The folks over at Military Spouse magazine have been publishing more of my stuff on the website, for those of you few readers who might be interested. One of my recent columns—on home schooling, which I don’t do but have thought about for when Sean is a bit older—ruffled one reader’s feathers, I’m proud to say:
I was greatly appalled and offended by the article When the Schoolhouse is Your House by Thomas Litchford. This article was in no way informative for homeschoolers or about homeschooling in any way. The next time you would like to include an article concerning homeschooling in your magazine; it might be wises to interview a homeschooling family or better yet have a homeschooling parent write one for you. I can assure you that as “talented amateurs” we would write a better article on homeschooling that this “professional writer” you gainfully employ. [Typos, misspellings, etc., sic]
Granted, it wasn’t an “informative” article about homeschooling, it was just my opinions on the subject, and my thoughts on whether I’d be any good at it. I didn’t think it was somehow offensive to people who do home school their kids, though.
Anyway, I’ll post links to the others on the Sample Columns page.
Hmm, I think some people are overly sensitive, possibly due to all the criticism they have endured from most of society over the years. I think your article was perfectly acceptable and even though you may doubt your ability to home school Sean, I think the great thing about home schooling is that it does not have to be as structured as a regular classroom setting. Home schooling is great for a kid because it allows him to complete the required curriculum at his own pace and then he can use the free time to get a real education by reading, or spending time outside learning about nature, or going to the zoo, museum, or even to work with mom or dad. You only need to be disciplined enough to follow the lesson plan provided with the curriculum you choose and then to follow through like every other parent and make sure their schoolwork is completed. Kids in public school waste so much of their time waiting for the teacher to discipline other students or being distracted by other students that they have ever increasing amounts of homework they bring home nightly. If you can handle making sure they complete their nightly homework, then you will have an even easier time making sure they complete their schoolwork as you will be in the loop the whole way and not have to depend on what your kid tells you the assignment is. I guess a lot of parents are concerned about the social aspect, but as we all know, military brats have a tough go changing schools every two or three years anyway, so if you get involved with other home school families during the day and make sure they take advantage of sports leagues if they so desire, they will do great! I think I have gone on long enough for now.
Well I’m glad you didn’t find it offensive. I agree that there are obvious benefits to home schooling, benefits that make me wish I were better-suited to it, but I really do think I would suck at it
You bastard.
Just kidding. There are just bitter people out there who would rather gripe than contribute to the discussion. I’m toying with the idea of homeschooling for kindergarten since we’re overseas and want to continue traveling. Naturally I see myself as intelligent enough to teach the skills learned in kindergarten, but we have seen some people who are dumb as rocks doing homeschooling, and that’s scary. Then again, you could say that about some of my teachers as well.
No offense to rocks meant.
Homeschooling does seem ideal for your lifestyle. You guys travel so much. That’s an education in and of itself.
I think the comment is pretty far off-base, so much so that I wanted to respond to it (I never ever do that). However… the website wouldn’t let me! I clicked and clicked and nothing happened, I clicked harder and more frequently, and nothing happened! I wish someone had done a better job teaching me how to use the internet, but unlike you, I went to a cruddy public school for my senior year of high school. All I wanted to say was that the posting was not offensive, it wasn’t apalling. The reply was hilarious and sounded like it came from someone who has never seen a blog before.
Since I treach Freshman writing, I’ve seen a lot of offensive writing, and your piece on homeschooling is difficult to construe as offensive.
I’m glad I went to actually read the article–you spelled out many of my own objections to home schooling and articulated many of my questions about the changing face of public schools.