Brian Ray

Kevin Swanson on the Gen2 Survey, Homeschooling, and Sexual Abuse of Women

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

HA note: The following is written by Kathi and reprinted with permission from Julie Anne Smith’s blog Spiritual Sounding Board. It was originally published on March 3, 2015 with the title “Is there a correlation between sexual abuse as an adult and homeschooling?”

About Kathi: Kathi is a Bible-belt midwest transplant to the beautiful Pacific northwest. After homeschooling her kids for 10 years (she decided that high school math and science were not her strongest subjects), both kids are in public school. She is a former church goer and finds herself in that unstudied demographic of middle-aged Nones. She has a B.A. in Urban Ministry and a M.S.W. (Master of Social Work). Her goal is to work with children who have been abused or are in foster care. She loves to knit, cook and read (not in any particular order). Kathi blogs at Moving Beyond Absolutes. Also by Kathi on HA: “Kevin Swanson, Child Abuse, and Dead Little Bunnies” and “A Closer Look at Karen Campbell and Lisa Cherry’s Podcast Series on Sexual Abuse Prevention.”

On February 6th, Christian homeschool leader Kevin Swanson and Steve Vaughn did a radio broadcast entitled, “1/3 of College Women Sexually Abused.” Swanson fails to mention the name of the study referencing this statistic and states that he received an email from his father with a link. The Oregonian reported in September 2014 about a survey done by the University of Oregon in which 35% of the female respondents indicated they had at least one non-consensual sexual contact event. I can only assume that this is the survey to which Swanson is referring.

The title of the radio broadcast is a bit deceiving because it seems that Swanson’s primary purpose was to discuss the findings of the Gen 2 Survey. The discussion of college women being sexually abused occurred in the middle of the broadcast.

Swanson starts off this part of the broadcast by discussing the findings of child sexual abuse in his Gen 2 Survey. Based upon self-report,  6% were primarily homeschooled, 18% were primarily public schooled, and 16% were primarily Christian (private) schooled.

The obvious conclusion of the study was that there is a greater chance of a student being sexually abused if he/she is in (or primarily educated by) public or private school.

Swanson continues by acknowledging that there is anecdotal evidence of child sexual abuse among homeschoolers because of recent stories being told. However, he warns that anecdotal evidence is not equal to statistical evidence, therefore, anecdotal evidence should not be a strong basis for change in public policy. Swanson’s hope is that the Gen 2 Survey will play an important role for family and parental rights in the future.

Moving on, Swanson then talks about the University of Oregon survey. At this point he states, “You wonder why anybody would want to send their daughters to a university like this. They’ve got a 1 in 3 chance of being sexually assaulted.” I fully understand the concern regarding the statistics from the University of Oregon survey. I have a daughter getting ready to go to college in the fall and I find myself feeling like it’s one more thing I have to worry about.

However, Swanson doesn’t end there, he says, “Homeschooling numbers are more attractive to parents who want to protect their daughters.” At this point I see where the conversation is heading. Swanson blames the college culture of sexual revolution, the grey line between consensual sex and rape (huh?), fornication, and students “having sex like rabbits” for the high number of sexual assaults. He compares sending daughters off to college to cohabitating prisons where there is no separation of men and women. In an environment such as this, surely bad things are going to happen. Right? He then suggests that a good way for daughters to attend college is by taking online classes from home. Vaughn chimes in and promotes College Plus, which is a program that is promoted and talked about by a lot of proponents of Patriarchy and the Stay-at-Home Daughter Movement, including Doug Phillips and Voddie Baucham. You can read a little bit more about Voddie Baucham’s daughter and College Plus in this article, Jasmine Baucham, CollegePlus, and Leaving Things Out.

Folks, Kevin Swanson is promoting the stay-at-home daughter movement. Is anyone surprised?

Getting back to the original question related to the correlation between homeschooling and sexual abuse as an adult, Swanson makes one of his generalized statements that makes me so fond of him. In relation to the University of Oregon study he says, “This kind of thing was not happening 20 years ago.” It just so happens, Mr. Swanson, that the Department of Justice issued a special report, “Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013.” (psssttt…1995 was 20 years ago.) This report found that “the rate of rape and sexual assault was 1.2 times higher for non-students (7.6 per 1,000) than for students (6.1 per 1,000).” The report also found that “most (51%) student rape and sexual assault victimizations occurred while the victim was pursuing leisure activities away from home, compared to non-students who were engaged in other activities at home (50%) when the victimization occurred.”

It is interesting that non-students reported that half of the incidents happened at home. How does this look for the stay-at-home daughter movement?

So, Mr. Swanson, it does not seem that there is any correlation between your child sexual abuse statistics for those who were homeschooled and adult college women who are sexually abused. Apparently college-age women can be sexually assaulted whether they are in college or not and whether they are living at home or not. What is comparable, though, is that like most children who are sexually abused, most college-age women who are sexually assaulted know who their offender is.

