[xzins]

see #53.

Let me state up front that I think alternative schooling is a great thing.

However, I just like to call things what they are. EVERY time someone sends a kid to a college course, a public school athletic team, and co-op of kids taught by one knowledgeable parent, etc., they are simply recognizing why institutional schools developed in the first place.

What homeschoolers and private/parochial schoolers want is legitimate input into the content and methods of THEIR children's education. I fully support that...especially in terms of moral education.

But we shouldn't pretend that the bugaboo is the "institutional" school. The devil in the details is threefold: (1) Schools off on their own "immoral" education crusade, and (2) Schools that have lost control of discipline, and (3) Schools with low academic expertise.

[demnomo]

I agree with you, totally. On related threads, I have posted that homeschooling is not for every family situation. The fact that homeschoolers are able to choose from a wide variety of educational options is a plus. My husband has pointed out that to us homeschooling is not just having our child sit at a kitchen table learning to read and cipher. It's more like an a la carte educational experience without the government redtape and controls that would hinder many student's (and teacher's!) mind and body development.

I have met a few homeschooling parents who failed to recognize that much of their child's educational material came from an institution of learning. They would go on and on about the evils of institutionalism, (and they have much to gripe about) without realizing the value (used wisely, of course) that some "institutions" may offer. Many homeschoolers will be going to institutions of higher learning such as colleges and universities. Hopefully, those children will be able to deal with the good from the bad and take advantage of the possibilities. I hope that my son will. :)

In athletics, my son enjoys fencing, snowboarding and tennis. He hated mandatory P.E. when he went to public school. He played goalie for a youth soccer and hockey team for a few years, but now he is on a fencing squad and devotes most of his time to it. (One older kid on his squad just received a fencing scholarship from Stanford University.)

My son has homeschooling and public school friends who play more traditional sports on Little League, Pop Warner, and Boys and Girls Club basketball teams. We have yet to meet any homeschooler who plays on a public or private school team. I know that they are out there.

There are also loads of kids with ambivalent parents who wouldn't get any educational motivation at all if it were not for public and private school sports that include academic criteria. That fact alone is a good thing to come out of an educational institution--especially when the parents are uninterested in their child's education.