A Bad Week for Homeschooling PR

My uphill battle to educate the world about homeschooling has just become steeper this week due to our lovely media. In case you missed the Good Morning America piece on Monday, April 19th, and then their follow up piece on Tuesday, April 20th, here's a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that includes video footage from both days on one page: http://blogs.ajc.com/momania/2010/04/23/should-we-be-unschooling-our-kids/. The firestorm of articles and blog posts has continued all week to the point where I am now being labeled a "child abuser" because I homeschool my kids! Thank you to The Huffington Post for again providing another perspective on a mainstream media topic with Lee Stranahan's article "Unschooling: How Good Morning America Got It All Wrong" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/unschooling-how-igood-mor_b_543880.html. Things are going to get even worse for homeschoolers with the new E! show Pretty Wild which features the antics of three "homeschooled" girls and their many problems. I feel I must watch to see what our "poster children" are up to! I recently saw a list of 10 celebrities that homeschool their children: http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/04/10-celebs-who-homeschool-their-kids/, and I'm not sure how I feel about my company!

So where does that leave our family? Like most homeschoolers, we attempt to resist any labels about how we homeschool since we take from a variety of different philosophies (as I've mentioned in previous blog posts.)  However, I really feel the need to defend the unschooling movement right now because it seems so wrongly portrayed. In 2008, I had the good fortune to hear Sandra Dodd speak at a conference. Here is a link to her website: http://www.sandradodd.com/unschooling. For me, she was really the first one to put into words the many thoughts I already had about education. I really recommend her book, Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling. She has great ideas about homeschooling, but equally great ideas about how to be a loving parent.

From Sandra Dodd, I moved onto learning about John Holt (1923-1985), a former teacher who is often referred to as the "father of the unschooling movement." He wrote many books on the subject over the years, including publishing a homeschooling newsletter for 24 years, Growing Without Schooling. His book, Teach Your Own, is pretty much the homeschooling bible. These are just a few references about unschooling, and I personally feel that if you have kids, you are "teaching" them
so you may be interested in these books regardless of whether or not you're a homeschooling family. HOWEVER, if you are commenting about unschooling (and I'm talking to you George Stephanopoulos) then PLEASE do your research and find out what the basic principles are first. Really, who can argue with this concept: "We learn from everyday life experiences, and we learn what we learn when we need to learn it." It's really that simple. Think of times in your own life when this has proved true. There are endless examples. My friend homeschooled her son his entire life -- no formal schooling at all -- he is now 15 and at a public high school earning an A in his algebra class -- no prior formal math instruction -- and he's being recommended by his algebra teacher to go to math competitions representing his school. There's even talk of his wanting to become a math teacher in the future. So yes, it is true that homeschoolers can move in and out of the school system without difficulty. If you have ever voiced some sort of doubt about whether a homeschooled kid can go to college later on or hold down a job as an adult, I urge you to look at the evidence supporting these kids and open your minds to homeschooling.