Root for the Home(school) Team

Today the online community where I am most active saw some really acrimonious debate over homeschooling. A teenage boy who had been homeschooled accurately identified the bigotry which is often directed AT homeschooling families, but in his bitterness he blamed homeschooling families themselves FOR that bigotry. So I weighed in with the following. (Note that I began by mentioning a forum member who was defending homeschooling.)

This will be courteous, but relevant. ________ and I have never been each other's rubber stamp, so when I take her side here it should be plain that I have a substantive reason.

It often happens with any kind of minority that its members resent _being_ in a minority, resent being treated as inferior outsiders by the majority. So they try to distance themselves _from_ their own group. Pop psychologists refer to this as "self-hatred;" and as usual, pop psychologists are off the mark. It is not _themselves_ that these resentful souls hate; they hate the _circumstance_ of being treated with disdain.

Be that as it may, history provides illustrations of minorities disassociating themselves from their own group. In Fifties America, for example, black women not only went to considerable trouble to straighten their hair, they even purchased cosmetic products to lighten the color of their skin. Persons pursuing self-worth in such ways may despise _others_ of their group--as if it were the fault of those peers that the group was disadvantaged; but they don't really hate themselves. If they truly hated themselves, they wouldn't be seeking to _give_ themselves an improved situation.

If a homeschooled kid rebels against homeschooling because in his or her case there was "cultic" abuse, that simply is not what I'm talking about. Those black women bleaching their skin in the Fifties did not necessarily have bad parents; they were trying to cope with a broader situation in society which affected them. Likewise, a homeschooler with _wonderful_ parents might _still_ rebel, because of pressures which are not at all of the parents' making.

It is alleged that homeschooling demands too much conformity. Excuse me, public school _doesn't_ demand conformity? I went through public school, Kay through Twelve, and THE CROWD there is quite capable of mercilessly persecuting the "different." The administration likewise; remember those kids in California who recently were told they couldn't be seen wearing American-flag shirts because it might "offend" the group the school was pandering to?

Public schools of some kind have to exist in a society which both is pluralistic and forces many households to have both parents working. But having tutored at numerous public schools, I have seen their shortcomings. All other things being equal, a homeschooled child _will_ emerge smarter than a public-school child, at least in the average public school as they are now. So the more families are able to make a go of homeschooling, the better.