Homeschooling Critics Alive and Well

BY LINDA DOBSON

Thank goodness homeschooling critics don’t get my goat like they used to. Now that I’ve had time to look back and reflect on what can only be called uninformed blathering, I can understand how folks were critical back in the 1980s when homeschooling was a new concept, and many of the critics had never heard of homeschooling, let alone knew someone who was actually practicing it.

So it makes much less sense to be critical today when the number of practicing homeschooling families has grown so rapidly and profoundly over the last thirty or so years. And it makes even less sense in the Internet age, when so much information, research, and first-hand accounts about homeschooling are readily available to anyone who cares to spend just a few minutes looking for them.

Mr. Homeschooling Critic Admits He’s Clueless about It

With the excuse of looking to become an overnight sensation, Internet writer aside, I was perplexed to find a man chose to put pure ignorance on display with an article titled “Are Parents Who Homeschool Qualified to Teach Their Kids?”. (No, I’m not going to put a link as I suspect he’s after hits, possibly aware of how strongly homeschooling proponents tend to react to drivel such as his.) I was amused when the basis of his question centered around the depth and breadth of the training his wife received when she studied to become a public school teacher. I admit I laughed out loud when he stated the depth and breadth of his ignorance about that which he wrote by stating, “…I really have no clue how homeschooling works.”

No doubt, both this man and his writing are exemplary of an epidemic of bloated self-esteem and arrogance brought about in part by the Internet age, a time in which all may turn whatever thought pops into their heads into an article, given enough formatting and bandwidth.

See also 4 Top Homeschooling Performance Indicators

But then, what are we to expect when an article such as the one questioning whether parents are qualified to teach their kids sits on a website surrounded by more articles such as “Kim Kardashian’s Baby Bump Makes Its Debut” (oh, yuck, I accidentally clicked it while copying the title, yuck, yuck, yuck), “Photos of Nicki Minaj Suggest Plastic Surgery,” and “Anna Paquin’s Twin Babies Have No Names?” (who the hell is Anna Paquin?). Such important information waiting to be read, digested, and shared.

If this isn’t a perfect example of the result of the multi-year training and programming in consumerism, blind obedience, and dumbing down received during public school attendance, I don’t know what is.

Homeschooling Benefits All of Society

Yes, homeschooling critics are alive and well, and those who pontificate after writing something like “I really have no clue how homeschooling works” will be among us as long as the existing training and mind-numbing continues. I think this highlights the importance of continuing advocacy of homeschooling by all who practice it, or have practiced it, and therefore do have a clue as to how homeschooling works, for only by freeing even more hearts, minds, and spirits from the practices that inevitably produce a writer such as our homeschooling critic will we more often be able to run into writers on the Internet who are capable of sharing thoughts that are worth reading, digesting, and sharing. Today it seems like this is a lot to ask, but I remember a day when it was much worse. Today I know many grown homeschoolers are, each in his/her own way, bringing to our society critical thinking and proof that there is a better way to raise and educate children for the benefit of all.

 Link to this page

 Link to this page