Crisis Schooling and Addressing Harvard
Before I go on, I wanted to mention that the term “crisis schooling” isn’t one I personally came up with. I’m not sure who coined the term, but it’s very accurate of what’s going on. I went back and forth on writing about this, but with homeschool being the topic of discussion lately due to the pandemic, I felt the need to speak up.
So the thing that inspired this post was an email I sent out to a staff writer asking for advice from homeschoolers right now. I did get a mention, but none of anything else I wrote was used, because it didn’t quite fit the message she was writing. Of course I provided some of my favorite resources (and I can make a post of those at some point, although there are tons of those posts everywhere). Which is totally fine, it’s her article, I have zero beef about it. It’s a great article. I like it. Under any other circumstances, hell to the yeah for writing articles that put homeschoolers in a positive light. Considering some very powerful people keep wanting to tear us down (like seriously, fuck Harvard) and considering it feels like so many who have the ability to seriously affect our lives in a negative way lean towards that (i.e. lawmakers), we really need as much good press as possible. Even if it is articles like these.
It’s scary. As if we don’t have enough shit to deal with right now, the last thing homeschoolers need right now is for the majority of the population to think that the thing that they’re doing right now is what we homeschoolers do all the time, decide that they don’t like it for whatever reason, and then advocate/vote for laws that affect our ability to raise our kids the way we feel is best for them. So I’m going to make this as clear as I can.
Nobody is homeschooling right now. Not even the homeschoolers.
This isn’t at all what homeschooling looks like. None of this. NONE OF THIS. And especially not distance learning with a public school - if you have someone else dictating your lessons and schedules, you might be doing schoolwork at home but it’s not homeschooling.
I think the problem I have with the Philly article is the underlying assumption that it’s life as usual for us homeschoolers, that we have all our shit together, that it’s just another day in the neighborhood. No… we aren’t used to having to do learning in a lockdown situation. We don’t stay home. And to be frank, the best we can do is provide some tips on what works for us when it comes to schoolwork, but that’s it. We don’t have to deal with trying to figure out how to juggle a remote job and teach our kids at the same time. My husband is lucky in that respect, because he can continue working from home with little to no interruption in his day. He doesn’t have to juggle work and kids. I’m the one in charge of the kids. But single parent families? Families where both parents have full time jobs that they’re trying to do from home while trying to help guide their kids with schoolwork (and that doesn’t even count for the multitude of interruptions during the day for snacks, lunches, can I’s and so on)? I have no experience with that. I have all the time in the world to focus on my kids. My life already revolved around them without outside responsibilities.
We are crisis schooling, all of us.
We’ve lost so much of what we rely on, and it’s not just for school resources, for our mental benefit as well. We loved going to the library every week. We loved meeting up with friends. We loved visiting the parks, the zoo, museums… The kids even loved going to run errands, stopping at the farm, the little produce shop with the 25 cent gumball machine and helping me put our stuff in the cart, and pushing the cart around the store. They’ve been safe at home well over a month now. My 5 year old is so desperate to get out, he was asking if the apartment is open so we can go somewhere, anywhere (even though cleaning and painting wasn’t exactly fun, but they loved rolling on their roller skates throughout the empty space while I worked). We have our woods in the back, which they want to spend all their time in now, and it’s good. I actually have a lot of work I need to get done back there anyway. But you get the point. My kids are begging me to take them grocery shopping (which I personally am also trying to avoid as much as possible and have it delivered).
First I’ll summarize the points I made in my email about my tips as a homeschooler to parents who are now crisis schooling. Please, please, please prioritize the mental health of your children and yourself. If you find that you are all constantly yelling and fighting, that is in no way conductive to a healthy learning environment (so the kids wouldn’t be productive anyway) and I don’t think those are the memories you want everyone to have of this already insanely stressful time. If that means that you yourself have to back away from social media as much as possible, cut out the drinking (no, drinking doesn’t help, might make you feel better at first, but it will also make you more reactive, if this is you consider this your intervention), get out in the garden if possible and pull some weeds just to get away from everything else, do that. Or binge watch some shows. Take a nap. Needle felting is also good for when you’re feeling stabby, though honestly I’ve not been in the right mental space to work on any creative projects right now, and that is okay too. I already didn’t drink (my body doesn’t tolerate it for some reason, but I also have experience being around people with alcohol dependency so I really don’t have any desire to drink if I was fine with it), but I did have to step away from social media a LOT, which you probably noticed, and find other ways to cope. For me that’s been working in the garden, swapping seeds, buying plants, selling plants to support my plant buying habit… being outside. And on days that aren’t great for that, I even baked bread and tried cooking weird things. I don’t think my family’s been a huge fan of our “let’s try something different” dinner experiments (except for the bread… I need to bake some more), but they’re putting up with it. Chat with friends online, but if you’re not feeling very social either, that’s okay too. Just focus on surviving, picking your battles, etc.
