bad homeschooler

Rhino is taking “Career Planning,” a class required for officially graduating from her ISHS (which she has to do by the end of July, or she can’t do City Year).  First of all, Rhino took an equally stupid class on career planning in 8th grade.  This class is even worse because it includes a textbook that tells readers not to be friends with overweight people.  You think I am kidding, but I am not.  It also offers exercises in “values clarification” that offered choices that the text deems to be morally equivalent, but are not.  Rhino wrote a response to all of this and sent to it her teacher, who forwarded it to the principal of the Independent Study High School.  With Rhino’s permission, I have copied her letter below:

I have spent many hours, days, and years thinking about and defining my values. They are well-established and I am very confident about them.  I learned nothing more about them in this lesson.  I think many people could have benefited from the section about “hard choices” if they had been more realistic and not asked us to pass judgment on other people.  For example, I resented being asked which person “I would least admire.”  I did not admire any of the choices that the people provided as examples were making.  However, without knowing these people I cannot tell you based off a single action whom I admire least as a person.  Every person makes mistakes or has less than admirable qualities about them, but it is not appropriate to pass judgment on them just because we disagree.  In addition, the “I would prefer to” section made me truly uncomfortable.  Tell me when I would ever have to choose between having an affair (and betraying a person to whom I have made sacred vows) and risking arrest standing up for my values?  These are not comparable, and I found it absurd that they were placed next to each other.  What value is having an affair supposed to represent?  I understand that this exercise was meant to be exaggerated, but I feel like that made it entirely pointless and unhelpful. In the future you might consider using examples that are actual realistic hard choices that require some real thought and thus development of values.

I did not learn anything about myself from this unit, and I am not going to make something up just to fill this space.  I value honesty quite highly, and I will not sacrifice it for a grade.  I would, however, like to use this space to comment upon Campbell’s book.  I find the entire book quite classist.  Not everyone has wealth or even a supportive family.  The “assets” listed in this book suggest that the people reading it have at least one or both of these things.  I find this ridiculous in the sense that people who have these things are not the ones who truly need this class.  They will be just fine without it.  The children who lack these listed “assets” are the ones who need more guidance and alternatives to help them through it.  The national dropout crisis isn’t happening because middle class children aren’t being provided with enough guidance and opportunities.  Just something to think about.  I would also like to jump ahead a bit to the next unit where we are asked to read the next chapter in Campbell’s book.  I am going to try to remain calm as I explain the deeply disturbing content that it contains.  The book explains that we are most like the people we surround ourselves with.  This is true.  But instead of focusing on the positive, such as saying “stay with people who do well in school, share your values, are kind and loving people” Campbell takes it upon himself to list who losers are.  I find this in and of itself strange, but then he goes on to list “overweight and unfit” as qualifications for loserdom.  I demand an explanation for how in the world this is appropriate to have in school distributed material.  I know this is a freshman level course, so my question to you is how dare you tell 14-year-olds in the most vulnerable time of their lives that being fat makes them a loser?  In what universe did you think that was okay?  Everyday kids are bombarded with messages that being overweight is bad.  The one place they are supposed to be safe from these hateful messages is from teachers and school administration.  That is why I sat through countless anti-bullying assemblies throughout my life.  We were told we could always go to a teacher for help even when no one else would listen.  So for a teacher to use this book is inappropriate beyond all rational belief.  Later Campbell takes it a step further by saying that “many people forego much of their natural attractiveness by being overweight.”  Again with telling 14-year-old girls that they aren’t pretty if they’re fat.  Very nice.  They list weight as a something people have complete control over but that’s not true.  Some people are just naturally heavier than others, and how could yo possibly allow freshmen to read something that tells them that this makes them less attractive than other people.  I am so ashamed of ISHS right now, you have no idea.

This is a tough time of year for a homeschooler who is friends almost exclusively with traditional schoolers.  The kids who go to actual schools are having proms and graduations and senior trips.  Rhino is flopped on the loveseat (inexplicably wearing the new wool hat I knit her even though it’s about 90 degrees).  But she is not relaxing.  She is trying to finish her Financial Skills class in the least amount of time possible.  (By the way, do you “reconcile” your checking account?)

