PhD in Parenting has been writing about homeschooling lately. She currently lives in Germany, where homeschooling is illegal and children are under legal compulsion to attend public school. Today, she wrote a post about different schooling methods and how she views them through the lens of the “right and duty to learn.”
On the whole, I found her opinions on homeschooling to be quite positive, but I take issue with some of the concerns she mentions in her post:
At the same time, there are things that concern me about home education:
- I worry that parents who homeschool for ideological reasons may be shielding their children from the realities of the world (other belief systems, other cultures) and their selves (sexuality, gender issues, personal expression), which I believe is dangerous for the individual and for society.
- I worry that a small minority of parents who homeschool for ideological reasons may be doing so specifically to pass on discriminatory and hateful viewpoints to their children.
- I worry that parents who take their children out of school out of frustration with the school system (generally or for their specific child) may feel forced into home educating their children when really the school system should be changing and adapting to address those concerns.
- I worry that children who grow up under the guidance of the most gentle, patient, loving and inspiring parents without being exposed to teachers who are strict, ineffective, jerks, play favourites, or use coercive methods may not learn how to deal with those types of people before entering the workforce and may be at a disadvantage (although to be fair, a lot of today’s schooled youth aren’t dealing with them themselves anyway – they are getting mommy and daddy to do it for them).
You all know how I feel about the “school as a place to learn to toughen up for the ‘real world’” stance, so I’ll just link to my comment I left on the PhD in Parenting blog and leave it at that.
What about her other concerns, like the idea that parents who homeschool may be doing so to instill hateful or dangerous ideologies in their children? How harmful is “immersing [our] children in [our] beliefs and shielding them from others?” Are parents really more or less likely to attempt to instill their ideologies in their children based on where their child schools? Are homeschooled children more likely to be racist, bigoted, etc. than their institutionally-schooled counterparts? To what extent should the State or the collective get to choose the ideologies to which your child should be exposed?
And what about her assertion that “in most cases [parents choose to homeschool because] there are perfectly reasonable and factual things taught as part of the school curriculum that the parents do not want their children to learn (evolution, birth control, homosexuality, other religious beliefs)?” Was this a motivating factor for you? For the homeschoolers you know? To what extent? Was it because the curricula covered topics you felt were inaccurate or inappropriate? Was it because the curricula were too religious or not religious enough?
And finally, what about her statement that she “believe[s] more strongly in the child’s right to an education than [she] do[es] in the parent’s right to raise their children any way they want?” Is a child’s right to a specific set of academic knowledge greater than your rights as a parent to pass on your morality, ethics, culture, or ideology? If you’re an unschooler or (I am warming to this term) “life learner,” do you think the child’s right to an education is more or less important than his freedom to make his own decisions, even if those choices are towards the less academic?
I know my answers to these questions. I’ve read some of the exceptionally thoughtful comments to her blog (like Kelly and Kim @ Beautiful Wreck’s). Now, I’d like to hear yours.
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[...] so often, I stumble upon one of the ever-present debates about the merits of home schooling. Smrt Mama is a regular read for me, and she had a link over to PhD in Parenting, who said this: I believe [...]
I have a difficult time responding to stuff like this, because it boggles my mind.
We don’t legislate the principles/religions/morals of families who indoctrinate before and after school, yet there’s no denying the fact that bigotry and hatred continues to pass from generation to generation at rates higher than 2%. How is that a homeschool issue?
We don’t ban public or private schools in the name of perverted or otherwise corrupt teachers. How does sheltering homeschooled children from 4th grade sex ed (if one chooses to do so) pose a *bigger* threat?
I could ramble on longer, but it all comes down to hating the fact that homeschooling tends to be judged by its extreme examples while we’re told to “keep things in perspective” when it comes to the failing grades, sex and drug use, and abusive staff of many public schools. My perspective is firmly kept, tyvm!
Public school certainly didn’t protect me from exposure to bigotry. I saw racism, homophobia, sexism, fear of anything Other. I think that all those examples of gay teens being banned from attending prom or bringing a date, the example of Jonathan Escobar being harassed by students, teachers, and administration, all show that bigotry is alive and kicking in a public school environment, too. Not better or worse than anywhere else, though less direct adult influence and control, due to the greater child to adult ratio.