Another point is this: if your school’s expectations of what you need to be doing at home are unrealistic and unattainable, to the point that you feel like you’re falling behind due to the workload, and the stress is affecting the mental health of yourself and your children, you can pull your kids out temporarily as homeschoolers and then re-enroll them when this is over. I am not advocating for educational neglect at all, but also realize that education can look completely different from what it does in a school setting. It would give you and your kids more control over your kids’ education. There’s so much more out there that counts as learning that doesn’t involve busy work. There are educational video games, board games, documentaries, youtube videos, and so many online resources available, especially right now with the school closures. They can work on projects. They can grow a garden. They can pick their own lit books they want to read (you’ll be amazed at how enthusiastically they’ll read when they have a say in what they read). Just make sure that if this is the route you choose to follow, keep a log of everything that your child does, the books they read, the documentaries they watch, the projects they do, and follow your state laws. For example, in my state (Pennsylvania) we have to meet with an evaluator at the end of the year. The ones I know have posted telling anyone interested in this approach to reach out to them for advice on what to do. It still won’t be anywhere close to a true example of what homeschooling really looks like, but it would be what we’re basically doing right now.
I am often amazed at the ideas my kids come up with when they are given control over what they want to work on. My just-turned 5 year old LOVES cutting up junk mail - he is practicing scissor skills, which is exactly what he would’ve been doing if he were in preschool. I don’t have to tell him to do that. My 7 year old daughter takes turns between designing things in minecraft and teaching herself how to code in Tynker. She will play the games other kids created, look at the code, figure out what does what, and then incorporate what she learned into her own games. At night, she’ll stay up late reading choose-your-own-adventure-books. I had to order more because the libraries are closed, and she finished reading everything we had. As I’m typing this, my kids are drawing houses in their sketchbooks and challenging each other to build them in minecraft. Then my son later helped himself to an apple and started playing math games on our homeschool tablet (it’s my tablet, but I only have educational stuff installed on there).
My daughter created a “covid museum” in minecraft the first week of mandated lockdowns.
Here’s an example of one of the things she designed in minecraft: a coronavirus museum, with a giant model of the virus (the torches are spikes), and instructions on how to stay safe. More recently, she made a larger coronavirus model that was a bit more rounded in shape and used a minecart and rails to make a rollercoaster that goes through and around it.
now i’m going to put on my angry eyes and address the harvard article
“Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.”
Well, you know what they say about opinions being like assholes…
But before we go on, can we discuss the irony of the illustration chosen for the article? Do you know how many times we’re driving somewhere during the day, be it the zoo, the park, to meet up with friends, a museum, wherever… we sometimes pass by the school my children would have attended had we gone that route. The playgrounds are often empty. To homeschoolers, that image is how we perceive traditional schools - kids are locked within classrooms, where they have to get permission just to go to the bathroom. The way my kids were raised, they would have an incredibly difficult time adjusting to such a restrictive environment. They’re in and out of the house all day long. They have never had to ask permission to go to the bathroom, or to grab a snack. They definitely aren’t forced to remain seated for extended periods of time. The homeschool kids in neighborhoods look forward to when their traditional school friends get to come home from school so maybe they get the chance to play for a bit (unless, of course, those kids have a ton of homework, in which case Johnny can’t come out to play).