While I applaud your effort in encouraging homeschoolers to protect their daughters, I’m not buying your push for stay-at-home daughters.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Conclusion

HA Editorial Team7 Comments
Screen Shot 2014-03-02 at 5.36.11 PM

HA note: The series conclusion of “When Homeschoolers Turn Violent” is written by Rachel Coleman, Rachel Lazerus, and Dr. Chelsea McCracken from Homeschooling’s Invisible Children.

*****

Homeschooling communities assume that homeschooled kids escape the pernicious influences of the wider world — if violent behavior is something that you catch, like a disease, homeschooling families assume that they can protect their children from exposure. Some homeschooling advocates also claim that those who have been homeschooled properly will never turn out to be violent criminals or have mental health issues.

The assumption that homeschoolers are essentially good kids is also held by members of the general public. Joshua Komisarjevsky was sentenced to only nine years for his role in burglarizing 18 homes, despite the maximum statute being ten years for each offense. When he came before the parole board, he was seen as “young, white, bright, home-schooled, remorseful, never identified as a person with high mental health needs.”[1] He was paroled in April 2007, and invaded the Petit family home on July 23rd, 2013.

Homeschool advocate Brian Ray implicitly endorses this view, writing:

Discussion with leaders in the homeschool movement of the past several years of news and careful Internet searches reveal 2 and possibly 3 homeschooled teens (ages 14 to 17) who were accused or convicted of homicide during the past 8 years. …If home-based education of teens of ages 14 to 17 comprises 3% of that age-group population and calculations are adjusted for number of homicide offenders and number of years (with a liberal estimate of 3 during 8 years), then homicide offenders of homeschool students ages 14 to 17 would be about 0.004 per 100,000. If true, this would mean that the general-population teen of this age is 2,500 times more likely to commit homicide than a home-educated teen.

In this conclusion post to our series on homeschoolers who have turned to violence, we would like to explain why it is both unfair and unscholarly to compare homicide rates in the way Ray does — and how these flawed assumptions make homeschooling families and communities less safe.

First, we would like to note that it is unscientific to conclude from anecdotes that there were only two or three homeschool homicides during the previous eight years. For one thing, our list includes more than twice this number, and we do not assume it is a complete list. Not every youth homicide makes the news, not every news story on a youth homicide discusses the offender’s educational background, and not every story that makes the news is easily accessible on the internet. To accurately compare the rate of homeschool homicides to the national rate, one would need to access the criminal records for all youth homicides within a given time period and look at the educational background of each. It is irresponsible to speculate on youth homicide rates without this data.

Even more importantly, comparing youth homicide rates between the homeschool population and the general population would not actually tell us anything about whether homeschooling itself affects the youth homicide rate. When comparing homicide rates between two populations, it is crucial to consider all of the ways the populations differ. In other words, if the homicide rate is indeed lower among homeschooled youth, which it may be, this might be because homeschooled youth differ from youth in the general population in various ways that are unrelated to school choice.

When comparing crime rates in two populations, it is important to take into account various factors that might impact the crime rate. For example, one cannot compare Alabama’s high crime rate with New Hampshire’s low crime rate without taking into account the difference in poverty rates: Alabama has one of the highest poverty rates in the country while New Hampshire has one of the lowest. According to the National Center for Child Death Review, “Major contributing factors [to youth homicide] in addition to poverty include easy access to handguns, involvement in drug and gang activity, family disruption and school failure.” Other factors which may also contribute to crime rates include education level, community involvement, availability of mental health services, condition of law enforcement, etc. When comparing two populations, all of these factors must be taken into account.

The homeschool population varies from the general population in a number of ways. The homeschool population tends to be more rural than urban, and homeschooled children are more likely to live in households with two parents than are children in the general public. It has traditionally been thought that parents who homeschool tend to be wealthier and better educated than average (although this has recently been called into question). All of these factors correlate with lower crime and homicide rates. Without correcting for these various factors, it is impossible to know whether homeschooling might play any role in lowering homicide rates.

Many homeschool families also have high levels of parental involvement, which is not easily quantifiable. Parental involvement leads to higher educational attainment in any educational setting and also correlates with lower crime rates and lower engagement in risky behaviors. As a result, lower homicide rates among homeschooled youth could be a result of high parental involvement rather than of homeschooling per se — and highly involved parents would affect their children’s lives in this way regardless of the educational method they chose.

Could these background factors be corrected for? Yes. To do so, one would first have to collect accurate data on homeschooled students and their families. Then, one could compare the homicide rate among homeschooled youth with the homicide rate among youth in the general population with the same background factors. In other words, if homeschooled youth are more likely to be rural, more likely to have two parents, more likely to live in families with slightly higher incomes and educational attainment, and more likely to have high parental involvement, the homicide rate among homeschooled youth would need to be compared to the homicide rate among a sample of the general population that is also more likely to be rural, more likely to have two parents, more likely to live in families with slightly higher incomes and educational attainment, and more likely to have high parental involvement. That way one could isolate any effect educational method might have.

