculum for breeding students who are bored, unmotivated, or worse--with a growing number brandished with labels like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some leaders in the homeschool arena go so far as to identify ADHD as a teaching disability, and to accuse the school community of drugging youngsters into submission.
John Taylor Gatto, award-winning New York public school teacher of thirty-five years and author of Dumbing Us Down, attributes the "massive stupidity" in our culture to the "complex, comprehensive social agenda [that] has unfolded through the agency of public schooling." In Linda Dobson's Homeschooling Book of Answers, Gatto argues that, with the demise of meaningful study in the major disciplines, "each generation ... knows less than the generation before it, and hence is less able to counteract the training of schools."
Homeschool students themselves often celebrate their liberation from what they see as the force-fed learning of traditional classrooms: Sixteen-year-old homeschooling veteran Lindsey Johnson, quoted in Dobson's book, has declared: "I wouldn't dare give up my educational freedom to an institution. ... In school, the idea is presented that learning is a chore and a race for the finish. It is not. It is a wonderful aspect of life and a great journey."
SOCIALIZATION DEBATES
The most adverse element of institutionalized schooling, according to countless voices in this crusade, is the kind of social behaviors that are fostered there. Ironically, socialization is the very argument most frequently posed in deriding the choice to homeschool: How will children who are educated in America's rec rooms learn to get along with others?
"I think the whole socialization thing is for the birds," quips Rowson, whose children have no problem looking this author in the eye as they speak. Daniel lucidly expounds the benefits of learning at home, wants to know which newspaper will feature his family's story, asks questions about my own children. Adds Rowson: "I don't believe the best way for Daniel to learn to socialize is to be with thirty other ten-year-olds."
In posing that, Rowson echoes the opinions of many oft-quoted scholars within this movement, including Moore and Urie Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University. Like Moore, Bronfenbrenner has argued that overexposure to a peer group, particularly in the early elementary school years, can make children dependent on peers as models of social acceptability, leading to weak social skills, low self-esteem, and a loss of respect for parents. Such findings affirm homeschoolers' conviction that positive socialization--what one writer calls "being able to move beyond oneself to consider the point of view of another"--is best learned within the family from loving, supportive adults.
Chris Cardiff, founding president of the California Homeschool Network, also quoted in Dobson's book, concurs: "If I were to design an environment to enhance my children's ability to function socially, I would never propose anything resembling school." Cardiff also counters what he calls the "isolation myth" of family education, arguing that homeschoolers' community involvement resembles "real life" more than the "artificial" settings within schools. A report published by the HSLDA affirms that homeschoolers participate, on average, in 5.2 community activities like the Boy or Girl Scouts and 4--H Clubs.
Moreover, parent-educators often maintain that their children thrive in the absence of peer dependency. Susan Klejeski, a mother of five from Bethel, Minnesota, believes that homeschooling afforded her teenage daughter Emily the freedom to pursue her passion for tinkering beneath the hood of the family car. Last year, Emily built her own small engine, winning two 4--H awards. Given "what's cool" for girls, Klejeski wonders if her daughter's technical talents would have survived the peer pressure of school.
ESCAPING HOSTILE CLIMATES
Neither academic freedom nor love for others can flourish within the "social pressure-cooker" of most schools, say homeschooling advocates. Cardiff notes that many youthful "pathologies"--including isolation, cliques, and bullying--are quite "logically" associated with these toxic environments.
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Farris envisions homeschooling as more than a mere education alternative or protective measure; rather, it is a revolution of principles--similar to the overthrow of tyranny in the American Revolution--and a way out of the "abyss" of the current culture.
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Such views are painfully reinforced by, for example, news reports attempting to dissect the volatile underpinnings of tragedies like that at Littleton, Colorado's Columbine High School. Farris describes as typical the "hazing hallways" in which "the big, the popular, and the vulgar prey[ed] on the small, the morally pure, and the weird," with the Columbine shooters apparently belonging to the last category.
In a similar vein, the Washington Post explored the Columbine "cult of the athlete" as a major source of the killers' rage. A June 1999 article revealed a school culture in which athletes were glorified, received special privileges, and often escaped punishment for abusive behavior. White-capped "jocks" and members of the social underclass called "trenchers" harbored, and often acted on, a strong mutual hostility.
Moreover, a previous Post report revealed that a significant portion of schoolchildren nationwide fall victim to ongoing assaults by schoolyard bullies, beginning as early as the first grade. The story featured agonizing testimony by children who had been taunted, shoved into lockers, and sentenced to eat lunch alone, often with little or no mediation by teachers.