My issue is not with her view on homeschooling. Be that what it may. She’s allowed her opinion… I have mine. However, what I do take issue with is her stance on the UN Treaty of the Rights of the Child. If we allow this to be ratified in the US we are sinking our own ship. We will have just turned over parental control to the government. With freedom also comes the ability to abuse those freedoms. Yes, there are some parents who do wrong by their children. I’m sad for that. In a free society (or any society) you will never obliterate that. We are a sinful bunch (whether we admit that or not). But, I believe that to give up our right to make decisions for our children is a worse crime against them and in the long run will aid in the destruction of our society. Take the power away from the parents, you ruin the family. Ruin the family you ruin the society. Most of us do not appreciate the freedom we’ve been raised in. Our ignorance will be the undoing of our free nation. Some will say I’m being dramatic, but all we have to do is look at history to see what happens. Research any society that becomes wealthy and comfortable… look at the mistakes they made leading to the downfall of the society…
I don’t actually take any issue w/ the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child. I think children are people and should be levied the same human rights as adults, including the right to education, bodily integrity, freedom, etc. I don’t thing that loss of parental rights is intrinsic in the affirmation of child rights. I think some government entities could try to make it so, however — but I don’t think that’s the real reason behind Germany’s anti-homeschooling stance. I think it’s a convenient excuse.
Maybe the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child would provide children with a better PUBLIC education. Hmm, if children really do have the right to a quality education, then for many the place to find that is in a home school rather than a public school. Maybe that poor first grader who has been shuffled to 3 different classrooms within a month because of overcrowding, could put his foot down and say, “Enough.” That might be nice.
Sigh, I do think *some* parents build block by block a worldview of hate in their children. Hubby meets those kids at school every day. It is nothing inherent or exclusive to home education. I’ll also clarify that parents can & do teach truth as they know it to their children without teaching them hatred (the PhD didn’t seem to get that very large difference). They can pass on their faith, their values, their heritage, and their culture without teaching a disrespect or hatred of those who hold a different belief system.
I homeschool for a lot of reasons (ideological & pedagogical). Because I wanted my kids to get history. Because I wanted them to be challenged & prepared for college. Because I like having them around. Because I wanted to tell them about evolution, sex, & birth control. And yeah, I want to teach them about my faith. I’m teaching them about all those things, but I’m not forcing them to embrace any of them. They still have their autonomy as thinking human beings.
If we want to talk about the rights of a child, let’s talk about what rights the child has who is forced to sit in a chair for 6+ hours a day. Let’s talk about the rights of the child who is forced to take Algebra in 8th grade when they are not ready for it. Let’s talk about the rights of the child who is forced to shove his head in the toilet because of a bully. And the rights of the child who the public school has already given up on in first grade.
Or the rights of the child who is able to take Algebra before 8th grade, but doesn’t have access to any accelerated courses, or the rights of the gifted child whose programs are cut because someone equates giftedness with being advantaged, or the child whose school flunks NCLB and has to spend an hour on a bus going clear across town every morning…
Ooh, interesting questions.
I completely agree with you that PhD in Parenting’s final point is a very poor argument and makes assumptions about relationships and skills that I strongly disagree with. However, I think her first three points are harder to dismiss. I understand why most homeschoolers would have a knee-jerk reaction against them, but I think they’re legitimate issues that are up for discussion.
For me personally, I see our basic approach to education as so fundamentally flawed that it’s hard for me to think that my voice could make any difference in helping fix the school system. However, I live in a city where virtually everyone who can opt out of the schools has opted out – by leaving the city, sending their kids to private schools or hitting the lottery with charters (almost no one here homeschools). I think it’s very hard to make the case that if those parents of means, education and conviction had to send their kids to the neighborhood school, that that wouldn’t improve things. I don’t personally think that’s right. I don’t think kids should be forced to endure a subpar system just to help out the larger community – they’re individuals, and children at that. However, I understand why some people think this way.
As for her first two points, I also worry that some homeschoolers use homeschooling to reinforce racist or bigoted thinking. I also think that such parents do have more power to teach that type of hatred if they’re homeschooling. However, like most homeschoolers, I also think that giving the government the power to decide whose ideology is “okay” and whose isn’t gives the government far too much power. I would say that in the end, parents who raise their kids to be bigots make me sad, whether they school or homeschool them. However, assuming no actual crimes (such as violence or hate crimes) are committed, I don’t think anyone can do anything about it beyond being engaged in a visible, positive way in an alternative way of doing things.