As the director of the National Home Education Research Institute, Ray has conducted a number of studies on homeschoolers; however, he has consistently failed to correct for these background factors. In several of his studies, for example, he gathers testing data from a nonrepresentative sample of highly educated, high income, highly involved homeschool families and then deceptively attributes their predictably high test scores to the fact that they were homeschooled. (For more, see reviews of Ray’s work here.)

When a youth homicide occurs, the student’s educational background, whether public, private, or homeschool, is not generally the causal factor. Attending public school does not cause an adolescent to commit a homicide any more than being homeschooled causes an adolescent to commit a homicide. Rather than focusing on which educational method is correlated with the lowest homicide rate, we should instead study how various factors may contribute to adolescent homicides in any educational setting. We prefer to focus on keeping youth safe, not on making an ideological point.

We do not have the data to know whether homicide rates are higher or lower among homeschooled youth, or what role homeschooling plays. However, there are some factors we may observe as common themes in homeschool homicides. In many of the cases we have collected, homeschoolers who commit homicide come from families with extreme religious or ideological beliefs (patriarchy, white supremacy, anti-government views, etc.). Many of these youths have easy access to firearms in their homes. They may have untreated mental health issues or developmental disabilities. Several youths come from disrupted homes, either through adoption or divorce. Parental abuse and neglect, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, also play a role. Though in some cases these factors may correlate with homeschooling, this does not imply that homeschooling causes homicides — the same factors have been implicated in homicides committed by youths who attend school.

It is a common and understandable impulse to try to keep ourselves and our community safe by believing that violence could never happen to us. Unfortunately, this reaction is not productive. The best way to keep homeschoolers safe is not to deny that there could ever be any problems, but rather to learn about the factors that contribute to problems and to be on the lookout for mental illness and abuse among homeschooled students, homeschool grads, and homeschool parents.

[1] Rep. Mark Lawlor, Chairman, CT Judicial Committee in The Cheshire Murders, HBO documentary, 2013.

View the case index here.

When Homeschoolers Turn Violent: Introduction

HA Editorial Team1 Comment
Screen Shot 2014-03-02 at 5.36.11 PM

*****

Writing and Research: R.L. Stollar, Homeschoolers Anonymous
Research and Editing: Rachel Coleman, Homeschooling’s Invisible Children

*****

Since the devastating Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012 left 20 young children and 6 adults dead, at least 44 more school shootings have occurred. An aura of shocking and seemingly senseless violence continues to haunt the landscape of the United States.

The problem of violence plagues almost every corner of our society: public schools, malls, college campuses, movie theaters, and — sadly — even homeschools. Parallel to cases of public school students gone awry are cases of homeschooled students. These cases are just as heartbreaking and can be just as violent. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk reaction of homeschooling communities is often to respond defensively after these situations, to focus on how the cases are portrayed in the media rather than to consider what lessons may be learned from them.

This defensive reaction is not only unfortunate, it is misplaced. (So too is using violence as a marketing tool, as Howard Richman from PA Homeschoolers did after the public school massacre in Littleton, Colorado, when he declared that, “with the increase in school violence we have a new bumper sticker, ‘Homeschool: The Safe Alternative.'”) Knee-jerk defensiveness hinders homeschooling communities (and larger communities) from providing an honest self-assessment of what can be done to prevent further situations of similar personal, communal, and institutional breakdown.

In the aftermath of public school shootings, public school teachers and administrators ought not respond by saying, “Do not call this a ‘school shooting.’ The fact that it happened in a school is irrelevant. ” Rather, teachers and administrators must accept that something went wrong and ask: “Were there warning signs? How did we miss them? How can we prevent this in the future? What steps can we take to increase security, or educate our students, parents, and faculty better about mental health, violent games, and bullying?”

These questions need to be asked just as diligently and earnestly by homeschooling communities, co-op teachers, and parents. We need strong, brave individuals to stand up and speak out about the importance of mental health care, about the impact dehumanizing and stifling ideologies and discipline practices have on children, and the real psychological results isolation can have on a person’s developing psyche.

These are not questions we can continue to avoid. The number of homeschooled children that have grown up to become violent criminals, mass murderers, even serial killers, is growing. In many cases, these are not simply small-time killers. We have one of the most notorious white supremacists on our hands, along with the leader of a conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government and assassinate the President and the most famous serial killer of the last decade.

We must take these cases seriously as a community. Innocent lives have been lost. Families have been torn apart. The time has come for honest assessment and serious discussion.

Archive disclaimer

We include as “homeschooled” any individual who was home educated when the event in question happened, was home educated for a substantial amount of time, or was home educated in a way that significantly impacted the individual in a documented, explicit manner. 