Such troubling scenarios on the education landscape are clearly lending a boost to the homeschooling movement. Farris reports working with a number of families who began homeschooling after their children suffered physical and/or sexual assaults at school. In one Iowa case, says Farris, school officials were more concerned about protecting the status of the star football player than the safety of the female student he sexually assaulted. Farris also reports that on the day following the Columbine massacre, the phones at the HSLDA "began to ring with a steady rhythm."
Like many conservative commentators, Farris views shocking episodes of school violence within the context of America's "moral collapse." He envisions homeschooling as more than a mere education alternative or protective measure; rather, it is a revolution of principles--similar to the overthrow of tyranny in the American Revolution--and a way out of the "abyss" of the current culture.
HOMESCHOOL LEGALITIES
Farris and his colleagues at the HSLDA frequently invoke the principles of our Founding Fathers in protecting the domain of home educators. With sharp disdain for politicians currently pushing tougher regulations for all educators, the homeschool freedom fighters are passionate, if not overbearing, about the need to "trust citizens" in their endeavor to rear virtuous children. Their mission is bolstered by the approximately thirty-five homeschooling parents who serve as elected members of Congress and state legislatures.
While the legality of homeschooling has been firmly established, state laws vary widely. Homeschoolers enjoy the most freedom in a handful of states where they are protected by private school status, a legal category that keeps state officials at bay. In some of these states, parents need only file paperwork at the beginning of the school year, and even parents who lack a college degree can become home educators.
Leaders in the movement have resisted efforts to place homeschooling in a legal category of its own, for fear of opening the door to a host of Big Brother intrusions. About a dozen states with specific home education laws are ranked by the HSLDA as "highly regulated," with a majority of states falling into the range of "moderate" regulation.
The HSLDA Web site chalks up as victories those cases in which regulations have been struck down--as in a 1991 Kansas repeal of certification requirements for home educators, and the removal of home inspections in states like Maryland and Massachusets. The list also includes the passage of an Oregon law allowing homeschoolers to participate in interscholastic activities in public schools, an issue about which the HSLDA officially claims neutrality, and one which has ignited tempers and legal battles in a number of communities.
A study conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) found that 76 percent of homeschoolers in three states desired part-time enrollment in public or private school courses. In many cases, parents of high schoolers lacked expertise in a particular area of study and were seeking to fill in the gaps. Others wanted access to clubs and sports for social reasons and for inclusion on college transcripts.
Such wishes have evoked fierce opposition. A spokesman for a Florida athletics association, quoted in Education Digest, declared, "A student can't represent what he doesn't attend." And contrary to some homeschoolers' contention that public school access is the right of all taxpayers, a representative of angry townspeople in Massachusetts, quoted in U.S. News, had this to say: "It's not fair for them to want the best of what the public school has to offer without paying their dues."
Increasingly, public education officials are recognizing the need to offer homeschoolers at least limited access to public schools. Curriculum Report, the newsletter for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, recently featured a report urging access. Among the handful of states with liberal policies, Iowa was cited as a model of cooperation. State policymakers there testified that both sides benefit from this partnership between home and public educators, citing community support as a crucial factor in the success of public schools.
HOMESCHOOL PRACTICALITIES
The decision to homeschool entails a host of crucial considerations, including the opportunity costs in terms of dollars and parental sanity.
Homeschool enthusiasts, often advocates of living simply, boast of the relatively low cost of their trade--an average yearly expenditure of just $400 per student, far less than the tuition at any private school or the average bill footed by taxpayers for a child attending public school--a whopping $6,993, according to Dobson.
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Public school students receiving homebound instruction due to illness or disability are typically required to complete just six to ten hours of work per week to achieve the equivalent of more than thirty school hours. This corroborates, say homeschool proponents, not only the learning-intensive nature of one-on-one tutelage but also the enormous amount of wasted instructional time in the typical school setting.
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Perhaps the most daunting element of homeschooling for the average parent is the perpetual presence of children. Asked how she manages grocery shopping and routine doctor's visits with five young charges, Rowson replies matter-of-factly: "We all go everywhere, all the time."
Moreover, this image of a suburban mother toting a van full of children on weekday errands begs a question: How much quality learning time do homeschoolers receive? Experts claim that errands and household chores are par for the course, providing valuable lessons in Real Life 101. As for academics, they insist that children learn more in a few hours at home than in a whole day at school. According to Dobson's Book of Homeschooling Answers, most state boards of education inadvertently concur: Public school students receiving homebound instruction due to illness or disability are typically required to complete just six to ten hours of work per week to achieve the equivalent of more than thirty school hours. The guidelines, say homeschool proponents, corroborate not only the learning-intensive nature of one-on-one tutelage but also the enormous amount of wasted instructional time in the typical school setting.
