(I realize I may alienate some homeschoolers with this post, but it is hard to keep quiet)
I am painfully aware of some homeschooled kids who are miserable and failing.
These kids are generally older and high school level.
These kids are usually homeschooling against their own will.
Some of these kids are homeschooling as a result of doing bad in school... i.e. they are homeschooling as punishment.
Many of these kids are not even getting the academic support they need... They are given assignments and are left alone to complete them.
Now I know that sometimes a parent has to take drastic actions to get a child in line... and it is better done late then never... I even realize that there are kids who did not want to homeschool, only to realize later that they are very glad they did. Once case in point is the author of Morning By Morning
, How We Home-Schooled Our African-American Sons to the Ivy League. The boys did not want to be homeschooled, in fact the youngest was able to return to highschool for the last two years (I believe). But, there are still kids out there who are failing in the homeschool arena and many of us are looking the other way.Granted, we are talking about a small minority... probably less than 5%, but what people have to realize is that we don't need a large amount of homeschool failures to be riduculed by those who hate homeschooling, so while it is easy to look away and pretend that there are not kids being dis-served through homeschooling, it would be wise to get involved and try to help the parent, child, or both.
I repeat... this is a small minority of kids I am talking about, but I am urging other homeschoolers to intervene whenever possible.
Dare I add this.... Please talk back to me on this issue
6 comments:
I do understand where you are coming from on this issue! When there are people who have issues and it is ignored, it gives those who don't support homeschooling all the more reason to doubt it. Thanks for the good reading!
I agree wholeheartedly. I would take it once step further and say we should help all children that are failing. We don't want our children to suffer at the hands of a child we ignored.
I think that there are two problems that I face. One is the idea that any homeschooling is better than a school, especially a public school. There are a lot of flaws in this arguement. But for one, I think that it sets families up to fail because they start with the attitude that homeschooling isn't going to also take work, patience and time.
The second issue is that homeschoolers have already chosen an independent road. It is easy to think that all homeschooling choices are equal. But I'm not sure that they are.
I think that it is worth admitting that some homeschoolers are struggling. But any help needs to be offered very humbly and gently.
Perhaps it's beause I have younger kids (10 and 7) that I haven't encountered this yet. Most of our circle we run with tends to be very comfortable and confident in their homeschooling. That said, I can see getting to adolescence and needing to re-evaluate our choices. But my question is, how do you offer help to a family that is obviously struggling? I don't think I'd want to be on either end of that conversation...
Sebastian said it best... "very humbly and gently."
You're right that this exists.
However, this isn't a homeschooling issue. This is a parenting issue.
Parents who are not involved and supportive in their children's lives create an environment where it is much more difficult to succeed - whatever educational situation they are in.
There are children who are "failing". True. But there is always something deeper going on than "homeschooling".
So, let's say we want to help these families and these children, what can we do?
Force them to be better parents?
Monitor everyone, even good parents, and infringe on people's rights so that we can make sure that nobody is making mistakes?
Create a utopia where there are no bad parents and there are no failed kids?
How can we truly make it better?
I don't know if we can make it better, except to make it easier to get help when people want it. If they don't want help, what can we do?
What if you were told you needed help, and you didn't want it? What would you want people to do?
This is the quandry. So although it's a good question, and observation, to recognize that no system is perfect, we also have to recognize the real issue is human imperfection.
That's the problem with schools too, except, that school is a "system" (homeschooling is not). It's easy to take the humanity out of it. When it reality, it's all about human imperfection.... and disagreement on what is "good" and what is "right".
Keep up the good fight. The intention to truly help, instead of control, is where positive change comes from.
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