We have created this archive to document and describe. We are not making any statistical claims. We will not seek to make interpretations or arguments within any given entry. Readers are free to draw their own conclusions or recognize patterns for themselves.

This is not a complete archive. The cases we have collected do disprove Brian Ray’s claim that “the general-population teen [in the 14-17 year old age group] is 2,500 times more likely to commit homicide than a home-educated teen.” However, they do not actually tell us just how likely (or unlikely) homeschooled teens are to commit homicide.

In creating this archive, we do not claim that homeschool students and graduates are any more or less violent than individuals otherwise educated. Making such a determination would require a much larger research study than we are capable of conducting with current resources.

We do not think that whether homeschooled students or graduates are more or less likely to become violent is relevant to our contention that homeschooling communities need to be aware of the risk factors that may lead to such violence in their own communities and take steps to address them.

Our purpose here is to archive, to remember, and to mourn — and ultimately, to present a case for action.

Publishing schedule and trigger warning

We will release 3-4 cases each weekday for the following two weeks. Cases will be released in alphabetical order according to each individual’s last name. At the conclusion of the two weeks, we will release one large document that includes this introduction, all the cases, our concluding thoughts, and a timeline.

Please know that the details in many of the cases are disturbing and graphic. If you experience triggers from descriptions of physical and sexual violence, you may want to avoid reading these cases.

View the case index here.

When Precision is a Red Pen

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

Heather Doney is the Executive Director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education and blogs at Becoming Worldly.

As someone who has been studying and working on homeschooling issues from an academic as well as personal angle and who recently co-founded the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), I want to say that Benjamin Keil makes some good points in “A Call for Precision”. He makes good points about the plural of anecdote not being data and also how we want to avoid confusing different types of arguments or reasoning for one another. I also think that Sarah Henderson made some good points, too.

We are talking about, within, and to a group of people who often suffered educational neglect. I know I did. Some people have been able to largely overcome it. I too have a masters degree today. Some have not. We want to be very careful not to intimidate anyone or make them feel like their story or perspective is not “correct” or “educated” enough to be told.

This is a place for people to tell their stories as they see them through their own eyes and for others to provide feedback and support, not judgement or academic critique.

So while I am working with a team of former homeschoolers who are trying to do our best to get the quantitative data we have (which is slim) all in one place and collect and share the qualitative data (which is just coming together), fact is we (and by this I mean all of us) do not have the kind of data to know how abuse and neglect in homeschooling compares to that occurring in other educational settings. It is a question to be answered, a known unknown. We just know that it happens and that there are some really bad cases and the watered down or nonexistent laws on homeschooling in many states don’t pass a basic common sense smell test.

I also think it is instinct for people to use the info they have and generalize based on their social milieu. It happens a lot, annoying social science researchers everywhere, since we want to measure and quantify.

But is a natural human tendency.

So I think Keil’s points would have been stronger if he had noted that homeschool parents who keep saying “these stories are rare” and “most homeschoolers are ______” really need to notice that they do this way too much, that it isn’t helping, and they need to knock it off. A really good example of exactly what we don’t need any more of: this post in Christianity Today.

“Anecdote passed off as data” doesn’t make for an airtight case if anyone does it and frankly so many of us have had to sit by and have our experiences silenced and dismissed while homeschool parents and leaders got a pass for this sort of nonsense for years. The “data” collected by Brian Ray’s NHERI was spread around in the media and the homeschool community as proof of homeschooling’s excellence across the board.

As a matter of fact, Ray’s “Strengths of Their Own” study isn’t proof of anything except that self-selected participants in a survey (with just under a 30% response rate, I might add) of white, middle and upper middle class Christian homeschool families usually do pretty good. I could do a voluntary study of prep school kids, say they represented American students as a whole, and it would be much the same kind of result.

Which is to say it is not an accurate depiction of the population at all.

My initial thoughts from combing through the quantitative and qualitative data available and also running a support group are that it seems that homeschools aren’t too different from public school in terms of us having “haves” and “have-nots.” The difference is we pretend our have nots just don’t exist because we don’t measure them. There are generally no mechanisms in place to shut down failing homeschools or fire failing or abusive homeschooling teachers.

Because there seems to be this huge socio-economic status/class difference in homeschool student experiences and outcomes, we will need to pay a lot more attention to that gap before any of us do any more generalizing about what homeschooling as a whole is and isn’t. We also need to make sure we leave wide open spaces where people can safely tell their stories without worrying that the rest of us will be judgy perfectionists or parse it apart harshly.

Even if we are well-meaning in taking the red pen to someone else’s story and perspective, that can be very intimidating and used as a means to quiet their voice.

Too many of us have already had more than enough of that happen in our lives and don’t need any more. So I want to say that while I want solid arguments and good data as much as the next person, even more than that I want people to feel free to tell their own story and share where they see it fitting into the whole. After all, it is because a growing group of people are telling their first-person stories that we are even discussing the need for data in the first place.