Rhino will not have a graduation.  She did go to her friend’s junior prom nearly two months ago, but she never had a prom of her own.  She did not go on a graduation trip or get a class ring.  And for the last 2 years, she has missed scheduled classes, cafeterias,  drama club, play rehearsals, and all the other rituals of the daily life of the traditionally schooled teen.  

Of course, she has had her own rituals.  But they are mostly just hers.  They are not collectively recognized because, at least in our case, homeschooling is not a collective experience.  I’ve never been much for pomp and circumstance myself—graduations are pretty far down there in my levels of hell.  I am, however, very big on collective social experiences, and for Rhino’s missing that—that she will never be a senior in the way that our society understands—I am sad for her.

At least she got to experience the penguin feeding ritual.

One of the largest homeschool advocacy organizations in the country is the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSDLA), which may sound innocuous.  It’s not.

Homeschooling was primarily an interest of progressive hippie-types when people began re-considering it in earnest in the 1970s (re-considered because, at one point, everyone was “homeschooled”).  Then conservative Christians got it into their heads that their rights regarding their children were being taken away and that their children were being indoctrinated with a secular liberal agenda inculcated through studying the very “controversial” kinds of things commonly included in public school curricula (like American history, biology, and novels).  In 1983, HSLDA was born.

One of the missions of the HSLDA is to make it possible for parents to teach their kids whatever and however they want: “HSLDA’s primary mission is to protect the legal right of parents to homeschool from agents of the state.”  Their organization has been a primary force in the loosening of regulation around homeschooling.  While this has allowed many progressive, secular people to offer an alternative (and perhaps even superior) education to their own few children who are isolated from the poor urban children who could most benefit from the presence of these families in public schools,* it has also allowed a lot of nincompoops to run amok.

Nincompoops may seem like strong language, or religious bias, or a general slur fueled by my overall opposition to homeschooling, but really, I do mean nincompoops, and that language is much milder than some of the words I considered.

Here are some thoughts from HSLDA:

“We oppose the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child because it would strip parents of much of their authority to educate, train, and nurture their children according to the dictates of their conscience.”  (You may want to see my previous post on homeschooling in order to preserve corporal punishment: http://badhomeschooler.tumblr.com/post/1042733194/why-i-hate-homeschooling-4-crazy-people-violent)

“We understand that the financial pressures faced by families today make publicly subsidized educational programs very attractive. But if accepting government subsidies forfeits your right to teach your children in the way you desire, that price is very high indeed.” (note that they mean teaching them anything you darn well please, like that the moon landings never happened.  Think I’m kidding? See here under “Melissa”: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/05/raised-quiverfull-homeschooling-q-3.html)

“The reason we have parental rights is because our law assumes that God gave children to parents, not the state. If we eliminate the assumption of God from our law, parental rights and human rights themselves are impossible.” (This is also one of the main components in their argument against marriage equality.  For some reason, other than homeschooling, the marriage issue is one of the only political issues the organization addresses)

When progressives advocate for their right to homeschool their kids, do they consider the flipside—that if they can do it because they are smart and capable, the right of parents to homeschool goes to all parents, including those who are ignorant and inept? 

By the way, I am very pleased to say that In HSLDA’s conception, we DO NOT actually homeschool because Rhino takes online courses through Independent Study High Schools: “The mission of Home School Legal Defense Association has always been to defend the rights of families who desire to privately homeschool their children. Homeschooling through charter schools or public school independent study programs is actually a form of public education, and thus falls outside of HSLDA’s mission. It is our longstanding policy not to accept as HSLDA members families whose children are enrolled in such a public school option.”

You can access HSLDA’s website here: http://www.hslda.org/join/default.asp

I have to say that HSLDA’s opinion that we are actually engaging in public education rather than homeschooling is a great relief to me on more fronts than I can count.  I love having Rhino’s education meet certain standards that are set by a force larger, and perhaps even more knowledgable, than her mother.