On meaningful education
Since we were on the topic of opinions, here’s mine. Forcing a child to learn a subject matter, without taking that child’s opinion into consideration, is what violates that child’s right to a meaningful education. You see, I believe children are worthy of being treated with respect. Since I could not see myself telling any human being “you can’t learn about this right now because you have to be learning this other thing I have deemed to be far more worthy of your attention,” I wouldn’t do this to my kids either. This is the premise behind RIE parenting, falling under “practicing basic trust,” RIE being one of the two most popular respectful parenting methodologies. That includes not doing things to them you wouldn’t dream of doing to another adult. Obviously, sometimes we have to step in and make decisions for them in their best interest, but in my opinion, determining what they are learning at any given moment does not fall under that. What happens in our homeschool is very much a coordinated effort between myself and my kids. They tell me what they’re interested in, and then I try to build our lessons around it. This might sound a bit unconventional to some, however doing anything in my power to keep that spark alive and maintain their enthusiasm for learning really does help get through our workload. Do they still fight me on it? Sure, some days they just aren’t in the mood to do any planned work. But there would be far more resistance if I were to force them to study something they have zero interest in learning.
This is how homeschooling looks in a democratic, authoritative (not to be confused with authoritarian) family. Before I start planning out the year, I discuss with my kids what their interests are. Do they want to learn about space? Animals? The weather? The plant kingdom? Maybe they’re interested in ancient history? Current events? Medieval ages? What kind of books do they like to read? Fantasy? Adventure? Not understanding a certain math concept? That’s okay, we can spend as much time as we need on it, without feeling rushed to meet any deadlines or stress over tests. In fact, let’s make it fun! Let’s pick out some board games that help to teach and reinforce the topic and play those. I also pay very close attention to what they are passionate about. Right now, my daughter is obsessed with wolves. So I have picked out lesson plans that involve wolves. Reading folk stories and discussing why are wolves often portrayed as the bad character. Finding stories that have wolves portrayed in a positive light. Drawing a poster board with the anatomy of a wolf. Learning how they communicate. Learning the important role wolves play in an ecosystem. Playing Wolf Quest. We even made a trip last fall during National Wolf Awareness Week to a local wolf sanctuary. That’s how the homeschool moms I know do it. Oh, you want to learn about this? OH LEARN WE SHALL.
I am not alone in this. Facebook homeschool groups are filled with posts of parents asking others for specific resources tailored to their child’s interests. Homeschool parents don’t stand and lecture. They’re learning facilitators. They pull together resources and schedule trips so the kids can have access to everything they need to dive deeply into the subject matter. Usually the problem with homeschool kids having a difficult time transitioning into a traditional school has far less to do with knowing the subject matter and far more to do with having to adapt to a completely different style of learning in a far more restrictive, completely alien to them, environment. For most kids who are in the school system, this is done slowly through preschool and kindergarten as they slowly tighten the restrictions. I remember having a very hard time with this, and was even paddled in school when I started Kindergarten (corporal punishment was still allowed). In the event that a homeschooler is forced to send their kids to school for whatever reason, they have to slowly place further restrictions within the home in order to help with the transition. Think on that for a moment.
And maybe that’s what families are having a hard time with understanding right now, the ones whose kids are distance learning. The kids are used to this other, more restrictive environment, and now have to adapt to learning at home under different circumstances. Homeschoolers giving tips to suddenly-school-at-home parents might as well be speaking another language - the two environments and learning styles are completely different. People who pull their kids out of school often have to go through what’s known as a deschooling process, to undo all the school’s indoctrination and basically start over from scratch with introducing a completely new way of learning.
Back to the article, I’m failing to understand how the amount of government regulation over a homeschool family has anything to do with isolating children. Even in states where we do have to supply affidavits, medical notes and evaluator assessments, they don’t have a say in how we choose to socialize? In fact, more often than not homeschool families do want to have their children participate in state-sponsored extracurriculars, but in some states it’s impossible to do so. I mean, do you want us to be part of the rest of society or not? You fear we are isolating our children, yet some states outright forbid homeschoolers from participating in their team sports or clubs, and others leave it up to the school districts. Note how many finally allowed it after lawsuits. Homeschoolers had to battle it out in court to be included. Maybe schools are afraid of traditional school kids being exposed to homeschoolers? Can’t have Johnny running home telling mom that Sam gets to go on field trips every week. As far as I’m concerned, we pay school taxes. Our kids should be allowed to participate in the extracurricular clubs and activities. School is a separate thing, hence why it’s called extra-curricular. Extra meaning outside of, or beyond, of the curriculum (course of study).
