Homeschooling

"You're homeschooled? Oh...."

You immediately see the brand getting stamped on your forehead. You know suddenly know you get up at about 9:00 PM every day and walk around in PJs for the rest of the day. You know that you aren't as smart as before and that the random questions trying to prove how bad homeschooling is will start coming like bullets. You know you don't know how to be at all social, and you know you know absolutely nothing about pop culture. You know you wear the same thing just about every day - and you don't really care. You know that you do nothing all day and that you have lots of extra time to do whatever you want.

"Wow, it must be nice to be homeschooled," as they slowly back away.

Every homeschooler reading this will know exactly what I'm talking about. It's no secret how often homeschoolers get treated like this. In fact, there are a lot of inside jokes that homeschoolers pass around about such situations.

I'm so tired of it, though. Every time you're around someone who doesn't quite approve of homeschooling you constantly feel like you have to try to prove that you're not actually scum off the bottom of the bucket. While taking tours, tour guides ask what school you go to. As soon as they find out that you are homeschooled, they say, "Oh, that means you need to learn something." They then proceed to give your mom teaching material and start asking you a bunch of random questions that not even the "smart public schooled kids" would know. If you don't happen to know the same set of random facts as your tour guide, they attribute it to you being homeschooled.

The truth about homeschooling? We end up doing just as much school as those in a public school. On a regular school day, I start working at 6:45 AM, and if I don't have any distractions and only take a 1/2 hour for lunch, I get done at 5:30. These "regular" school days don't happen very often, however. I have plenty of stuff on top of it. I have a cello lesson on Monday, speech class and orchestra on Tuesday, I will soon have a class on Wednesday night, I have a class on Thursday night, and that only leaves Friday without anything extra. I'm not trying to prove what I do each day, but I'm just getting plain sick of the blank "wow-you-must-not-have-to-do-anything" stare.

And on top of that, they think that homeschoolers are anti-social. I think the only reason for this thought is that there happen to be more public schooled kids than homeschoolers. As soon as homeschoolers are around homeschoolers, they don't usually have much problem talking. Do notice that public schooled kids are good at talking to other public schooled kids, but they don't really have any idea what to say to homeschoolers.

I found this article someone had written who was against homeschooling. I just want to pick it apart a little bit.

News flash: Not everyone is qualified to be a teacher. A lot of parents can't balance a checkbook or find Iraq on a map -- let alone teach their young-uns Algebra & Geography. Just because you love little Johnny does not qualify you to be his teacher. It takes a good education as well as a love for children to be a competent teacher. The education and intellectual well- being of our progeny are too important to be left to rank amateurs. My mom and dad loved me but it was a 6th grade teacher that instilled in me a love of reading and writing.

True, but those who are willing to homeschool their kids are going to be the ones who will go to the trouble to learn their material. If they feel inadequate, they will get curriculum and other sources to use. Think of it another way, though. If a parent has eight kids to homeschool, think how many times the parent will have to teach a student the same material over and over from scratch. Homeschooling parents have got to be about the smartest people on earth. Think of it yet another way. If your parents are public schooled, they decide to homeschool you, and public education is against this, what are they saying about their own schooling system? That their students they're producing aren't smart enough to teach? Seems a little ironical to me...

Home schooling a small child stunts his emotional and psychological growth. It's at school that a child learns how to communicate with his peers, respect those different from himself and to work as a team to accomplish goals. No, matter how loving and nurturing a home, it can't replace a school as a crucible for social development.

Oh please... I have never yet come across a homeschooler who doesn't know how to communicate to their peers, let alone know how to respect others.

A dog that's been confined to a kennel for years will not make a good pet and a child who's been confined to his home during his formative years will find it extremely difficult to adjust to the real world. We don't need any more Jerry Dalhmers and Paul Hills let loose on our society.

Wow, it makes it sounds like we're chained to a tree or something. I think you would have to try pretty hard not to expose someone to the real world.

Most parents who home school their offspring are religious zealots. These impressionable youngsters who are captive to the rigid dogma of their parents are robbed of the wonderful diversity of ideas and cultures that thrive in our public schools. If the number of kids being home schooled continues to grow our democracy will soon resemble the theocracies of Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Isn't it our job to bring up our own kids to be Godly? Nothing about homeschooling robs a child of the diversity of ideas and cultures. You get that everywhere you go. Take WalMart as an example... Maybe even Colfax?

This is a rant. I have no great solution to the problem. I just wish the public could be educated a little about homeschooling.