The tension that PhD in Parenting brings up between the child’s right to an education and a parent’s right to decide how to raise their children is one that I think has no clear answer. I feel like a lot of homeschoolers are extremely wary of children’s rights (particularly the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, which HSLDA and other homeschool organizations have spent lots of time lobbying against). The term “parental rights” also one that some homeschool groups throw around a lot. On the one hand, I think that children are human beings and they absolutely have rights. Additionally, they are vulnerable because of their status and absolutely need extra protections (which school doesn’t really afford them usually, but that’s another topic). The question is who administers those rights and what balance is there against the state’s own interests. I’m glad that the government is there to protect children against genuine abuse of all sorts, including educational neglect. However, I’m also wary of that power, especially vis a vis homeschoolers. How do you protect the rights of children yet also protect the rights of parents and families? To me, that’s a tough tightrope walk, at least from a policy perspective (which doesn’t even address the question you asked about it from a sort of unschool perspective).
Ack, I hope my answer makes sense in its dashed off lateness…
I agree that both parents and children have rights. In some aspects, like bodily integrity, etc. those rights should be absolutely treated as equal. In terms of guiding a child on his course, directing his faith, instilling an education — those are areas where I think a parent’s right to model a set of beliefs or behaviors trumps a child’s “right” to be exposed to all ideas. I don’t think anyone, child or adult, has an inherent right to equal exposure to all concepts. We have a right to seek that knowledge, but not to have it handed to us.
“My guess is that in most cases there are perfectly reasonable and factual things taught as part of the school curriculum that the parents do not want their children to learn (evolution, birth control, homosexuality, other religious beliefs). This, I think, is problematic.”
One problem I have with this statement is that her assessment of things as “perfectly reasonable and factual” is just as much an opinion as believing that they are not. She implies that parents who disagree are being UNreasonable and dealing in fantasy or misinformation. Are we to decide that whatever issues she includes in this category are reasonable and factual just because she says so?
Beyond that problem is the fact that it is nearly impossible to teach some of these things in a strictly factual manner without implying value of any sort. If the parents’ values differ from what the school is teaching, why does that make the school automatically “reasonable,” especially when what is being taught cannot really remain in the factual realm? For example, teaching that homosexuality is normal and okay *IS* a value judgement, no matter which opinion you hold on the matter. The idea that schools impart knowledge without opinion, bias, or values is absurd, but that’s what “reasonable and factual” implies.
Also, for many parents, it’s not so much that they don’t want their children to *learn* these kinds of things but that they think that schools do it at inappropriate ages, that it’s not the role of the school to teach them in the first place, or that the values that the school imparts *about* these things conflict with their own convictions.
PhD in Parenting is not religious and seems to be writing from that place. Dismissing the cultural and familiar importance of religion is easier to do when your family doesn’t embrace a specific set of religious beliefs. I think it’s unrealistic to expect a parent to teach her child, “This is what I believe, but hey, it could be totally wrong and everyone’s beliefs are just as right as mine!” It bothers me that she has gone back in her comments and specified that she is really only talking about faith, not other ideologies. Is teaching your child that your God/god(s) is/are the only God/god(s) and your religion is the only right one significantly different from teaching your child that your race, social class, political beliefs, etc.? Honestly, as long as you aren’t instilling hate and encouraging violence as part of your religion, I’d rather you teach your child that your God is right and mine is wrong than that your race is right and mine is wrong.
Can I hear an amen? AMEN!
I will be likely writing my own post on this subject. Thank you for verbalizing much of what I was thinking and for the link. I am enjoying snooping, I mean reading your blog.
Looking forward to seeing what you have to say.
And you’re definitely not “snooping”! I’m blogging my life in the public and I love being a part of the Great Homeschooling Conversation.
Thank you for the link to my post here and on the Well-Trained Minds forum.
However, I think you misread one of the statements that I made. On the forum you said: “I object to the misconception that rejection of “factual” curricula is a primary motivator for most homeschoolers” and here you said: “And what about her assertion that “in most cases [parents choose to homeschool because] there are perfectly reasonable and factual things taught as part of the school curriculum that the parents do not want their children to learn (evolution, birth control, homosexuality, other religious beliefs)?”
That is not at all what I was saying. That entire paragraph is about the 30% of Americans who choose to homeschool their children primarily for religious reasons. I have no objection whatsoever, and in fact applaud, the other 70% who choose to homeschool due to pedagogical concerns or because the school environment wasn’t a good fit for their child.