So in regards to government regulation, I don’t know. I live what is considered a more strictly regulated state. I would not appreciate more regulation (like New York). I am okay with the system that PA has set up with having an evaluator as a mediator between the homeschool family and school district. I see the list of subjects as guidance, and the evaluator as a second set of eyes. The ones I know are homeschool moms themselves, and have more experience than I do, so I absolutely appreciate their advice. School districts can really be hit or miss depending on where you live, and some definitely get off on a power trip, so having someone who is familiar with dealing with them definitely helps. Having an evaluator also makes the process more personal, while still providing the checks and balances the state would like to make sure the kids are receiving an appropriate education. But I don’t agree that genuine law-abiding homeschoolers in less regulated states are doing less than those of us in more regulated states. The homeschoolers that aren’t, on the other hand, would probably find ways to get around any laws anyway… For example, Utah has compulsory education from age 6-18, and yet the kids in the polygamist groups often don’t have more than an 8th grade education, are working more hours in a week than an adult, they work night shift, and have had several babies by the time they reach the age of 18. They have a much bigger problem on their hands, like actually enforcing the other laws they do have in regards to child abuse, child labor laws, and so on. Homeschooling is the least of their worries. I think that’s really what it comes down to. Enforce the laws we already have. Perpetrators will always find ways to skirt around laws, so more restrictive laws on homeschooling really just create more headache for those of us who are trying to operate in accordance with the law. Genuine homeschoolers put their kids first, and that includes preparing them for the future, whatever it may be.
“That means, effectively, that people can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves.” One does not necessarily mean the other. For example, technically people who were homeschooled themselves have never gone to school - that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to read or write. And believe it or not, there are absolutely people who have gone to school who were not taught how to read or write (Lawsuit in California, Lawsuit in Detroit). I’m sorry to say this, but having a piece of paper, depending on where you went to school, might mean absolutely nothing in regards to one’s education.
on child abuse
“Teachers and other school personnel constitute the largest percentage of people who report to Child Protective Services,” she explains, whereas not one of the 50 states requires that homeschooling parents be checked for prior reports of child abuse. Even those convicted of child abuse, she adds, could “still just decide, ‘I’m going to take my kids out of school and keep them at home.’” First of all, obviously teachers and school personnel are the largest percentage of people who report to CPS because they are mandatory reporters and they’re around the kids more than anyone else outside of the home environment. I don’t know whom else she’d expect to file reports? And sometimes those reports are retaliatory. In regards to “not one of the 50 states” having background checks, that’s completely false. There are actually two states, Pennsylvania (where I live) and Arkansas, which do have background checks. So, okay, let’s do background checks on everyone. Except, I do have a question though. Are there background checks for parents who do send their kids to school, since the kids do go home at the end of the day, so shouldn’t Bartholet argue for all parents to have background checks, period? I mean at least you’d know which kids to keep an eye on. And then she uses the example of Tara Westover, who was abused by her brother. So are we running background checks on siblings? And what happens if someone fails a background check in the states that do have them? Is the child simply not allowed to homeschool but still goes home to their abuser? Are they pulled out of the home? How are people who have been charged with child abuse allowed to keep their kids in the first place, long before we get to the topic of homeschooling? Isn’t this just another failure of the systems put in place to protect children? I’m just trying to understand the logic here.
It’s easier to put restrictions on much smaller groups than the entire population. After all, Bartholet states “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.” I agree, but I don’t think she realizes who the powerful people are in this picture. If you were to attempt to enforce background checks on all parents, it would do little more than create an outrage. Even suggesting that volunteer parents must do background checks in Nevada was enough to cause an uproar among some parents - these are people who would be entrusted within the school with other people’s children. As much as I do not agree with the HSLDA’s conservative Christian viewpoints, this is exactly why they exist: to protect the rights of homeschoolers. Otherwise people like Bartholet would be able to advocate for greater restrictions, and nobody would have the power to stop it.
As I mentioned above, enforce the laws we already have in place. Child abuse is already illegal in every state in the US. Child labor laws already exist. We do have other protections in place. The problem is they aren’t always enforced, especially in areas that need them most.