Stories are powerful things.

So… About That “Homeschooled Hero” George Washington

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

george-washington-portrait

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

George Washington is the greatest homeschooler of all time.

Homeschool advocates love that sentence. It’s like the knife driven into the heart of public education, the garlic wielded against the vampiric detractors of homeschooling.

What a solid sentence. The syntax is perfect.

There’s just one problem with it: it simply isn’t true.

I honestly don’t know where the myth of George Washington as homeschooler originated. When Rob Shearer wrote about Washington back in 1998 for Practical Homeschooling, he never mentions Washington was homeschooled. He says that Washington was “one of the most important figures in American History.” So if he was homeschooled, that would seem like a good time to mention that fact. But he doesn’t.

My guess would be the myth originated three years later with alternative education activist John Taylor Gatto, who is widely celebrated in homeschooling circles. In Gatto’s classic critique of American public education, the 2001 book The Underground History of American Education, he states:

“Washington had no schooling until he was eleven, no classroom confinement, no blackboards. He arrived at school already knowing how to read, write, and calculate about as well as the average college student today… Washington also studied geography and astronomy on his own…”

Gatto, however, never says Washington was “homeschooled.” Though he does point out that, “Washington attended school for exactly two years.” Which is not “exactly” true, but we will get to that in a bit. The point is, Gatto says that Washington mainly taught himself but also received formal education to complement that self-teaching.

Yet somehow Washington is today considered a classic example of homeschooling’s power. He is included in those many and sundry lists of “famous homeschoolers.” There’s even a website for “Famous Homeschoolers” (www.famoushomeschoolers.net) that includes him. (Does anyone fact check those lists, by the way? Because I swear 75% of the people listed in most of those do not qualify, just like George Washington.)

Just last week, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) dedicated the entirety of its Home School Heartbeat radio program to Washington.

Just last week, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) dedicated the entirety of its Home School Heartbeat radio program to Washington.
Just last week, the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) dedicated the entirety of its Home School Heartbeat radio program to Washington.

The title of their week’s series was — surprise! — “Homeschooled Leader: George Washington.” The series’ description says, “The father of our country was a surveyor, general, president—and homeschooler.”

HSLDA’s Mike Smith gushed throughout the week about Washington and his homeschooling and how wonderfully it shaped him and his legacy for the U.S. (emphasis added):

“Who was America’s greatest homeschooler? Some say it was George Washington… America owes its very existence to one of the greatest homeschoolers of all time… Like most frontier families at this time, homeschooling was the most viable option for a child’s education… This homeschooler and statesman transformed the world, setting the course for freedom and away from tyranny… Americans owe their freedom to the efforts of our Founding Fathers and to this man who diligently studied and learned the truths of life at home.”

Just one small problem: George Washington is neither an example of homeschooling nor an example of education done well.

To some extent, deciding whether someone was/is homeschooled or not is complicated. There are so many different forms of home education these days. So let’s go ahead and set some arbitrary definitions. For “homeschooling,” we will use “to teach school subjects to one’s children at home.” And for “homeschooled” we will use a definition that HSLDA could agree with — the definition that HSLDA’s research buddy Brian Ray used earlier this year: “one should consider a person to be ‘homeschooled’ if the majority of his school years were in homeschooling.”

So let’s look at George Washington.

There isn’t a lot of information about Washington’s early life. Any legitimate account of his early life and education will admit this. So here are a few different accounts of what we do know:

George Washington’s education resulted from a process of close study and imitation of the Virginia elite… Born into mid-level gentry status, Washington seized opportunities to fill in gaps in his formal education… A formal education alone could not have imparted him with such admirable self-control. Washington’s social education enabled him to maintain a delicate balance between ambition and modesty throughout his life. (Source)

In the normal course of events, George Washington would have become an Oxford don and followed the profession of his English father… He received the least formal schooling of any of the Founding Fathers and remained self-conscious about this lack all his life… George Washington did not sit down and write of his childhood, as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did… He seems to have been ashamed of his impoverished childhood and his poor education… He apparently began to learn to read, write, and keep sums from a tutor, a convict… By the time his brother Lawrence returned in his red-and-blue uniform, George was already crossing the river each morning to the log schoolhouse in Fredericksburg… In all, George Washington received between seven and eight years of schooling. For nearly four years, he took the ferry each morning to Fredericksburg. (Source)

Between seven and eight years of schooling. Four under the tutelage of a convict and four at a public log school. This is a very different story than Gatto’s “two years” fable. And what schooling Washington got was scarce, so scarce that Gatto saying Washington’s lack of formal education was somehow positive is an insult to Washington’s experience. Why? Because Washington did not consider his lack of formal education to be positive:

Washington had only limited formal schooling. In later life, he felt somewhat self-conscious about what he considered his ‘defective education.’ Spurred by this sense of deficiency, he developed a lifelong habit of reading… Despite this effort, he remained unsure of his learning.” (Source)

So self-conscious was he of his lack of education, and so defective did he consider the little bit of education that he received, that Washington went out of his way to educate his stepson, Jack Custis. He hired a private tutor for both Jack and his sister Patsy for over six years. He sent Jack to boarding school in Maryland. After boarding school Washington sent Jack to New York for college. And note, Wasington “left the direction of Jack’s schooling to these instructors.”

