The View From Home

The “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case (Morse v. Frederick) made big news when the Supreme Court upheld the right of a school to limit the free speech of its students. I read stories about the case on several major news sites, but it wasn’t until I received my HSLDA newsletter that I learned of the impact the case may have on homeschooling.

<>In his opinion, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas mentioned homeschooling as an option, if parents object to the way those schools are conducted (in this case, disallowing Frederick’s pro-marijuana banner). According to HSLDA president J. Michael Smith, this is the first time the Supreme Court has specifically recognized homeschooling as a viable alternative to public school, placing it on seemingly equal footing with public and private schools.

“If parents do not like the rules imposed by those schools, they can seek redress in school boards or legislatures; they can send their children to private schools or home school them; or they can simply move,” Thomas wrote.

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Since this blog focuses on homeschooling and homeschoolers, I thought it would be appropriate to post a brief tribute to former homeschooler Lauren Ashley McCain, who was killed at Virginia Tech last week. According to CBS News, Lauren was a 20-year-old freshman, a Christian, and even lived in my home state of Texas for part of her childhood.

My prayers go out to Lauren’s family and friends, and the family and friends of everyone who died in this tragedy.

Recently, I was at a dinner event and mentioned in conversation that I intend to be a homeschooling mother “when I grow up.” An acquaintance and fellow student sitting next to me responded that he was terribly glad his parents hadn’t chosen to homeschool him, as he would have gone crazy if his mother had taught him all he knew academically. Interestingly, that’s not a very uncommon reaction.

I have two significant reactions to that sort of remark. The first is to wonder why it is that someone who probably knows very little about homeschooling feels as if they should criticize someone else’s parenting decisions. It doesn’t make me mad, and it isn’t a very critical remark, but it’s such a frequent reaction and I have a hard time understanding it. After all, I would consider it tactless to say things like, “I’m glad I didn’t go to public school; they’re so dangerous” when someone mentions they went to public school.

The thing that really strikes me, though, is the way people seem unable to imagine happily spending that much time with their families. Looking back on my childhood, having my mom always around and available and involved in my life was a huge deal. She was, and still is, a role model to me. Sure, we had our fights, but even in the middle of them I knew she loved me.

When I started going to public high school, Mom always packed my lunches for me and decorated the paper bags with stickers and silly quotes. My friends laughed, but they always wanted to see what was on my bag each day, and I loved it because I knew my mom loved me and took the time to look for things to make me smile. Once I forgot my lunch at home, and Mom brought it to me even as one of my teachers disgustedly declared, “I would never do that for my kids!” (And I’m glad I’m not your kid, I thought to myself).

When I left for college, Mom was still home with my younger brothers, and I could call her in the middle of the day to talk for a few minutes when something exciting happened or I had a question or was a little homesick. A couple years later she started substitute teaching in our school district at home, and I couldn’t always get in touch with her. Now she teaches full time, and I always have to remind myself not to call her before 4 p.m. It was strange to realize at age 20 what it’s like to have a “working mother.”

All this is to say that I just don’t understand why so many non-homeschoolers seem to recoil at the idea of spending so much time with their parents and siblings. I think one of the benefits of homeschooling is the close family ties that are formed.

As I was considering what I was going to write for this post, one topic kept surfacing, and since it is a really relevant subject, I decided to go with it.

Many people, when they hear that someone is homeschooled, have doubts and questions as to whether or not the student is adequately “socialized” or if they will be “ready” to go to college when they graduate. This skepticism from people is just something with which I have just had to learn to live. I answer their questions, assuring them that — believe it or not — I still saw my friends (or wouldn’t see them anyway, since I had a good amount of friends in other parts of the country and world…) and that I really loved learning at home.

Homeschooling, I believe, can be a path that actually prepares someone for college more and in better ways than going to a public or private school could ever do. It gives the parents opportunities to teach their children not only the traditional school subjects, but also how to have a biblical worldview. I know a biblical worldview is not important to everyone, but it is one of the aspects I’m most thankful for as far as my homeschooling goes. Because I had the chance to homeschool and learn what the Bible has to say about various subjects, my college experience has been amazing. College has given me opportunities to share my beliefs, views and insights on current events, abortion, presidential elections, and countless other topics that come up in class and in random conversation. It is so great to see the influence and impact I’ve been able to have through it all.