“First, compulsory school attendance and education laws were and are designed to motivate parents to make sure that their children learn to read, write, and do arithmetic and, in some cases, learn some science, history, art, and civics. They were not designed to serve as child abuse and neglect monitoring systems. Every state already has child abuse and neglect laws. Schooling laws should not be contorted into serving as attempted child-abuse prevention systems.”
Child abuse is absolutely horrific, but it is not limited to homeschool families. It’s prevalent throughout society. There are many child abuse cases where the child went to school, very obvious signs were missed, and who are tragically no longer with us. Going to school does not prevent child abuse. It does not save children. In some cases, teachers and faculty have been the abusers, not the parents. In many cases, more subtle emotional abuse, which is far more difficult to prove and prosecute, is all too common within the school environment. Stop pointing the finger at homeschoolers. I don’t know if there will ever be an answer to ending child abuse, but banning homeschool isn’t it. In fact, in an actual study done on this, and not an opinion pulled out of someone’s arse, “Legally homeschooled students are 40% less likely to die by child abuse or neglect than the average student nationally.” (Williams) Dr Ray, the author of that article, also writes “In a simple statistical analysis, it was revealed that those who had been home educated were significantly less likely to have been sexually abused as minors than were those who were public schooled and those who attended private Christian schools.” Children of color are far more likely to be abused and mistreated within the school system. The school to prison pipeline is real. Neurodivergent kids are far more likely to be abused within the school system. LGBT kids are far more likely to be abused within the school system. I could go on, but basically anyone who is not white or white-passing (in some cases), neurotypical, cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied with a socially-accepted BMI and stature is definitely at risk of being bullied within a school system, and possibly mistreated by faculty or staff. This isn’t meant to be an attack on teachers. I know good teachers exist, they catch what they can, but I think it’s very important to address this issue, especially if the people in charge start advocating to ban our freedom of school choice. Speaking of safety, I’m really not happy with the active shooter drills at all. That’s the solution? Really?
Some suggestions: We could work on fixing our DCFS/CPS - which is also riddled with child abuse. We could make parenting courses freely available to the public. We could make sure to advocate for proper sex education, teaching about safe sex, and making sure that abortion remains legal. Many of the abusers are people who were forced to have kids who didn’t want them and/or can’t afford them. We could put an end to child marriage, forcing a minimum age of 18 across the states, and automatically charging any male over the age of 18 with less than a 3 year difference between them who impregnates a child under the age of 18 with statutory rape. We could end a rapist’s parental rights to the victim and child. All those measures would do far more to help reduce the incidence of child abuse than placing a ban on homeschool.
On contributing positively to a democratic society
So as far as the last part on contributing positively to a democratic society, I’m really curious what she means by that. If she means voting, 44% of the voting-age-population does not vote, which is a much higher percentage of people than those who were homeschooled.
Does she mean volunteering? Our own local group has a volunteering club, where kids tally up and are rewarded for the number of hours volunteered (the Presidential Volunteer Service Awards), and I know we’re not the only ones. While I personally am not a religious homeschooler, having grown up in a religion, and having gone to both a public school and a Catholic school, I know that while volunteering was not really pushed in the public school system, we definitely were highly encouraged to volunteer through the church. In fact, it was a requirement for Confirmation. So you can pretty much bet the religious homeschoolers, which are a significant part of the homeschool population, are out there actively working in a productive manner. That is one thing they’re good at (even if it is used as a means to spread their religion).
Practicing freedom of speech? Homeschoolers are often participating in rallies and protests on the things that matter to them. They have time and freedom to do this. Far more time and freedom in fact than someone who goes to school, and would then have to be marked absent in order to leave for the purpose of participation. Many times it’s their idea, and the homeschool parent goes along with it, buys them poster boards and goes with them to the rallies because homeschooling parents support their kids. In fact, if you read this article, you could argue that children in some schools are kept from contributing meaningfully to a democratic society, because the schools are punishing them for exercising their freedom of speech.