This cannot be overstated: George Washington was embarrassed by his lack of education. Self-conscious. Ashamed. You can see how this influenced him in his advocacy for public education near the end of his life:

As George Washington ended his term as the first president of the United States, he left with a few parting words. Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 delineated many of the recommendations Washington had for the future of his country. Amongst these suggestions was a public education system. (Source)

In this address Washington said,

Amongst the motives to such an Institution, the assimilation of the principles, opinions and manners of our Country men, but the common education of a portion of our Youth from every quarter, well deserves attention. The more homogeneous our Citizens can be made in these particulars, the greater will be our prospect of permanent Union; and a primary object of such a National Institution should be, the education of our Youth in the science of Government. (Source)

So let’s get this straight: Washington’s dad bought a full-time tutor for him. Washington also attended an institutional school for at least 50% of his education. And somehow he was homeschooled? Since when was homeschooling considered 50% being tutored by a convict and 50% attending a public school?

This fails both the definition of “homeschooling” and the definition of “homeschooled.”

Even if you still consider Washington to be homeschooled, there’s the more important aspect of this story: George Washington had the least formal education of the Founding Fathers and considered that a bad thing. He considered his lack of more formal education to be defective to the point that it obviously haunted him for his entire life. This spurred him to push for public education for his own relatives and the brand new United States of America.

That’s a “homeschooled” hero?

Look, I don’t mind if people create lists of famous homeschoolers. It’s a testimony to the fact that homeschooling can be awesome and has been awesome and that education should be democratic and flexible and tailored to every individual.  But if you’re going to create a list of famous homeschoolers, I have two very simple rules:

(1) Make sure the people were actually homeschooled.

(2) Make sure the people don’t consider their education defective.

Including George Washington violates both of those rules.

Of course, if George Washington were alive today and said his “homeschooling” (if you still want to consider it that) was lacking and defective and he wished he could have gone to that log school more, we already know from Josh Powell’s situation how HSLDA would respond. It would be something like, “Buck up, kiddo! Log schools crush creativity! Be glad you got taught by that convict at home!”

Adult Homeschoolers Speak Out: Part Ten, Are the Stereotypes Better or Worse?

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-07-15 at 11.37.26 AM

HA note: The following series is reprinted with permission from Brittany’s blog BAM. Part Ten was originally published on July 11, 2012.

*****

Also in this series: Part One: Why I Wanted To Write This | Part Two: Survey Stats and Large Families | Part Three: Top 3 Reasons Parents Homeschool | Part Four: Academic and Emotional Experiences, K-8 | Part Five: The Highschool Experience | Part Six: College? Prepared or Not? | Part Seven: What About Socialization? | Part Eight: The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing | Part Nine, Do Former Homeschoolers Want to Homeschool? | Part Ten: Are the Stereotypes Better or Worse?

*****

Part Ten: Are the Stereotypes Better or Worse?

Homeschooling is surrounded by stereotypes. Here are a few:

  • Long jean skirt
  • Weirdo kids
  • Socially Awkward
  • “Is that even legal?!”
  • “What about college?”
  • All homeschoolers are socially awkward
  • “There must be something wrong with the kids, otherwise the parents wouldn’t be doing that”
  • Religious fanatics

And the list goes on. When I wrote my socialization post, I said that the Number One homeschoolers got was “What about Socialization?”

When I was growing up, this was actually the Number Two question. The Number One question I got when I told someone I was homeschooled was:

“What’s that?”

Nowadays, everyone knows someone who has been homeschooled. But that doesn’t mean that stereotypes have gone away or even changed. So here is the survey question:

Do you think public thoughts/emotions/opinions have changed about homeschooling today? Briefly explain.

The answers I got were all over the board:

  • Yes!
  • No!
  • Um….kinda/maybe/sorta

Enjoy the answers below: they range from hilarious to bitter to though-provoking to wise.

37% or 17 adults said yes, public opinion has changed for the better.

Corinna R. 35 from VA: Absolutely! One of the common questions I would get was “You what?!? How does that work?” Now it is common and accepted and as a whole more mature. 

Jerusha C. 30 from VA: Yes! Very much so! My sister and I were like freaks to other people! And most of the other homeschool families we knew smelled like pee! Now it is much different now.

Stuart G. 29 from VA: I think it has changed. I believe home-schooling used to be considered abnormal. The stereotypes range from controlling religious fanatics to lazy families neglecting the true value of education, and everything in between. While these scenarios can be true, most of the time they are misconceptions, and I believe that more and more of the population realize that. Many now view home-schooling as a progressive approach, emphasizing the value of a self-tailored education.