Sure, had I gone to public school, I am certain I would still have beliefs about such subjects and would be able to share them, but.. had I gone to public school, I would not have had the practical lessons of life that I gained through homeschooling. Respect… Loving others… Compassion… Being a good listener… Praying about everything… Leadership… Creativity… Logical and critical thinking… A love of learning… Friendliness… Humility… Self-discipline… Motivation… etc.

These lessons are just a few of the ones I learned during my years of homeschooling, and I can honestly tell you that every single one of them has enhanced my college experience. My classmates and co-workers respect me and who I am, and they frequently come to me, besides in our regular everday conversations, asking my opinion or what I would do in a certain situation, or just to have someone to lend an ear for a while.

Maybe you are considering homeschooling your children and want to know more about it and what former homeschoolers have to say about it. Maybe you’re researching homeschooling for a paper or speech. Maybe you’ve never really agreed with the thought of homeschooling. I don’t know what your situation is… I hope you’ll be encouraged though and see the value of homeschooling. Respect and other such values and lifestyles are things that have to start in the home and be reinforced there in order for them to show up in the lives of most people.. I am so thankful to have been blessed with the opportunity to grow up with these values in my home as a way of life. 

Here is what another person dear to me had to say about her upcoming “sending forth” from home education. 

It isn’t easy to grow up, I guess it never has been. I do think we of the class of ‘007 have sure had a bumpy road.  We all watched a century, a millennium even, change. We learned a lot. We got a new president and heard way too many details about why the previous one had disappointed some folks. At the beginning of one school year, We watched two huge buildings crumble to the ground and learned later that those buildings were a symbol of our country and began to realize what our country stands for and what it means to others.

When we started here Hurricane Isabel whirled by. What a way to start a school year, especially when your school only meets one day a week. Two weeks later my grandmother passed away and I realize that everyone of my classmates has, while the years have passed had joys and sorrows, challenges and triumphs at home.

 We have seen war, and tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquake and famine. Some have gone into those areas to help, some of us have had a front row seat courtesy of the internet. Does anyone here expect life to slow down? Me, either.

I know some things.  I belong to Jesus. He will never leave me. I have learned a great deal over my years of home education.  But the best thing has been that my tutors, my classmates, my parents and siblings have always been committed to reinforcing my faith. I thank you all. 

(end bio)

Sally Settle

Here is the bio of someone I have grown to love. ss

Here I come world, ready or not,

When I was 18 months old, my Mom tried to get me a part-time job. I was very busy and energetic and she just thought it might help me to have more responsibilities than just taking care of my older brother and my baby sister and, of course, Mom. She says that she knew as soon as I was born that I would be this way, but she didn’t know how long it would take her to be grateful for it.By the time I was 6, I could cook a whole meal, if no one minded what the kitchen looked like in the end. By the time I was 9, I regularly cooked for the whole family and gave copious advice to anyone foolhardy enough to enter the kitchen. Now, in anticipation of my eventual exit from home, I am not even allowed to tell people what to do. Now, there is a challenge!

In addition to my culinary prowess, I was quite athletic and could pull myself and then my brother up onto the washing machine by the time I was two. To empty the washer from this position you need only place your foot down into the barrel. This probably helped me to do well in Field Day competitions. I could do more pull ups and sit ups faster than anyone in my age group. It must have been good for my endurance, too, because I remember the last time I attended Field Day, I ran the mile three times trying to better my time.

I think my biggest challenge has been my dyslexia coupled with mild hearing loss. I had no idea, for many years, that I was having a difficult time learning to read and that I was not hearing words well enough to “sound them out.” Of course my Mom and Dad knew and I got special reading lessons from Ms. Vivien. (Thanks, I love you!) But it seems strange to me that some people learn to read so easily and yet can’t make dinner for 12 at the drop of a hat!

I love my family, and sometimes it is hard not to leap in and try to fix the little guys ways of doing things. My parents keep saying, “M., you are not always going to be around. You need to let the little ones grow up.” I really understand this, if only vaguely. I try to keep busy by doing my school work, working two jobs and going to the gym.

Lu., you mean more to me than you will ever know. We may not be attached at the hip any longer, but I am glad we once were.

Mom and Dad, thanks for all your support. You may be “out there, ” but that is what I love about you.

J1, Ice, J9 and too many little girls to mention, I love you and I promise that I will always be there to tell you what to do.

End Bio.

