Twenty Years Ago, This Ruling Would Have Changed my Life

The past swooped over me yesterday, casting a shadow as it flapped its wings against my ear. It happened last night, when I clicked over to SF Gate and read the headline that California parents are in jeopardy of losing the right to homeschool their children. The Chronicle photo of Debby Schwarzer and her two sons reading books around their dining room table brought back a rush of memories.

I thought about all the mornings, year after year, that my brothers and sisters and I sat down around our round brown dining room table, surrounded by textbooks and #2 pencils. Debby calls her "school" Oak Hill Academy; we called ours Mason Hill Christian Academy. A lot of home schoolers use the word "academy" - there's something fierce about it.

Mason Hill Christian Academy began each school day with two pledges and a prayer: one pledge to the American flag, and one to the Christian flag.

I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior, for whose kingdom it stands...

Day after day, I sat around that kitchen table, working through Geometry exercises, dreaming about wearing stylish clothes and having a group of girlfriends to giggle with. I dreamed of going to basketball games and cheering on my secret crush. Of having a locker. Of being asked to go to the prom.  Of having a wry, witty homeroom teacher who wore a sweater vest and a scholarly-but-intriguing pair of spectacles. I doodled in the margins of the book, sighing, imagining the Real Life I should have been living.   

I told my mother that I would never, ever perpetrate the horror that was homeschooling upon my children, if I ever had any, which I was sure I wouldn't, because I was already bouncing one sister on my hip and helping another into her coat, and I couldn't imagine that any torture could possibly be worse.

Then, I would have done cartwheels to hear that home schooling might be made illegal.

This many years later, I'm not quite so certain.

No: I didn't slip on a pair of rose-colored glasses along the way; those mornings at the kitchen table don't have a misty tint in the rear view mirror. Rather, I now see what I couldn't fathom then: that our entire educational system is broken. That programs like No Child Left Behind don't even begin to approach the travesty of near-adults graduating illiterate, of schools turning into battlegrounds.

That every schooling option, from home to private to public, comes with a unique set of risks, opportunities and advantages.

Such is the difference between me today and me as a teenager: things don't fit quite as neatly into the Good and Bad boxes that I was sure they did then. The concept of home schooling still has a certain tang to me, an unmistakable flavor of frustration and helplessness and angst, but I know now that my feelings aren't so much about where I learned the difference between sine and cosine, but rather a complex web of circumstances and interactions that is simply Life.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our educational system could be re-imagined, if we could bring together bright minds from different disciplines to create a whole new approach to learning?

Until then, the grown-up me understands that this isn't the time to legislate one option in or out.

+ The Buzz from the Blogosphere

The war over homeschooling continues.

But the ruling might not make any difference.

Arnold weighs in on the issue.

Comments

[woodenmask]

To say that our educational system is broken is to really, REALLY oversimplify the case. If you buy into the idea of "it takes a village", then education should be a team effort. In some theoretical time in the past (depending on race, class, geography, etc...) children were raised in extended families with more than one adult and more than one generation of adults in the home. They were tied into the community, with neighbors, church or other organizations, and lots of people all taking an active role in raising that child and giving them what they needed to learn about the world. School was only one part of the equation.

Now, for a variety of reasons, mostly beyond anyone's control, many children grow up in single-parent homes, almost none of them live with extended families, because of the absurd amount of time spent at work, most parents don't have time to spend reading with and educating their children, neighbors and community members would have to be insane to open themselves up to litigation by getting involved with somebody else's kid. Affluent children are over-scheduled with activities, but don't make many real connections with adults. Poor children go home to empty houses, lock the door and play video games until an adult can get home. (Again, not anyone's fault particularly - just a REALLY unfortunate confluence of events.)

Which leaves schools holding the bag.

So we mandate them with ridiculous standards, like NCLB, put them in charge of most of the cultural exposure, physical exercise, emotional development, role modeling, medical and nutritional needs of the children and blame them for every failure of the system.

In point of fact, public education has many, many more successes in this country than it does failures, but when it does fail, we all suffer.

Home schooling is definitely one possible answer to a very complex problem, but redesigning our society is probably a better (and possibly impossible) approach.

Sorry to rant so long.

- A Very Tired Teacher

[Steamy Kitchen]

wow, i can't believe that little by little we are losing our freedoms...

[Jennifer Jeffrey]

Teacher: I feel tremendous empathy for teachers who - as you pointed out - have an untenable burden on them to educate, motivate, discipline and guide 25-30 wildly diverse human beings every year - a challenge that is virtually impossible, and yet so many do an incredible job. Home schooling can be part of the answer, but I think it too has a number of potential pitfalls.

What happened to the village?! I think it would be wonderful on so many levels to have a sense of shared burden - not only for education, but also for other things as well.

Education has been so sadly neglected, but at what cost to society? I totally agree with you that redesigning the whole ball of wax would be the best option, though we have approximately 0% chance of that happening.

Hard not to get cynical, isn't it?

Steamy - yeah, I know.

[shuna fish lydon]

JJ,

I just had to say how thoughtful and brave for you to come forward with your first hand knowledge about this complicated issue.

Do you know that as soon as I saw that headline in the SF Chronicle I thought immediately of you?

I've heard a lot of pros and cons but I have so little knowledge I just try and be supportive where I can. I will say that it made me smile every time I handed over a (teacher & student discounted) computer to someone when I worked at the Apple store.

Good for you for speaking up. We never know the lives of our friends until they tell us.

[susanna]

I didn't know you were homeschooled! For two years my sister and I were sent to a two-room Christian school in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn't recommend that to anyone, even now as an adult. We were so behind in math and science upon entering the public highschool that our self esteems were hit hard within the first week. Having said that, most homeschooled children that I have met as an adult really seem together and ahead of their public school peers. I guess it all comes down to whether they have good teachers who will make sure that all the basic courses are taught properly and understood.