No, it seems that contributing positively to a democratic society involves… fighting conservative ideologies? “Children should “grow up exposed to...democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people's viewpoints.” She’s trying to take on a very significant portion of the American population by targeting part of an otherwise very tiny group. Not to mention, there are a number of people switching to homeschool because of the intolerance and discrimination in schools.
Remember what I said earlier about anyone who doesn’t fit into a specific box being at a higher risk of bullying and mistreatment by faculty and staff? Does this happen everywhere? No, and yes, in varying degrees. I have a friend who finished out high school homeschooling due to bullying in schools, after bouncing around between different traditional schools, both public and parochial. I’ve seen my own brother with Downs be bullied, no, attacked, and teachers did nothing to stop it - he attended a private school for only kids with special needs because he needed to be kept safe, but those attacks happened within the daycares for before/after school (I don’t even remember how many daycares we switched between before finding one that was safe and understanding). I have another friend whose tough-ass-kicking-personality was largely due to feeling the need to protect her older brother with Autism from others from a very young age. So, it’s very ironic that Bartholet wants to send kids to schools so they are exposed to other people and perspectives in the very area where those other kids are more likely to be abused. Teaching tolerance should not be done at the expense of other children. I’m pretty sure that all those kids who don’t fit in that box are tired of being treated as the “target practice” for everyone else’s lessons in being more open minded. Those kids don’t exist for tokenism or exposure. They’re there to learn as well, and they do not deserve to be mistreated because Johnny’s parents told him he is more special than everyone else.
I can totally understand her beef with fundamentalist groups, but we do have a freedom of religion in this country. And just because someone doesn’t agree with those views doesn’t mean we can impose laws to discriminate against them. That would never fly in the court of law. (If you’re curious about my beef, it’s how in parts of the country with greater populations of fundamentalists, they often impose laws on the entire population because of their religion and proponents of them quote the bible as if it were a legal basis for imposing such laws on the entire population - for example abortion rights or LGBT rights.) However, I’m very confused about whom exactly she’s targeting. Is it all Christians? All Christians aren’t fundamentalists. Any beliefs that preach and perpetuate intolerance absolutely do need to be challenged, but what does she think happens within the homes when those beliefs are challenged? In some cases kids already know that those beliefs are wrong, but they cannot act on it until they are able to leave, or they risk abuse as well for challenging authority. In areas with a very high population of fundamentalists, the clash between religious freedom and laws has less to do with homeschooling and more to do with the fact that those in charge of enforcement and lawmaking are members of the very groups that they’re supposed to keep in check (look up Colorado City). I mean, if your religion is based off doing a bunch of illegal things, including infringing upon the rights of others, then they argue that enforcing the laws that are meant to protect the civil rights of individuals infringe upon their freedom of religion. Deciding where the boundaries of religious freedom lie when it comes to one’s ability to act on it has always been an issue in this country, and it has nothing to do with homeschooling. In many of those cases, kids won’t know it’s wrong from school, because their parents have already told them that people who are not part of the group are in league with the devil. Even enforcing laws isn’t enough, because they believe it’s persecution. It’s a very complex issue that involves a lot of work from all sides and many years of therapy to undo the years of indoctrination. The country allowed this to happen, they encouraged it, they allowed it to fester, and now it’s their job to fix it. Banning homeschool won’t fix it. In fact, in many of those groups, kids aren’t homeschooled anyway, they go to parochial schools. And then you have the small town schools where the teachers are also part of the same belief systems - kids from within the group, especially those with #veryimportantparents, are treated far better than outsiders. You’d have to ship teachers into those schools from other parts of the country. Except, did I mention that kids can be mean? I witnessed one teacher who was bullied relentlessly by students because he was perceived to be different (kids thought he was gay, this was when the whole omgtherearegayteachersteachingyourkids stuff was on the news and shows like 20/20, and again, this was the South). He only lasted a year. If parents catch wind of teachers teaching anything that the parents do not approve, that teacher gets attacked from all sides. Nobody deserves that kind of harassment.
For every mean kid though, there are good ones too. Kids are absolutely incredible, and it has nothing to do with school. Sometimes it’s completely despite school. Yes, children are incredibly impressionable, and there are many who will succumb to brainwashing, but there are also those who are able to think for themselves despite having zero access to the outside world. I mean I really didn’t think that binge-watching Escaping Polygamy would help me to make this argument but here we are. The strength of those who have escaped their groups based on their personal conviction that it’s wrong, despite losing everything when they leave, is absolutely astounding. Again, not a homeschooling issue.
