This article is to dispel some sadly worn out myths about the "Home Schooling Community", some of which spread because of the "community's" seemingly odd choice, and some of which used by the media to cause a sensation.

 

* The first myth to dispel is that the "Home School Community" does not exist. There is no movement, there is no one way to educate kids at home, there are many philosophies, styles and reasons behind a parent's choice to educate their child(ren) at home.  Evidence is showing that the greatest reason for home schooling has to do with poor social conditions in school (violence, sexually orientate bullying, racism), and performance based (teach to the test) education being a close runner up. Many ,like myself, were appalled that the teachers had Master's degrees and still had poor classroom management skills, assessment abilities and the inability to teach to non traditional (audio-visual) learners. Many, like myself, felt that bullying and racism were not adequately investigated and addressed even in the elementary school levels. Rather than having our children subjected to bigotry without protection, and the socio-psychological skills. we removed our children to be in more tolerant group settings, while teaching children skills on how to deal with racists, and bigots without having to come up "the hard way."

 

 

* All parents are Home Schoolers.  Each state has a different definition of what legally constitutes home schooling. In the Washington State, that is defined as Home Based Instruction, and the parent(s) taking sole responsibility for their child's education, and not receiving public monies for the purpose of educating their child(ren). This is the definition WNLA sticks too, we believe if someone receives education dollars it doesn't matter what venue is used as an education facility, public dollars are public dollars and with those dollars come state requirements for usage of those dollars (including mandatory WASL)  and you are not independent of the system. A rose by any other name... If you take money from a school district, legally you are bound to abide by their requirements and rules. You are not a Home Based Instruction student. It's pretty simple.

 

Other states have different laws, and regulations. Which leads to healthy national debate about what defines home schooling.

 

 

* Only Right Wing Christians Home School. Well,. they would certainly like you to believe that, but that is categorically untrue. WNLA fights that agenda all the time.  There are home schoolers who happen to be Christian, but that may not be their sole reason for home schooling. The lunatic fringe exists, we know that, we fight them, but we understand their right to home school for what ever reasons they choose. We find they are in general less tolerant of other more diverse views. We owe them for getting the ball rolling, but our homage stops there. (You have more prevalence of right wingers on your local school board than you do in independent home schooling circles.)

 

* All home schoolers isolate the kids.  Okay, can you picture spending twenty four seven with anyone in isolated conditions, let alone for years on end? You have got to be crazy! Yes., there are those who do, but they are rare. If you want to meet well socialized, well connected, well traveled people meet home schooling families. There are support groups, field trip groups, co-ops, play groups, many belong to 4-H, Scouts, church groups, or independently volunteer in their community, most home schooling families are anything but isolated.  In fact, most home schooled children get more intergenerational and cultural experiences than the average public schools because their social experiences are not limited to same age peer groups.

 

* All home schoolers teach their kids the same way. This could be a paper on it's own. There are those who buy boxed curriculums who do "school at home", there are eclectics who choose a whole array materials from which to teach, there are un schoolers who choose a very alternative manner of educating their children ( and enough of them have grown into adulthood  to forward to college, and/or the workforce and manage life just fine), there are those who do use religious curricula, and those who do not, some of us emphasize more science, some more arts, some of us are child driven. To repeat that we are all different may seem redundant, but it is never the less true.

 

 

* Kids get indoctrinated by their parents.... Well it's not really a myth, it's true, but guess what that happens whether kids are home schooled or not. In my local area we had trouble with kids dressing as Ku Klux Klan and harassing African American and gay students at the high school. Those kids weren't home schooled, and I sure hope they were not indoctrinated with those beliefs at school. And schools by teaching the pledge of allegiance from kindergarten up, indoctrinate young Americans to swear allegiance to a piece of cloth that is an important symbol, yet fail to teach reverence for the constitution that allows the flag to fly.

 

* Home Schooling is Subversive... Well, not a complete myth. It sure can be. Most of us teach our kids to think independently, which is why the military classify's these recruits as  Tier II enlistees. Meaning they are less likely to complete their first year of service. Why? Well, because they are not socialized in a restrictive system of rules and regulations (High School) and in general are taught to think for themselves as much as possible. (In general, we already admitted to the wackos in the home schooling circles)

 "  Why is high school completion status such a powerful predictor of attrition? Laurence (1984) observes that the social attributes and experiences that enable a student to complete high school may be the underlying trait associated with an individual's probability of fulfilling the first term of service. That is, perseverance, maturity, successful participation in group learning situations, team spirit, tolerance of and adaptability to rules and regulations, determination, self-control, and other similar attributes may be the true predictors of persistence in the military, rather than whatever educational attainment is represented by the diploma (Laurence 1984, 1993). " As eloquent as the above passage sounds, it is the authors opinions that regular recruits are wanted more their ability to heed rules and regulations and allow themselves to be indoctrinated (all good militaries do it)  and those who go to traditional  high schools are most likely to fit that bill.