Renee P. 30 from MS: When I was little and first started homeschooling it was kind of a new thing and everyone said I would never be able to get into college. I think homeschoolers have shown that this is not a problem anymore, and actually I don’t think it ever was. Seeing a generation of homeschool students grow up and be very successful, especially academically has helped. As homeschooling has become more popular more people know homeschoolers and they find them “normal”. I think that has helped change the image for the better. On the other hand as more people homeschool, more homeschool for the wrong reasons or don’t do a good job with it. When I started it was kind of a novelty and only people who were 100% committed did it.

Stacey M. 29 from WV: Definitely. Back in my day, no one had even heard of homeschooling and people assumed that my brother and I were mentally disabled and could not attend public school. I had to jump through many hoops and cut through a lot of red tape to attend college. In contrast, my younger brothers (11th and 12th grade currently) have no lack of social interactions and opportunities to do pretty much what they like. I’ve even noticed some comments on their Facebook about other kids being jealous.

Joshua M. 27 from MS: Yes. More people are willing to accept it as an alternative, even outside of the church.

Christy L. 28 from CA:  Yes, I think that homeschooled kids are seen as more “normal” today than they were in the 90s. I remember my family attending a homeschool convention in Wisconsin when I was in 1st grade and it was so weird…my brothers and I didn’t fit in at all, the other kids there were so extremely sheltered that they didn’t own TVs or listen to music other than hymns. Today, you do still find some homeschool families like that, but the number seems less.

20% or 9 adults said no, negativity and stereotypes are still very prevalent.

Kaitlin G. 22 from KS: No, people think that families who homeschool have something wrong with them and I feel like there are a lot of negative things associated with homeschoolers.

Beka R. 25 from KS: I think they have to a small extent – fewer people immediately judge a woman’s ability to teach her children now, and most know that predominantly, homeschoolers have solid academic backing. 

I think that many of the stereotypes about socialization still exist. I think the examples of “homeschooled homeschoolers” that people see are kids who would be weird in public school too… goodness knows there’s no shortage of weird kids in any environment! I think that there is still a huge and predominant bias against homeschooling. 

I do worry about some of the families who I see homeschooling sometimes… without a strong focus on academics, you’re really doing your kids an injustice. If they can’t read and write, what’s the point? Sometimes I see parents who seem a little lazy and that makes me very sad, not only for their kids, but for the future of homeschooling in general. 

Jeremy T. 25 from VA: As far as the public, not at all. People still think homeschoolers play and don’t do anything and aren’t social people at all. They can think what they want, but they will never know unless they experience it. 

Melissa G. 26 from VA: Not really. We’re still seen as overly Christianized families with too many children and absolutely no social skills. We’re just harassed less by the government now.

Matt W. 30 from OH: There is a stigma attached to home schooling that only Bible thumping fundamentalist Christians are the ones who home school their children. It’s my personal opinion that this still how the public views homeschooling. Technology and the internet make home school much more accessible and possible. I feel that most people would assume that if you are home schooling your child either the family is extremely religious or something is wrong with the child.

Emily M. 26 from FL: I still believe a lot of people have all of homeschoolers lumped into this big sort of dorky group of socially challenged individuals. I don’t often hear good things about homeschooling unless I go looking for it. Those that have been in the homeschool environment though, still often continue to sing its praises.

40% or 18 adults had mixed responses about how they think the public views homeschooling/homeschoolers today.

Laura H. 34 from NE: I think it depends on the location. Here in Nebraska there is usually a favorable reaction. I encountered discrimination while in Iowa though (e.g. “you’ll never be able to pass classes in college”) where it’s less common. 

Nara N. 30 from NC: Yes, it seems much more normal, and people know about it and what it is. There are all kinds of programs geared towards homeschoolers (like from the public library, community music schools, and public parks/recreation departments) and many more options (curriculum, online, hybrid w/public school) than there were. 

One bad thing, I think because it is easier to choose to homeschool, there are more people doing it now who really shouldn’t be, i.e. they are not committed to putting in the work to make sure their kids do school and learn. I don’t know an answer to this problem, because I do think parents should be free to determine their children’s education, even if they make a bad choice. It is not the government’s job to step in. 

Samantha C. 24 from MO: In some ways, yes. It’s not just for crazy religious nutjobs anymore, but it still seems to be considered pretty “fringe.” 

Courtney M. 22 from VA: I think that some people are realizing that homeschoolers can be somewhat normal people, but it is a slow process. There is still the stereotype in people’s minds to where a girl walks down the hallway in a T-shirt, jean skirt, tube socks and tennis shoes and the first thing people think is “she was homeschooled” and they’re probably right. Thank goodness I never had that kind of look, but I think there are enough homeschoolers like that still around who keep the stereotype “alive”. But I think enough “normal people” homeschoolers are emerging that they are not as rare as they used to be and people are getting more used to that.

