It's 2021. Government schools have been in a state of chaos for over a year now as they struggle to respond to COVID-19. People are adapting with everything from distance learning through school to anarchic unschooling. Yet fear of alternative education still runs rampant over four decades since people started to promote home education as an alternative to the status quo.
People want to homeschool for many reasons. US government schools do not have a good track record academically, and standardized test scores have been declining while problems like bullying and abuse are all too often left unaddressed. People may object to the values taught in schools, whether on religious grounds or otherwise. People also want to tailor education to suit the needs and interests of the student. What a shocking concept!
No link for credit here. Sorry!
I shared the meme above on BookFace, where a critic promptly piped up, and I hope I satisfactorily rebut that individual here:
If you're raising a kid in a cult, can't let them be exposed to ideas that may undo the brain washing. Better to homeschool them so that they can really absorb the idea that their divine leader was handpicked by god. Otherwise they may not follow the thousands of rules meant to micro-manage their lives.
This does happen. However, by and large, homeschooling does a far better job of teaching kids to be self-directed learners who know how to research topics to build an informed opinion, while government schools teach that truth is derived from authority, and authority is determined by titles and hierarchy. Further, there is no more dangerous cult than nationalism, and the Prussian education model has always been first and foremost about training obedient subjects *citizens.)
School is also touted as an introductoin to the "real world" of adulthood. The Prussian model was also developed to feed workers into the industrial revolution, but is that really the way to develop a child's mind? Schools are an artificial environment that restricts students to someone else's schedule. Work is often the same, but that doesn't justify the school model. This past year has revealed to innumerable people that actual academic work is only a fraction of a school day, and the irreplaceable time of these kids is being devoured by soulless bureaucracy. Time is wasted where kids understand the subject, and they are shortchanged when they need more time to learn. This is child abuse, not responsible child-rearing.
Another frequent complaint is that kids who are homeschooled find themselves socially stunted due to a lack of socialization with others. First, this actually contradicts the first complaint that they are tied to religious institutions where they... socialize with people! Further, at church, they interact with people of all ages, not just their age group.
Fitting in is for LEGO, not for people. Image credit
As a librarian, I serve a lot of homeschool families. I see kids who can converse with adults, who have the freedom to explore their interests, and who have not lost the curiosity that schools seem to stifle. Fitting in isn't for humans, it's for LEGO bricks. LEGO is awesome, but treating people as a factory product who exist to satisfy someone else's intentions is despicable.
Worst of all, I find that people who complain about the shortcomings they perceive in home education are invariably blind to the identical or even worse shortcomings in government school, but appeal to the status quo to handwave away the concerns of critics like me. Nationalism is a cult. Segregation by age and imposition of an arbitrary regimented schedule is conducive to neither social skills nor development of independent minds. Home education may be used to justify bad parenting, conceal child abuse, or excuse not educating kids. Still, this is a minority, and it's not really like the tax-funded mandatory system has a good record in academics or abuse prevention. Freedom is always preferable for developing a well-adjusted individual.