Carnival of Homeschooling
The 21st Carnival of Homeschooling is up. I found this post entitled, "That's Mrs. Crazy Freaky Nut Job, Young Man!" to be an amusing response from this mom when others act rather shocked at her decision to homeshool:
Uhh, I thought recluses who mailed letter bombs to people graduated from Harvard.
No, he won't have a blast at school and I'll be his teacher because I'm a crazy freaky nutjob who plans to teach her kids horribly at home, all the while turning them into recluses who will grow up to live in shacks in Montana and mail letter bombs to people. Make me proud kids! At least, that's what it seems like I say because everytime I mention that I'm going to homeschool I get these very odd looks, like I just told my audience that I have airborne VD or something.
Uhh, I thought recluses who mailed letter bombs to people graduated from Harvard.
posted by Helen at 7:16 AM
14 Comments:
People who decide to homeschool look crazy because they are displaying an odd symptom: personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is so rare in our culture that when it rears its healthy head it brings shock and consternation upon all who witness it.
Trey (who is almost joking)
Mrs. Crazy Freaky Nut Job made many excellent points. My two favorites:
1)"In a world where admitting that you have any morals at all is considered taboo, choosing to homeschool partly because you want to instill those forsaken morals in your kids is going to draw A LOT of fire..."
2)"I firmly believe that true, successful socialization is the ability to interact with people of ALL ages."
I appreciate Dadvocate's comments, I usually do. Holding morals or deep spiritual beliefs often puts other's on the defensive. I moved from a secular to a spiritually oriented place of business and the owners printed a Christian fish on my business card. No problem for me, I am a Christian. It was interesting how defensive and frightened some of my patients became on seeing it. They had known me as a human being and their therapist, some for months, bet that little fish was a frightening image.
I know part of this is because some of the meanest, most closed minded and judgemental people I know profess to be Christians, but it is also, I think, because of the belief that psychologists are supposed to be non-judgmental which somehow comes out to mean athiest or at least agnostic, and liberal. As I am neither agnostic nor liberal, there is an assumption that I will be hard hearted and bossy.
It is prejudice. Earned prejudice somewhat, but prejudice. The same sort of thing is at work in the home school world I see. Anyone who would want to be responsible for their child's education and believe that they could do a better job at it than the government is suspect.
Wow. What besides national defense do we really expect the government to do well? I was amazed that many people were dismayed that the feds and local government suck at disaster relief. Head Start and the National Defense are the outliers, not the norm.
Thank you so much for the link. And your subtle sense of humor : ) I think a lot of the problem is our nation's priorities. All the concerns raised by people who are forward enough to say anything to me center on the prom, dating, and socialization (as if what they mean by that occurs sitting for 6 hours in a desk listening to a teacher talk...we don't even have recess in many schools). Some people ask about high school and I totally understand that. I'm a little leary of that myself. But I figure if she is ready for it by then, then so will I.
"However, when it came to social interaction skills, most very glaringly socially inept!!"
And to be a contrarian back, there are tons of people coming out of public schools with horrible social skills, but this has become normal. Children are taught to be self centered, and not care about others. Bullies are allowed to taunt and beat other children, often with very little consequences.
Most of the people I know with poor social skills are engineers who happened to go through public schools. Because of their personality type they probably would have poor social skills no matter what school the attended.
I'll join the contra-contrarians on the social skill issues. My grandkids are homeschooled and at times I've wondered about their social skills (never about academics). But they do know how to interact appropriately and will if the necessary pressure is applied.
There are some kids in my the public schools my younger children attend who have no idea how to interact appropriately. They don't know how to call on the phone and politely ask to speak to someone. They can barely hold an appropriate conversation with an adult. They simply have never been taught the basics of our culture's accepted/recommended practices of interaction.
There are a lot of people who have pretty horrible "social interaction" experiences in school; here's an example.
Although I do wonder if she would have accomplished what she has without having gone through this unpleasant experience.
If we take "personal responsibility" to mean doing it all at home, then it might not just apply to schooling. For example, if your children are sick, would you take them to a hospital that may not only spread germs, but also expose them to a questionable morality? Many Christian Scientists, for example, would not do that. They would insist that a parent can be just as good at mending a broken leg as a doctor.
Also, ronin1516: If you meet someone in a PhD program at Michigan, that's no longer home schooling. It would be home schooling if they guy got his PhD at home, from his parents.
Public universities are just as stifling as public K-12, according to some.
The most recent and memorable experience I have with home-schooled kids is a case of two brothers who were homeschooled who were also in my sons Boy Scout Troop. These two boys are brilliant academically, but they really are geeks, very awkward socially.
But the thing is, their awkwardness didn't come from their being home schooled: it came from their parents, especially their mom. Nice folks and I respect them a lot. Mom's a VERY smart cookie, a female PhD in nuclear physics (not to be sexist, but that IS rare.) But she is a little odd. And when you meet them all you can see that her oddness rubbed off on her sons.
The Scouting experience has done a lot for these boys, I think. I think they'd be eaten up in a minute in the public schools, and it might even mean that their academic potential was lost what with all the emotional abuse. In the meantime, I've watched them grow up a little and really be self-confident, if not still a little geeky.
Their parents made a conscious effort to make sure they were "socialized" and I think both the socialization and the home schooling worked to their benefit. The social awkwardness sometimes has as much to do with genes as it does socialization, maybe more.
A lot of physicists, engineers, and mathy-types are "odd". It has nothing to do with whether they are homeschooled or not. Often these people have unique wiring. Many are not global thinkers and suffer in the social environment of school. They get picked on because they don't fit in.
My homeschooled daughter has Asperger's syndrome and is very bright. But she has trouble interacting with kids her own age. They do not want to talk about the scientific subjects that interest her. This kind of child was once called a geek. These children also don't learn to swim by being thrust into the deep end of the social pool. First you must teach them how to function properly in a family. Then you have to teach them to funtion in a small class group. After that they need to learn how to operate in a mainstream school environment. After twelve years of enduring this hell and denying their solitary personality, all the "social skills" they learn can be applied to the real world.( Where they will probably find their own way despite all of that brainwashing.) I just decided to skip all of that and let both of my children operate in the real world today. Why remove any child from real-world education in the first place? Who ever told us that removing our child from interactions with people in the community, separating them from the natural environment, and denying them their individuality for thirty hours a week is teaching them to operate in society?
What's wrong woth being "odd" anyway. If it doesn't bother the odd person, why is it anyone else's business, many of these strange people are successful after all by society's standards. Sounds like a bunch of suffocating conformity to me.
I didn't say she was socially inept. I said that she had trouble getting along with kids her own age. I don't consider this a problem since we don't expect adults to deal only with people their own age. Since when have you gone on a job interview that was only open to 36 year olds? She is going to learn how to operate in the world that she will be spending adult her life in. Learning how to operate in her community with all levels of interaction. Not in the aquarium of school. I don't feel like denying her anything. I'm offering her the real-world now!
And I do think it's okay that she's not neurotypical. She has a disability. I'm facilitating her by helping her through the hurdles. Would you say pushing a paraplegic in a wheelchair is denying him the ability to walk? That it is wrong to think your child is worthwhile and praiseworthy even though they are not like other kids? There are so many positive traits in people with Asperger's, but you have to throw the idea of "normalizing" them out the window if you don't want to destroy their unique abilities.
Wow. Great posts Michelle. Thanks. I work with a fair number of Apserger's kids, and have a fair number of friend's with Asperger's. They are such cool interesting people. I really appreciate how you focus on your daughter's sense of what is a probolem and what is not a problem. Way cool! You are my hero for the day.
Trey
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