But even with the learning curve stacked in homeschoolers' favor, figuring out the best way to enlighten and inspire one's at-home protÄgÄs poses a heartening challenge. A study published by the HSLDA reveals that nearly one-quarter of homeschooling parents purchase complete curriculum packages from vendors eagerly turning a profit on this surging new market. About 71 percent "handpick" their children's instructional materials, borrowing and choosing from various programs of study, including correspondence and computer software courses. Some, like Rowson, take a structured approach in a space designated as "school." Others, including the "unschooling" disciples of Holt, treat the world as their classroom and let their children's interests direct the learning process without fretting over someone else's standards. For those unsure about the best approach, there are probably as many guidebooks and Web sites as there are possibilities.
Teaching children of different age groups often comes with the homeschool territory and requires both patience and creative time management, say the experts. While one child receives instruction, others work independently on projects. Cardiff encourages older pupils to tutor younger ones, a technique made popular by Joseph Lancaster at the turn of the century, and incorporates projects that are adapted to different levels. In his geography/culture club, composed of several homeschooling families, teenagers present in-depth presentations on famous places while young children create flags or pictures related to the same sites.
With the current surge of homeschoolers, finding groups with which to network may be as easy as signing up for swimming lessons at the local rec center. In at least one community, networking is so popular that "homeschooling has literally outgrown the home," according to a 1998 article in Time. In Wichita, Kansas, many of the fifteen hundred homeschooled children attend classes and activities in donated warehouse space. They play in bands, put on theater productions, even root for their basketball team, the Homeschool Warriors--all of which smacks paradoxically of life on the other side. And with parental controls inevitably diminished, some Christian parents here have reportedly pulled their children from homeschool classes and clubs.
Whether they learn in warehouses or at the kitchen table, homeschoolers must keep a record of their scholastic strides. While state requirements vary, many homeschoolers keep a project portfolio and eventually create their own diplomas and transcripts. For unschoolers and others who integrate the various disciplines into their projects, parceling out the subjects on paper poses a formidable challenge. Those enrolled in correspondence schools will have the job done for them; and the many homeschoolers enrolled in community college courses also have the advantage of some official documentation when applying to four-year colleges. For those who approach record-keeping with understandable trepidation, guidebooks and Web sites once more abound.
HOMESCHOOL ASSESSMENTS
The national record on homeschoolers is impressive, even if, as some charge, that record is a bit inflated.
In an oft-quoted 1997 NHERI study, homeschoolers excelled on national standardized tests, outperforming peers in both public and private schools by more than 30 percentile points in subjects across the curriculum.
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Society needs to make room for homeschooling, which by all projections is here to stay. We would be wise to assimilate the movement as one more element of our vast cultural diversity and, as such, appreciate its contributions, not the least of which is its challenge to the status quo.
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Moreover, homeschoolers' achievement was not substantially impacted by race, socioeconomic status, or even the educational level of their parents, though these are well-established indicators of success among public school students. The HSLDA emphatically points out another factor with no apparent impact on homeschoolers' achievement: the degree of homeschooling regulation in any given state.
A more recent study conducted by Lawrence Rudner, national testing expert at the University of Maryland, revealed more: Homeschoolers perform one to four grade levels higher than the rest, and the gap widens with the number of years spent learning at home.
Homeschool success prevails into high school and college, with ACT exam scores that rank above the national average. A study conducted by Georgia Southern University, reported in a 1998 issue of Insight on the News, found that a majority of college admissions counselors surveyed agreed that homeschoolers were "academically prepared" and "socially well-adjusted" to college. Others, like Stanford Admissions Director Jon Reider, value homeschoolers for their "high level of intellectual independence."
That may explain why they are so well received by colleges ranging from small Christian institutions like Virginia's Liberty University (where 250 homeschooled students attended in 1996) to secular schools like Marlboro College in Vermont. Marlboro Admissions Director Katherine Hallas, quoted in Insight, contends, "If there were a way to recruit more of them, we would." Finally, homeschoolers can also boast a 1996 enrollment of 40 of their own at Harvard.
The movement's success is also reflected in its aspiring toward what Farris terms "the next level": the nation's first college for homeschoolers, scheduled to open its doors in Virginia this fall. Though not restricted to students taught at home, Patrick Henry College will reportedly draw homeschoolers interested in pursuing college studies with a Christian foundation.
OPPOSING VIEWS
Kathleen Lyons, communications director at the National Education Association (NEA), is quick to fax inquiring journalists several published commentaries that offer a radically different perspective on homeschooling.