In many ways, the problem is within the school curricula. You see, the problem with traditional school education is the fact that they continue to use textbooks which teach history that’s colonialist-centric. What I mean is that anything about Native Americans is taught as a group of people that existed, not as ones who continue to exist. How we go about teaching Thanksgiving is incredibly problematic. How many schools still continue to have kids dress up as Pilgrims and Indians for reenactment? How many still teach that they were all buddy buddy? How many still celebrate Columbus Day, that colonialists discovered America? (America was always here, and already populated. Using words like discovered makes the whole process sound harmless and almost honorable, because it’s normally a good thing when we discover things. Lots of people lost their lives due to this discovery.) How many have crafts that include making war-bonnets? Teaching any history about Black people and culture is largely condensed into Black History Month, while white people in history continue to be the main focus of the rest of the curriculum. Biases against people of color are still very much an issue within the school system. Racism is still a problem. It never stopped being a problem. I’m constantly seeing articles about children of color being sent home or punished for “violating dress code” due to their protective hairstyles. Sometimes it’s much worse, with teachers taking to cutting their hair themselves.
What about about LGBTQIA+ kids… can you imagine being in a classroom which thinks it’s a good idea to debate whether or not you are entitled to equal rights? Human rights aren’t up for debate. Not only that, but how can you make the argument that children should go to school to be exposed to ideas about nondiscrimination when in several states teachers are not even allowed to discuss LGBT issues? Notice where those states are located.
As far as teaching that men are superior to women… do you know what reinforces male superiority? Gender bias within the school system. (This one’s a good read as well.) Even something so seemingly subtle as creating dress codes that unfairly target girls, that peg girls as being a distraction to boys just for exposing a shoulder or even a collarbone, or not wearing a bra, when boys in those schools are allowed to wear muscle shirts or even practice completely topless, reinforces that belief. And when those kids grow up, that becomes the basis for reinforcing systemic violence.
Traditional schools have not been the cause of these issues; after all, these have been prevalent in society for far longer than we had compulsory education. However, it’s highly inaccurate to tout the education system as the solution to fighting the problem of inequality and discrimination, when it is often guilty of perpetuating and reinforcing it.
More than anything, this one quote really bothers me the most.
“The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet says. “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.”
First of all, how dare you use the word authoritarian in this case when a total ban on homeschooling as you would propose would be exactly that. This is exactly what you’d find in countries with authoritarian governments. I don’t think anyone should have an authoritarian control (i.e. favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom) over children, or families for that matter. If you were to replace “parents” in your quote with “schools” or “government,” suddenly your words are treading dangerous waters. Schools are already authoritarian by design. With families who are authoritarian, what do you think happens to children who are stuck in the middle of a tug of war between two authoritarian groups, especially if they disagree?
I agree that it’s dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and that’s exactly what you’re proposing. As parents, we are at the mercy of laws - we’re anything but powerful. Generally though, someone does need to be guardians of children until such a time when they are capable to care for themselves, and that is what happens when people procreate - those children become their responsibility. Unless you were involved in the process of conception, birthing, and subsequent care including (but not only) financing the costs involved, and as long as everything I do in caring for them is in accordance with human rights, you have absolutely no say in how I raise my kids. Note that I included “in accordance with human rights,” because I am in full support of removing children from dangerous situations which threaten their basic human rights. I did not give birth to wards of the state, and if that’s how it works, the school system failed to inform me that this would be the case in the event that I had children. I would not willingly go through the effort of bringing life into the world to serve anyone’s purpose but that of their own choosing. The onus is on you to prove I’ve harmed them, not on me to justify my reasons to educate my children how I see fit while taking their wellbeing into account.
As for Harvard, I am extremely disappointed their continuing to give someone so heavily biased a platform, because their name used to be associated with things that were of a much higher intellectual standard. In doing so, they have not only shown their bias, despite having a history of accepting homeschooled students, but also their lowered standards for intellectual discourse. I hope they’re paying attention to the amount of backlash they’ve received over this article.
