I have heard them all, but the one that makes me laugh the hardest is that homeschoolers, as opposed to their public school peers, aren't "in the real world."
I'll wait til you finish laughing.
Wait. You weren't laughing? Oh, sister, we need to talk!
See, there is nothing "real life" about government schooling. "Real life" does not include sitting in a room with 30 of your peers for 7 hours a day (and an additional hour or more on the school bus with those kids) 180 days a year. I won't try to persuade you that it's wrong - but it certainly cannot be characterized as "real life."
I believe what critics of homeschooling mean by "real life" is the supposed valuable interaction between your child and his teacher, your child and his peers, and your child and the school. Think about that. What is really being said is that there is more value in your child learning how to respond to authority the way your government wants you to respond to it than there is in true academic learning and your child's future success and happiness1.
Native Americans get this. Anyone with an understanding of the history between the US Government and American Indians knows the reason Native children were forced into boarding schools: assimilation.
The spread of compulsory education throughout America is credited to Richard Henry Pratt - who used techniques developed on Native Americans in a POW camp in Florida.
If you think the intention behind compulsory education in the US is any different with your children, think again. Sure, you figure you're part of "the dominant culture" so no one would by trying to get you to "assimilate." Pratt's desire to "civilize the Indian" is no different today - the powers that be have decided which qualities are important and which values your children should have - and they are "civilizing" your children to affect their goal. However, do you know who the biggest funders of compulsory education were? According to John Taylor Gatto's outstanding book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, "[b]etween 1896 and 1920, a small group of industrialists and financiers, together with their private charitable foundations, heavily subsidized university chairs, researchers, and school administrators, actually spent more money on forced schooling's early years than did the government. Just two men, Carnegie and Rockefeller, were themselves spending more as late as 1915. In this laissez-faire fashion a system of "modern" schooling was constructed without any public participation, or even much public knowledge." Gatto goes on to say that motives were complex but the following quote from Rockefeller's General Education Board on what they thought the goal of Public Education should be will enlighten you:
In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [of intellectual and moral education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by traditional we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets, or even men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen - of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.
The only thing "real" about government education is the very real desire to manipulate the population to believe, think, and obey what the government wants us to believe, think, and obey. If it were really about academics, why are we floundering?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Currently, our family is reading two books quite similar to each other. In the evening we are reading the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody. During our "Quiet Time" the children and I are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The similarity in the books is striking. Both Little Britches and Farmer Boy begin when the hero is beginning school - at age 8. {Egads! How did they ever learn to read?} Another similarity: both of these boys, at 8 years old, were more responsible, more competent and more productive than today's average American boy twice that age. Is it really a coincidence that between then and now the government began to require children to leave the true "real world" and enter the government run school earlier and longer? 2
On his 9th birthday (in 1865), Almanzo received a calf yoke as a gift from his parents and stayed home from school that day to train his calves. "Almanzo did not have to go to school that day. He did not have to go to school when there were more important things to do." Almanzo and his brother, Royal, also stay home the rest of the week - to help fill the family ice box for the coming year. How is it that young people attended for fewer years and fewer days of each year and yet appeared to have so much more character, personal happiness, and success than young people of today and even higher academic achievement?3
The 2003 study, Homeschooling Grows Up, gives ample evidence that when it comes to "real life experiences," homeschooling offers far more benefit than government schooling. Please do not misunderstand me: It is absolutely possible for a public schooled child to get a "real life education" - but it is in spite of public education, not because of it. According to this study of 7,300 homeschooled adults, homeschoolers are more engaged in their communities and have a higher level of civic engagement. What I found most profound were the results of questioning about personal happiness. 58.9% of the homeschooled adults questioned said that they were "very happy" with their lives. Only 27.6% of the general U.S. population responds likewise. When asked, "in general, do you find life exciting, pretty routine, or dull," 73.2% of the homeschooled respondents responded "exciting" - as compared to only 47.3% of the general population. Only .8% of homeschooled respondents said life was "dull" as opposed to 3.7% of the general US population. It would appear that homeschooling not only prepares children for "the real world" quite well - but, certainly better than public schooling.
It is ironic that the many of the criticisms of homeschooling are a) not based fact, and b) widely-held. Since homeschooling undermines the status quo and does not benefit the plan of the powers that be, neither truth should be surprising.
1 Washington Times Article - Socialization: Homeschooling Not a Problem↩
2 In 1900 only 7% of children attended Kindergarten and the school year was only 99 days long - yet only half of all children in America were enrolled in school↩
3 Homeschooling and Academic Achievement - a 2009 study shows homeschoolers score, on average 37 percentile points higher on standardized tests than their public school counterparts.↩
Very nice read!
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