My homeschooling sympathies are not with the "original wave" of homeschoolers who, for religiously fundamentalist reasons, wanted to pull their kids out of public school so they wouldn't be exposed to things like sex education and evolutionary biology. I actually think that teaching your kids the world is only 6,000 years old, or that gays should never get married, indicates that you're sick and ought to be locked up. (I don't expect to get my way on that matter, of course.) But I do sympathize with the new wave of homeschooling parents who see their kids' classes turning into urban jungles, or who fear the encroachment of a "woke" curriculum like that of The 1619 Project or Critical Race Theory. I hear and read objections to homeschooling, all the time, that focus on social retardation, but how is it healthy to put your kids into a social environment where they're constantly dealing with bullies, gangs, and a simmering drug culture? Sure, learning to deal with one's peers is important, but that can be managed through participation in things like sports teams and musical groups. It's not as though this new wave of homeschoolers wants to keep their kids locked up in the basement! So, yeah, I have a lot of sympathy for the newer crowd. It's a jungle out there.
I'm a freedom-lover and certainly understand the desire of parents to avoid public school indoctrination initiatives. People need options and sometimes homeschooling is the best one available. Unless you're rich.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should write a book to help these folks be able to Think Like A Teacher.