Someone asked me if I "had"to do this blog thing for homeschooling - like a state requirement or something. The answer is a resounding "NO". Yes, there are requirements for homeschooling in my state - and I adhere to them. For the most part, they are not arduous, just tedious. They tend to detract from my desire to go with the flow, follow the child's interest at the moment you see that spark that indicates they are interested. I do love lesson planning, dreaming about all the interesting things we will study -and how we will capture that interesting thing in a way that proves we studied it.
But, aside from the fact that the portfolio requirement is really not that burdensome, there is the deeper, meatier, gnawing feeling that it is not right. That I should not have to answer to the school district, the legislature, the anyone about what I am doing with my children - unless, somewhere, at sometime, I have done something to them, or to someone else, that has made my character questionable in terms of fitness to parent them. Let's face it - public school is not a perfect, infallible institution. It suffers more than its fair share of failures each year. And, if one were to study what children knew upon entering university at the earlier part of the 20th Century with what they know now, one might question if public school hasn't failed us all. Before this turns in to a diatribe against the public school system, let me stay the course by just pointing out, America begins and ends with its taxpayers. We - the people - make the money that pays the salaries of everyone who has a government job. The man who is waving the flag to indicate roadwork ahead? He works for you. The woman behind the counter in the post office? Yup, you are her employer. The administrators of the school district? Believe it or not, they are being paid by you. All the way up to the President of the United States, anyone who holds a title of office under the auspices of the Government of the United States is technically an employee of the people of the United States. And they should be working for us. So, when they question my right and my ability to educate my own children, I would like to ask them to answer this question - Did the public school system, of which I am a product, educate me in such a way that I am able to parent, educate, and edify my children? Because, if their answer is no, it will help to strengthen the very reason I am educating my own children.
As I re-read my post, I realized I left it dangling in such way that almost feels like I am advocating anarchy. But I am not. I am a big believer in rules, and order, and control. Just ask my husband. And, while I believe government to be a necessary evil, I have also realized that policies as of late seem aimed at the very segment of the population that does behave, and does contribute, and does ... all that is expected of them. I can't help but be troubled by the article last year on the woman who demanded the school district take special action for her deeply troubled, school-phobic daughter - and received in excess of $45,000 over a period of three years to send said daughter to modeling classes and private school, and - believe it or not - board her dogs while she visited said daughter, by limo, at the expense of the school district. I have trouble following the rules of the very district that allowed such nonsense to happen, with no one questioning the bills this woman was presenting, and no one asking why her daughter - her 17 year-old daughter -was not able to do more than fourth-grade math with all that money at her disposal for private tutors and such. I pay my taxes, and I homeschool at my own expense. So, really the school district has extra money to use because my kids are not there taking up any room, any time, anything from them. If I need to purchase something for school, I need to make room in my budget, I need to plan better, or cut some expense somewhere else. In other words, I need to be a good steward of my money. And should I expect less than that of the school district, or the government at any level, when it is really not their money to begin with, but money entrusted to them by the citizens of their district, or their country? Should I not expect to have a bit more responsibility and faith entrusted to me by my government than, say, people who are imprisoned for their actions? If so, then why do prisoners with no hope of parole, who have committed heinous crimes against others, why do they get to remain in charge of their children, dictate their futures, remain pivotal in deciding their fates? Think about it - there are millions of children in foster care in this nation, unable to be adopted by willing families because their biological parents - who have never parented them in their lives - retain the right to control them from behind bars. Research sometime exactly what it takes for someone to lose their parental rights - and then ask me if I believe it is fair to have the state or the school district or the teacher's union tell me that I better ask them for their permission to homeschool my children. And then, take a trip over to the HSLDA web-site, an organization dedicated to protecting the hard-won right of parents in this country to homeschool, and read about the numerous - NUMEROUS - threats levied against upstanding, law-abiding, tax-paying, citizens in this country, simply because they choose to homeschool.
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