To reiterate, I do not believe that the primary motivator for most homeschoolers is the rejection of factual curricula. I think that is a main motivator of the 30% of homeschoolers who are doing it primarily for ideological reasons, rather than pedagogical reasons.
I’m glad that isn’t what you meant by the statement, but your use of the term “in most cases” certainly makes it appear that you believe that to be a primary motivator for parents to homeschool.
Also, homeschooling “for religious reasons” doesn’t mean that a parent pulled her child from public school to avoid evolution or anything of that nature. It could be fear of lack of religious tolerance. It could be because they’re of a non-Christian religion and feel the public school system is too Christian in focus. It could be that they want religion included as part of their school day, but not as a replacement for other topics. It may even be that they want to teach creationism and abstinence to their children. The point isn’t why they do it, but why you think you or anyone else should dictate the ideologies a child is taught?
The “in most cases” refers to “in most cases among the 30% of American families who choose to homeschool primarily for religious reasons”. I thought it would be clear that is what the whole paragraph referred to. Since it was not, I will edit to clarify.
The flaw in your “30%” argument has been pointed out, though. The survey that yielded that number didn’t differentiate between religious and moral reasons for homeschooling. It didn’t differentiate between religious doctrines. It didn’t specify whether the parents were replacing other subjects with religious or simply including religion as part of their daily study. It certainly didn’t specify whether the parents were teaching creationism vs evolution, comprehensive sex ed vs abstinence only. Even saying that most of that 30% who had religious motivations for homeschooling are doing so to avoid certain subjects is way off base.
I also really want to thank you for the willingness to open up a dialogue on this topic. The WTM forums have every flavor of homeschooler you could imagine, from the strictly Evangelical religious to the most radical of unschoolers, so if you wanted experiences and opinions from a huge sampling of the homeschool community, that’s the place to get it.
I’m not anti-public or private school, incidentally. I have had experiences and shared in family experiences from wide array of schools and believe a quality education can come from anywhere — it depends on the school, the teacher(s), the administrator(s), the parent(s), and the child. I went to public school for K-12, have done undergraduate and graduate work in education (though neither are specifically IN the field of education), my mother taught public school for over ten years, my husband went to a Montessori school until middle school and then to a Catholic school until graduation, my mother-in-law is a PhD and highly regarded professor of early childhood education, and my children have attended a small private Methodist school (though we are not Christians), a Montessori school, and public school. We aren’t kneejerk-homeschoolers or anti-establishment elitists. We believe in education and also capital-E Education, but capital-E Education was failing my son — and through his experience, I also discovered the ways in which I was failed and hurt by that system.
One of the things I always wonder when someone asks me if homeschooling is legal is how a complete and utter stranger picking up all the children of the community to be taught by other complete and utter strangers isn’t illegal.
I haven’t seen any examples of home educated children being more hateful than the public/private counterpart. From what I’ve seen the public/private kids are hateful of everyone up to and including themselves. They feel misunderstood, powerless and that life will never start for them. I do suppose though that since it’s everyone it’s not bigotry (singling out a specific group) and that somehow makes it better? The home educated kids I know are respectful of themselves, their peers and the adults they encounter.
I am the organizer of an inclusive meetup group in my city and of the over 100 members we have had over the last year, only a handful are not teaching evolution and not a single person had that as their reason for homeschooling. From those I have talked to, while evolution and birth control might not be something they want to have to talk about as early as Kindergarten, that’s never enough to keep them doing it. Home educating is HARD! You have to have solid reasons for committing to it and that they’ll hear certain ideas is just not enough to keep most people going. And how is not knowing about evolution somehow worse than being illiterate, unable to calculate and completely ignorant of geography and history? Because the FACT is that less than 15% of Americans can correctly identify Iraq on a LABELED map. And need I bring up “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader”??
Personally, I’ve seen that there is no room for growth in a school setting. If you eat glue in Kindergarten you will be walking across the stage at graduation and your peers will still be looking at you saying “Hey! That’s the guy/girl who eats paste!” Whomever you are in kindergarten is the identity forced on you until you get to college. In my opinion, the formative years are not the time to decide who children are. There brains aren’t even developed yet but so many kids can’t grow beyond mistakes or personalities from their first year in school.
