Posted on 03/28/2013 8:11:32 AM PDT by christianhomeschoolmommaof3
I’m going public today with a secret I’ve kept for a year—my husband and I are homeschooling our children. I never dreamed we would become homeschoolers. I wanted my kids integrated and socialized. I wanted their eyes opened to the realities of the world. I wanted the values we taught at home put to the test in the real world. But necessity drove me to consider homeschooling for my 2nd and 4th graders, and so I timidly attended a home school parent meeting last spring. Surprisingly it was full of doctors, lawyers, former public school teachers, and other professionals. These were not the stay-at-home-moms in long skirts that I expected. The face of homeschooling is changing. We are not all religious extremists or farmers, and our kids are not all overachieving academic nerds without social skills. ... For a year I was afraid to tell any of my work colleagues that we were homeschooling. People would stereotype me as a right-wing kook.
(Excerpt) Read more at childrensmd.org ...
And you know each and every public education employee in the country?
ping
Good for her, too bad that’s not the situation for everyone.
That was actually my comment. I have made three to the article.
Our course homeschoolers welcome any person that wants to homeschool. My problem with the article is that she is very derogatory to the people that she had stereotyped as homeschoolers. Those religious “extremists” as she called them were the ones that fought the battle to make homeschooling legal. If it weren’t for their ‘crazy’ religious convictions, homeschooling wouldn’t be an option for her. I doubt people who are homeschooling for the reasons that she outlines, would have had the courage of their convictions to face persecution and incarceration.
I am glad that homeschooling is mainstream now and I am glad that she has that freedom. I just don’t want to see people derided and insulted because they are different from other homeschoolers.
I just find it a little simplistic that we even are supposed to need a “reason” to homeschool. Like we have to justify our choice!
Good for you for calling her on her arrogance.
Because ‘extremist’ has a negative connotation to it. If she had said something like ‘not all parents homeschool because of religious convictions’ that would not have been derogatory. Instead she used words like ‘right wing kook’, ‘religious extremists’ and ‘nerds with no social skills’. The entire tone of her article insulted these people as beneath her and her evolved ‘face’ of homeschooling. Doctors and lawyers homeschool now, doncha know? Yeah doctors and lawyers do now and always have. Some of those doctors and lawyers homeschool because of *gasp* religious convictions. The religious convictions of a lot of homeschoolers are the reason that homeschool is now legal for her to jump on the bandwagon. I am glad I was able to jump on the bandwagon and didn’t have my convictions put to the test with incarceration and having my children removed from my home. I certainly wouldn’t deride the conviction of people that blazed the trail for me!
We all have our reason but we shouldn’t have to use them to justify our decision. We should all just agree to answer people who question us with ‘because I can’. :)
Hello. My first post since being removed some time ago.
Anyway, I know you, and your family. And I am grateful for the Christian faith, and faith IN ACTION, that you live.
It may be that some readers do not understand that your comments (which may appear to some who are reading hastily to denigrate the people and principles you speak of), have been mentioned or cited by you NOT to denigrate, but rather to express how we of similar faith and action as yours are often portrayed, talked about, and frequently dismissed.
Again, thank you for your public positions, expressions, and faithful actions!
There was no way for you to know that. I used my first name in the comments section. Thank you though. A lot of people are defending her comments saying that she had preconceived notions and found out they weren’t true. However, there are stereotypes for a reason. The reason is that some people do wear long skirts and homeschool for religious reasons. She called those people ‘extremists’ ‘kooks and ‘nerds’. And people are missing the point.
I say that because the implication is that people who homeschool are religious extremists (except for the author, of course). Maybe that was not the author's intent, but that's how it came across to me.
Thank you for your kind words. No one that I know have has thought that my comments were denigrating to anyone though. However, my comments are quite passionate. I guess I am just an extremist. :) Blessings!
Ok... i was wondering what you mean...we homeschool, and we go to church, but us as religious is funny. (Sometimes we just stay in bed on Sundays...)
You mean you’re not religious extremists? Just kidding! ;-) I think homeschooling is great, and families choose to do it for a variety of reasons. I think this article is poorly written.
When school board members vote to approve the curriculum without ever having read it, you know you have an uphill battle. That was just one of so many problems those people just refused to tackle. I suppose if I had not been reelected I would have quit in disgust sooner or later. The unions and politicians own the schools.
I did home school my stepson. It was a bit trying since he is from Brasil and English was not his native language. We started at grade 6. I'm pleased he did remarkably well, is now a citizen and a decent and thinking person.
Hello. Sorry: 1) I cannot reply to your Private Msg, as I am “too new” to have the privilege, and 2) I fouled up. I know the author of the article, and became confused.
She, and her family, are superb individuals!
As for the confusion, again, my apologies.
She did, indeed; but what do you expect for someone who went to public school, and has been indoctrinated her whole life into statism ?
At least she took the first step toward mental freedom by attending the group meeting, and then, even more so by homeschooling herself. That made her so nervous, and was so challenging to her embedded public school learned group-think, that she had to re-affirm her solidarity by throwing a few insults at the "Other". It would be too scary otherwise.
She's on the right track, though you were right to point out her insulting words, and maybe a few years of homeschooling will bring her the rest of the way around to clearer thinking. At least her kids have a chance now.
Stereotypes die hard.
I’ve met a few long, denim skirt and sneakers kind of homeschoolers, but even back 15 years ago, there were plenty of professionals homeschooling their kids, college professors included.
Most of the parents had college degrees, and this in backwater Central NY. It was the parents without the education who weren’t homeschooling for the most part.
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