We all like to say “Homeschoolers are (this virtue) or (that vice), but there is really no such thing as the typical homeschooler, anymore than those who have been group educated. I have many dear friends from both groups who are coming upon their graduation. I can’t wait to see them change the world. God Bless you all.

The parallel society discussion is especially interesting, I think, to various groups of home schoolers. Early on in the life of homeschooling, all home school families seemed supportive of one another. We were working together to protect the right to homeschool. The main enemy was ignorance followed by fear. The public at large felt suspicious. The number one question asked of homeschoolers, historically,has to be “Is that legal?” The fact that that hasn’t even been mentioned in the beginning list of FAQ’s for this blog is indicative of how far we have come.

In a way, our first ally in proving the right to homeschool was the US Government, which, even to this day supposes that parents have a compelling interest to do what is best for a child. Much of the state-by-state effort was involved in reminding our elected and appointed officials of that truth. This still goes on. Americans, in general, influenced by incidences of heinous neglect, abuse and its attendant horror have begun to look to government regulatory bodies to protect them from living in a society in which horrible things happen within families.

We still fight a state to state, even county to county (or other local division) battle to remind Boards of Education that our goal is education and faithful discharge of our obligations toward our children, not truancy or cover-up of disfuntion. This will continue as long as there is public education and families chose to opt out of it. Before Home Ed, many private schools had similar issues.

Then we come to the split within homeschooling. Many people have made the decision to homeschool on the basis of education. They think that they can do a better job teaching their children than the public or private school can. If we think this, then we have an obligation to our children and society to do so.

Other parents have viewed group education as an opportunity for their children to be exposed to ideas and behaviors that do not honor their beliefs. How parents ultimately address this varies. Some choose private schools, some choose schools based on a certain belief system, and some choose homeschooling.

Then the fun starts. Why are we homeschooling? (That did make the FAQ) Is it because we want to protect our children from attacks on their faith, their innocence, their very bodies? Do we want to restrict our children to our own set of narrow beliefs? Are we hoping to create a society which holds our ideals as its guiding principle and unabashedly demands that all within this society behave in certain ways? Is there some educational method that we find superior to those offered in local schools? How shall we, then, educate?

Over the years, as homeschooling has grown to the point where we can find our niche and have a group of families who share our distinctives, whether they be in faith or in practice, we now have parallel home educating societies. We have squabbles between them and in them. We have groups which are growing and beginning to serve a second generation of homeschoolers, we have groups which have been incredibly harmful to individuals and which are changing or disbanding.

All of this occurs within a healthy organic system. (Organic-developing in a manner similar to a living organism) Which means that it heals itself. Which means that at times, it is wounded , or split, or damaged. To try to protect this system from the natural outworking of differences is, ultimately, self defeating.

We all like to point out our own bunch of folks as not being monolithic, but, really, no group is, it can’t be. God has worked too hard to make each of us unique and precious. Parallel societies sound good to me. Even divergent societies have their place in the scheme of things…a group may, at any given time have compelling interest in staying together, but we also see that sometimes, the best solution is to acknowledge differences and split.

If we split over an issue of godliness, then to put off those who are ungodly is a proper response. If we split over something which is a preference, while it may cause grief for a time, another group of godly folks with a different view can serve as iron sharpening iron.

Most of the homeschool community is probably aware of the situation involving Melissa Busekros, a 15-year-old German girl who has been forcefully removed from her family because her parents started illegally teaching her at home. I’ve appreciated the in-depth coverage of the situation on this blog, which I recommend to anyone looking for more details.

This story is disturbing to me on many levels. As a homeschooler, I’m disturbed by the treatment of my fellow homeschoolers as criminals. As an American, I’m appalled at the violation of what seems to me to be a basic human right: the right to bring up one’s own children as one sees fit. As a Christian, I’m saddened by the fact that the anti-homeschooling movement in Germany seems driven in large part by a concern regarding children being brought up religiously.

It’s easy for me to simply condemn the German government for its attitude and action in enforcing a law that was put into place during Hitler’s Third Reich as an attempt to control the education of the nation’s children. However, I think it’s worth taking a deeper look into why this law is being enforced.

According to one German official quoted in the blog I referenced earlier, “The public has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole.” In other words, the government claims a compelling interest in making sure everyone fits into society. To a point, this makes sense. A certain amount of national solidarity is certainly desirable, and there’s also the concern of anti-social groups developing.

