Deborah Markus at the Secular Homeschooling magazine has some funny responses for people who ask stupid questions about homeschooling (good use of Pauline sarcasm!) in an article entitled: "The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List."
1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.
3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize. . . .
6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.
Here are my two favorites:
12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
Read them all here. HT to Joe Carter at First Thoughts.
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2 comments:
Secular education is so bad these days that they are genuinely threatened by home school children (who perform in aggregate astronomically high on standardized tests). In my experience, home-school children have better social skills because they do not spend much time in the artificially created, age-segregated environment called "school"--home school kids relate to people of all different ages much better.
Hello from the Bitter Homeschooler herself! Thank you so much for the lovely posting about my silly list -- I'm very glad you enjoyed it!
May I beg a favor -- not on my own behalf, but to help homeschoolers overseas? There's some anti-homeschooling legislation that will be voted on in the Swedish parliament next month. If it goes through, homeschooling will be illegal in all but the most extreme circumstances (health and travel). I'm working with some Swedish homeschoolers to fight this law. One of the things we're doing is sending an open letter to Swedish politicians (and possibly a Swedish newspaper) asking them to accept and support the right to homeschool in Sweden. Would you please consider signing it?
http://www.madeditor.com/2010/05/sign-your-name-and-help-swedens.html
Many thanks!
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