The association's official resolution begins with a blanket statement: "The National Education Association believes that homeschooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience." The resolution goes on to advocate strict regulations, the usual thorns-in-the-side to Farris and friends, including state-approved curricula, certified parent-teachers, and a ban on access to public schools.
Justifying the push for certification, Lyons contends that "it takes more than a good heart to be a good teacher." On the other hand, she considers parental involvement the "common denominator" in student achievement, regardless of whether schooling is public, private, or home-based. And that, she claims, underlies the misleading nature of studies boasting homeschoolers' shining marks: Positive family dynamics would bolster their achievement no matter what. A fair test, she contends, would compare homeschooled students to a subset of public school students whose parents actively take part in their education.
Lawrence Rudner, too, has conceded in Knight-Ridder News that his results are likely skewed in homeschoolers' favor due to the difficulty in drawing random samples from a group that lacks a "well-defined universe." While he nonetheless stands by his study, Rudner lends valuable perspective to the media hype over homeschooling miracles: "[The study] doesn't indicate that children perform better academically if they're homeschooled. ... only ... that those parents ... are able to provide a very successful academic environment."
Still, NEA officials worry about homeschooling environments that are not successful. In a 1998 article in the New Republic, writer Kathy Pfleger ponders the possibilities of homeschool hell: "As the popularity of homeschooling continues to increase, so does the likelihood that well-meaning parents who lack the know-how, time, or resources to be effective teachers--or worse, parents who ... have malign motives--will deprive their children of social skills and a decent education."
Besides this potential for inadequate instruction and even child abuse, skeptics often raise a qualm related to socialization: Without exposure to other races and ethnic groups, homeschoolers might flunk out in the vital virtue of tolerance. According to NEA President Bob Chase, "ublic education represents a slice of life that goes beyond ... ballet classes and church socials." Likewise, Andrew Harrmann of the Chicago Sun-Times recalls the character-building "messy world of the American classroom": "I learned not everybody is white. Not everybody has nice clothes ... two parents, two good legs, [or] two nickels to rub together. ... the classroom is and was society, complete with pint-sized politicians, bullies, sweethearts, saints, and sinners."
And as groundbreaking ceremonies were under way for the first homeschoolers' college, one public education official quoted in the Washington Post decried the prospect of prolonging a "cocoon existence."
MAKING ROOM FOR HOMESCHOOLING
While the arguments against homeschooling have a valid ring to them, none has been substantiated. Regarding the tolerance issue, Deb Nelson, homeschooling mom of Blaine, Minnesota, echoes the movement's familiar refrain: "Tolerance for other cultures is really learned within the family, not in school." The big picture in public schools affirms that mere exposure to the melting pot does not a peacemaker make.
In any case, the homeschooling movement is clearly turning out successful students.
This is not to say that its leaders should not concede to basic regulations aimed at protecting children's vital interests. Mandated standardized testing may smack of Big Brother to homeschooling freedom fighters, but it does not compare to the tyranny of allowing even a single child to languish without an education. While tests cannot reveal the depth and breadth of learning, they may expose significant lapses. And while homeschooling parents laudably reject all that is vapid and destructive in our popular culture, they need to examine whether they are serving their children's interests by isolating them from all of society's norms and standards.
Compliance with basic regulations will help fend off critics and encourage partnerships between homeschoolers and the public school community. The NEA and others in public education should surrender the battle to keep homeschoolers out; as Virginia doctoral student Jane Duffey declares in Curriculum Report, "There just seems to be something undemocratic ... and lacking in vision [about denying access]."
Indeed, society needs to make room for homeschooling, which by all projections is here to stay. We would be wise to assimilate the movement as one more element of our vast cultural diversity and, as such, appreciate its contributions, not the least of which is its challenge to the status quo. Like many countermovements, this one may be compelling the mainstream toward reform, as suggested by another NEA resolution: "Homeschooling presents public school advocates with the challenge to do better, and we will meet this challenge so that all parents see public education as the finest option available." If that translates into smaller classes, more individualized learning, and programs for conflict resolution, the success of homeschooling will extend well beyond its own boundaries.
By the same token, homeschooling's greatest contribution may be its impact on those of us who entrust our children to public educators: In their perpetual task of child nurturance, homeschooling parents will surely inspire us to take a more active role in our children's schooling--reading with them, visiting their classrooms, and helping them cope with the harsh realities they will likely encounter there.
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Helen Mondloch is a freelance writer from northern Virginia. |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2005-3-10 05:10:35
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mom 我个人觉得，美国的home schooling和楼主办的现代私塾从本质上讲并不是一回事情。