As for a child’s right to an education, even though I am an advocate for the Classical Education I strongly and firmly believe that even the most lax education given to a child by their parents is still 100% better than the most vigorous education given by the government. Having time to play, grow, follow your interests, interact with the REAL world (not an artificial one that will never again exist), and being given the one on one attention that children need is the only way to educate a child to be a productive member of society. Letting a child’s brain and body atrophy for 8 hrs a day for 12 YEARS(!!)learning what everyone else is learning regardless of interest or aptitude is not the education I feel a child has a right to. That type of environment is usually reserved for criminals and the insane.
Sorry for writing the longest comment known to man. But apparently this topic gets me going!
My public school experiences ( went k-12, my mother taught in one for 10+ years, and my oldest child went to one for two years before we pulled him and began homeschooling) definitely reflect a lot of what you say. I was in the same school system from K to graduation. When I was in Kindergarten, I used to pretend to be a horse on the playground. A handful of people were still calling me “Horse” in middle school. They’d likely have been doing to same come high school if I hadn’t made some pretty radical changes to my appearance and behavior.
I disagree that the most lax day of homeschool is better than the most rigorous day of homeschool, however. I think it’s perfectly possible to get a good academic education in public school. Some schools are very good. I think the social aspects of that setting, however, are a lot more prone to toxicity.
I was going to start out my reply by agreeing with you that it is possible to get a quality education in a public school but the more I thought about it, I just couldn’t and I’ll try to explain why. In my mind education is made up of two things: 1. Academic knowledge and the discipline to add to that knowledge and 2. Character development to become a productive member of not just society but of the human race. Studies have just shown that, baring mental illness in parents, the home environment is always better to meet these objectives because of the one on one attention, participation in real life, family and extended family as role models, and the freedom to learn independently. In regard to academics, where I am, our last levy supported not curriculum or extra-curricular activities but rather breakfast for the students. Parents seeing their rights being secondary to those of the government had ceased to feed their children before sending them to school. Therefore, the taxpayers now carry the burden of not only educating but also feeding the community’s youth (I do not live in a community of poverty or even near poverty, these families could feed their children, but why should they when the government will take over?). How is a school supposed to give a quality education when they are instead having to meet all the basic needs of the entire community’s youth? And when the money goes to food, tissues, pens and paper, how are they to provide quality curricula? And I know my school is not a stand alone situation. Similar issues are rampant in many other communities.
For character development, I’ll give you an example the showcases the problems both schools and parents face. When I was in grade K-5 I was tormented by the kids in my school. I was an early bloomer so while the boys my age and even older all wanted to be my best friend, the girls made my life hell. Then I moved to a different city and a different school. The girls were more developed so I wasn’t such a standout. My first week in my new school it looked like I was going to be popular. I had people to sit by at lunch and people to play tag with at recess. There was another girl who was following us around and wouldn’t leave. Someone got the idea to tie her to a tree during recess so she couldn’t follow us anymore. I am ashamed to admit that I participated in this so that I would be accepted. While we had a recess monitor, this went unnoticed (as did every other instance of bullying). The girl was released from the tree when the teacher noticed that she wasn’t back in class. She told on all of us. We were sent to the principal’s office where we were lectured. Now, here is the interesting part of this story. Our parents were NEVER told. No one called my parents to tell them that I had tied a girl to a tree that day and I needed some work done on my character development. Since schools are unable to discipline to encourage character development, and they also don’t work in partnership with the parents , I don’t see how that development can happen. I never bullied anyone ever again and lost my fleeting popularity because of it. But in order to survive in school you have to give up any love of learning or you will be outcast and you need to be a bully or you will be bullied. So, it fails on both counts on what constitutes an education in my mind.
I was public schooled for K-12 and I feel good about my academic education. I think that it’s impossible to make a blanket statement about public schools because there is SO much variance from school to school and district to district. Some public school districts have so much money and so much parental involvement that they’re practically private schools. Others have little money and little parental involvement. We have local schools that turn out well-educated students and those that turn out gangmembers-in-training. So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow…
I know that public school had a positive influence on my character development, but I credit that to specific teachers and specific programs. My elementary gifted teacher, my theatre teacher, my AP US History teacher, the Model United Nations program…these were all highly positive influences. They weren’t the only ones, though. I had Girl Scouts and a wonderful family. I also had many negative experiences in a public school. Some of those experiences are systemically-rooted, others are school-specific, and others were just personality clashes between children under inadequate supervision.
I’m hesitant to paint every school w/ the same brush. I know my local school was failing my son. I know my local system wasn’t equipped to meet his (or my) needs. In the face of that, homeschooling seemed the most empowering option for all of us.