* Many progressive secular folk also justify giving their children exclusive advantages through suburban or private schooling, which I also find highly problematic.  I would also like to remind everyone whom I am no doubt offending that I AM HOMESCHOOLING MY CHILD, and I considered private school for her as well.  This blog helps me consider the repercussions of my decisions for society as a whole, not just for my own child.

Teachers have to get a lot of training these days—many districts require teachers to have a Master’s degree.  They go through a certification process that involves particular required courses, standardized testing, observation and evaluation.  As much as people complain about the quality and focus of teacher training, one can’t deny that teachers do get specialized training.

Our country has gone a bit certification happy.  Many jobs that used to be executed by family members or self-trained laypeople now require professional degrees and certifications.  In California, one has to have something like 2000 hours of supervised training to be a hairdresser.  Louisiana requires special certification to be a florist.  

Still, many certifications seem like a good idea to most of us.  Things like psychotherapy, nursing care, and home construction used to be done by moms and dads.  Now we expect to have licensed therapists, nurses, and contractors do that work.  Yet many in the homeschool movement would like people who have not completed highschool to  be teachers.

Some certified teachers are terrible—no doubt this is true.  However, few would argue that because a surgeon botched your kid’s heart operation, the next step would be to attempt the operation yourself on the dining room table.

It seems like a pretty big dis on teachers to suppose that anyone can teach.  Even if they do have a mail-order curriculum.  And maybe in some cases especially if they have a mail order curriculum.

I have a PhD and can’t do much math beyond basic algebra.  How about you?

I know I haven’t posted in forever, and actually, the homeschooling endeavor is beginning to come to a close.  Ultimately, I suppose this blog, if I continue it, will have to morph into something else.  But before the morph, there are some things from the last several months I would like to consider.

Something transformative happened to Rhino this spring.  It was a gradual transformation—there was no single moment in which I said “Aha!  Rhino has become amazing beyond my wildest dreams!”  But that’s how the winter/spring have culminated. 

Rhino is the outreach coordinator for the District Youth Service Committee for our religious denomination.  She recruited many new youth to the quarterly conferences, and churches that had never participated before sent their youth.  She served as a dean at one of the conferences.  She went to monthly meeting all over the region.  The adult person in charge of youth for the district asked her to revise the standards for the YES (Youth Empowerment and Supportive Congregations) Award.  She arranged and ran a Cluster event at our church that involved baking a huge number of pies (and raising $250 for a local charity).

Rhino served on the religious education committee at our church.  She co-chaired the Youth Adult Committee (YAC—it’s a community service committee).  She ran the youth group (which won a YES award under her leadership).  She attended the Leadership Committee (because she was co-chair of YAC).

Rhino wrote a proposal to amend our church’s bylaws to allow youth to become full members with voting rights after they complete the Coming of Age program, a  program that is supposed to lead youth to religious adulthood (kind of a low-key bar mitzvah type thing).  She lobbied for congregational support, and ultimately the board passed her proposal unanimously.

Rhino is going to accept the Governor’s Service Award on behalf of the youth volunteer program at the zoo.  The volunteer coordinator told her she had been chosen because she did Junior Zoo Crew, Junior Zookeeper, Junior Interpreter, and Animal Handling and had worked at the zoo for 4 years.   

Rhino is a penguin keeper at the zoo.  She knows the name and identification number of every penguin.  She assists in feeds and in teaching baby penguins to swim (did you know baby penguins hate water?).  She watched over four hatchlings born into the Endangered Species Preservation Program.  And she endured a lot of penguin bites.

Rhino has seen more than 100 children pass through the preschool for homeless children.  Our church decided to make the preschool one of its places to contribute special offerings.

Rhino applied to two Americorps Programs.  She first heard from the one that accepts fewer than 20% of applicants, most of whom are college graduates.  So next year, Rhino will be a City Year corps member in a city about an hour away.  She’s going to live on her own (with some roommates from the program).

Also, Rhino did school.  She is currently preparing for two AP exams, and because City Year requires that she have a diploma, she is planning to finish the requirements to graduate from the University of Nebraska’s independent study highschool by mid-July.  It’s not perfect.  She didn’t finish her Spanish class or her math class.  She’ll only finish the first semester of AP English.  

Somehow, I think she still came out okay.