The first question I think we have to consider is this: Does homeschooling create a parallel society? It’s not an easy question to answer. On the one hand, homeschoolers are notoriously independent. We’re all different, we have different reasons for homeschooling, different approaches to education, etc. That’s why it’s so hard to collect data on homeschoolers: we’re not one coherent group, but individual families. On the other hand, we tend to band together either to cooperate in providing educational opportunities or in a way similar to alumni of a particular school. We’ve shared similar experiences and we often have similar attitudes. I would tend to think that we’re different enough, independent enough, and geographically scattered enough that we don’t pose any serious threat to society, but I will acknowledge that in general there is a typical homeschool mindset.

The question that follows, then, is: Is it in the best interests of a nation to prevent homeschooling and any parallel society it might produce? Again, there are a couple of sides to this. It is easier to control the masses if the masses all have the same social conditioning. It’s easier to understand where people are coming from, and everyone shares more or less the same perspective. At some point, though, it seems like this would create dangerous blind spots in society. I’m reminded of a short story by Isaac Asimov, titled “Strikebreaker.” In the story, a man from Earth visits a planet which, during his visit, is threatened with destruction because the man who controls the waste reclamation system goes on strike. Because of the social system of this planet, no one else can bear the thought of operating the machinery which would solve the problem — it’s just too distasteful. Not having been socialized on this planet, however, the visitor has no qualms about pulling a few switches to rectify the problem, thus saving the planet. Obviously Germany isn’t likely to face that particular situation, but my point is that there is a certain danger in uniform socialization. What if, for example, it was discovered some years down the road that the German education system was lacking in a particular aspect? Because it’s so uniform, how would anyone be able to step up to fill the gap?

Furthermore, I think homeschoolers at least in America have proven to be good citizens. German officials don’t seem concerned with test scores, so we’ll leave that alone and just assume homeschoolers can be well educated. We also tend to be very involved in our communities and government. According to a study in America titled “Homeschooling Grows Up,” 71 percent of homeschool graduates participate in an ongoing community service activity (such as coaching a youth sports team) and 88 percent are members of some type of organization (community, religious, professional, etc.). Additionally, 76 percent of homeschool graduates ages 18 to 24 reported voting in the last five years, compared to 29 percent of the same age group in the general population, and the percentage increases with age. These seem like desirable characteristics to me.

All things considered, I respectfully disagree with the German government that homeschooling creates undesirable parallel societies. My prayers are with Melissa and her family.

To get things started, I’d like to offer answers to some questions people frequently have for homeschoolers. Feel free to leave more questions through the comments feature, and we’ll try to answer them as well!

Q: Did you sleep in and do school in your pajamas?
A: I’m not sure why, but this has to be the most frequently asked of them all. The answer depends on the homeschooler, but as a general rule (and for me personally), it’s “no.” My parents wanted us out of bed, dressed, fed, and ready to start the day by a certain time. The exception, of course, was when we were sick. Even then, we often heard the dreaded mantra, “If you’re well enough to watch TV, you’re well enough to do your schoolwork.” Darn!

Q: Do you have any friends? Or, How do you make friends?
A: Though I suppose there are exceptions, most homeschoolers do have friends. We meet them in a variety of ways. For me, the list included church, my neighborhood, homeschool co-ops, sports teams, etc. I especially enjoyed my homeschooled friends, and would call them as soon as I finished my schoolwork to see if they had also finished theirs so we could go play. Alas, my public-schooled friends missed out on most of the day’s fun, not getting home until 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then having to do homework for a significant portion of the evening.

Q: Why were you homeschooled?
A: Again, it really depends on the homeschooler. For many, it’s religious reasons: schools are indoctrinating kids, and parents would rather do their own indoctrination. For others, it’s academic: schools aren’t doing so well, and why shouldn’t an educated parent teach his or her own kids? It may also be social reasons, or the violence in schools, or what have you. In my case, my mom just thought she could do as good a job as anyone else.

Q: What did you do about grades and tests?
A: Again, I speak only for my own family, but we didn’t have grades until we were in high school (and then only for the sake of transcripts). We did our work, Mom checked it or we checked it against the key, and then we fixed whatever was wrong (really fixed it, not just changing the answers). After all, when you turn in a project at work, no one says, “Mostly right. You get an 85. Now go do the next one.” They say, “This part of the project is wrong. Go fix it and bring it back.”