 

However subversive in nature, we have the right to educate our children, and after the past few elections can't any one agree we could use a few people out there who can think past the media spin? However, since we stand at only 2% of the population curently being educated I wouldn't say we're too much of a real threat.

 

It is unfortunate that the majority of articles about home schooling families end up showing the most extreme, bizarre and sometimes the worst side of human behavior. The truth of the matter is that is what sells papers, gets advertisers for mainstream media, and makes for good jokes on late night television.  Most home schooling families are average folks, who wanted to educate their kids at home for various reasons, most of which in Washington State have to deal with safety and the "teach to the test" attitude our state has adopted. There are bad parents, and good parents, just like in the rest of the American population.

 

For the record the author is not only a progressive, but a card carrying liberal, who found the public system just too darn conservative.

 

 

Laurie A. Wheeler

 

 

Director of Information Clarifies Statement

It appears that there are those who have taken offense at my calling a specific group of politically active and often media worthy people
" lunatic fringe extreme conservative "Christian" camp." and "wackos".

For clarification, this is NOT a retraction of the statement, but rather I will list the definitions for each of the words used in my commentary. Was it a flattering statement to make? No it was not, nor was it meant to be, the media and general public tends to clump all home schoolers into the same basket, and that basket is owned by that particular brand of home schoolers; I was merely pointing out that not all of us deserve to be lumped into that particular stereotype, a stereotype often spoken of by the media, and progressive media.

Someone even stated it was bigoted, well according to my thesaurus, that would mean "small minded, ill-liberal,intolerant, un enlarged, lily white and conservative." Frankly, I was not addressing all Christians, nor was I addressing all Conservative Christians, merely, a small number, of highly active, highly political people who bring a whole new meaning to extremism. Extremism is not rational behavior. I would buy the bigot label had I said they have no right to home school their children, but I didn't say that, in fact I did say I respect their right to home school. That is a tolerant statement.

I purposely included the word "wacko" to make a point. I could have chosen, zealot, and not received the bad press, or offended anyone's sensibilities. I have heard on nationally syndicated media, including "progressive" radio and television, home schoolers referred to in those exact terms. I'm not trying to preach to the choir, I am trying to bring about some form of awareness, and the technique I employed is called "Thunder Clap" in Buddhist philosophy. If it was seen that the parenthesis around (not conservative) next to "Rationalist Christians", I was merely making a clear point of a separate branch of theology. I was not saying non extreme Conservative Christians don't home school, nor was I implying one was better than the other. The term "Rationalist" comes out of the late 1800's, to define the non-dispensationalist branches of Christianity. If that has been found to offensive by some because of my short handing a definition I do sincerely apologize, I was attempting to create a list of the less commonly thought of groups of people who do indeed home school their children, and for those I left out, I apologize for that too.

As for credibility, you know I believe the political game has changed in the past six years, and I think the straits are dire enough right now, that we are going to have to be vocal, pointed, and give an honest voice to our opinions. Bec Thomas and I have many times publicly stated that if you don't agree with us, lobby against us. We are credible and more importantly we are effective, because Senators and Representatives in our state welcome our participation and find it refreshing.


However, I promised definitions, and I choose to use good ol' fashioned Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus,

"lunatic fringe" (N) ~ a fanatical, extremist, or irrational member or a society or group (almost all political movements, and advances in any cause are kicked off by people like this, it is merely dangerous to have them firmly entrenched in the political arena for a long term basis.)

"extreme" ~ synonyms: extremist, fantastic, rabid, radical,
related: excessive, immoderate, desperate, drastic, unreasonable, violent

"wacko" (N) a person (s) regarded as eccentric or irrational

my own definition...
"conservative "Christian" right wing" a small but vocal minority of people who wish to legislate their version of theology and regulate American life in the model of their philosophy without regard for the divergence of opinions and philosophies of other members of society. The same people who sat outside the Hospice (a place where people are DYING) and protested during the Terri Shivo Case, the same people who brought their anti-gay marriage stance into Home School politics, the same group of people who have pushed in many states to excessive regulation of home schooling in state legislatures. They also speak for home schooling in universal terms as if we all agree, and all want the same things.

Do all conservative Christians agree with them? No. Did I say they did? No.

I stand by pointing out the differences, and to say that there are no irrational home schooling families in America would have been a lie. I will not apologize for being derisive of this group of people,I am derisive of their methods, and politics, not their rights to be political or home school. That my friends is honesty. Some say you can't be honest in politics, I find that it actually pays off. They will honestly disagree with me, and I'm guaranteeing I'll receive some hate mail. News flash, I figured I would receive that mail when I wrote the piece.

I was throwing down a gauntlet.