Christine M. 31 from KS: Yes and no. It really depends on who you talk to. I do think that since there are more and more homeschooled students out in “the real world” now, people are seeing and hearing more about the positives of homeschooling (other than the going to school in your pajamas assumption) and realizing that we’re not all a bunch of unsocialized nerds who can recite the Declaration of Independence backwards but can’t carry on a conversation.

Jonathan M. 30 from TX: Yes and no. We are more accepted, but we are still thought of as odd.

Marybeth M. 29 from CA: The whole viewpoint and ability to homeschool has changed a lot over the years. There’s so much available to homeschoolers now, as far as co-ops, school activities and such. The stigma about homeschooling is either the kids are super smart and over educated or really sheltered. And both are true. I fall in the over sheltered category.

Bradley H. 23 from VA: To a degree. There are more “sects” of homeschoolers now (“unschooling” and others) which is a detriment to the practice. But I do feel that homeschoolers have proven themselves to be intelligent and resourceful, as well as able to function in the world. 

Megan W. 27 from GA: I think people are more open to it. When my grandparents found out my sisters and I were being homeschooled they didn’t tell anyone because it was so unusual. Of course there’s that group of people who think all homeshoolers watch TV all day and have no social skills. And there are homeschoolers who fit that generalization.

*****

Personally, I fall into the yes category. I am so glad that people actually know what homeschooling is today, that homeschool students have exhibited success both personally and academically, and that current homeschoolers have so many more opportunities today. I know lots of parents who are currently homeschooling or planning to homeschool and it just seems “normal.” Oh, how times have changed — for the better.

What about you?

  • Do you think stereotypes about homeschooling/homeschoolers are still very prevalent?
  • If you were homeschooled, do you think thoughts/opinions about homeschooling have changed for the better?
  • If you currently homeschool, what stereotypes do you fight against today?

Please feel free to comment or ask questions. I’d love to hear from you!

Also, if you feel that this post or series would be interesting or educational for others, please feel free to link to Facebook or other social networking sites. You can “like” this post with the Facebook button below.

This series is at an end. I have one more post I would like to share, a rather controversial post. In the present post, I addressed stereotypes that the public has/had about homeschoolers. But I also want to address stereotypes or damaging attitudes that homeschoolers hold about non-homeschoolers, specifically attitudes and beliefs that I have had to overcome now that I am outside the “homeschool bubble.”

[Homeschoolers Anonymous previously published this other post of Brittany’s. Please read it here.]

*****

End of series.

Adult Homeschoolers Speak Out: Part Nine, Do Former Homeschoolers Want to Homeschool?

HA Editorial Team17 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-07-15 at 11.37.26 AM

HA note: The following series is reprinted with permission from Brittany’s blog BAM. Part Nine was originally published on June 27, 2012.

*****

Also in this series: Part One: Why I Wanted To Write This | Part Two: Survey Stats and Large Families | Part Three: Top 3 Reasons Parents Homeschool | Part Four: Academic and Emotional Experiences, K-8 | Part Five: The Highschool Experience | Part Six: College? Prepared or Not? | Part Seven: What About Socialization? | Part Eight: The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing | Part Nine, Do Former Homeschoolers Want to Homeschool? | Part Ten: Are the Stereotypes Better or Worse?

*****

Part Nine: Do Former Homeschoolers Want to Homeschool Their Kids?

When I started this series, the question”Do former homeschoolers want to homeschool their children?” was one that was very personal. In my current circle of friends, I know lots of parents who are currently homeschooling or are planning on homeschooling. But none of these parents were homeschooled themselves.

This observation then led to intense introspection: Will I homeschool my kids? As my boys are 4 (they will turn 5 in October), this question has produced a lot of deep conversations and some sleepless nights for me.  (I will answer this question at the end of this post)

I wanted to know what other former homeschoolers were doing. So, I was eager to see what the survey results would bring.

And I am eager to share these results with you now.

  • 45 people answered this portion of the survey
  • 18 adults have children ranging from 0-10 years old
  • 27 adults currently have no children

24% or 11 people said “No, they did not plan on homeschooling”

  • 5 have children
  • 6 do not have children

M. W. 30 from OH: Not unless we have to. I don’t want them to go through what I went though. I would consider home school until 7th grade but definitely not after that.

M. M. 29 from CA: I do not have kids, and when I do have them – NO. I don’t think I could do it, but more than that I don’t want to repeat the experience I had. 

Kaitlin G. 22 from KS: No, I want my children to be able to experience everything that school has to offer, however we will consider doing private school instead of public school depending on where we live. 

Kelly C. 29 from VA: I would like our children to go to private school if we can afford it when the time comes. If we cannot, then I will strongly consider homeschooling. My main concern is the patience it requires… I feel seriously lacking the patience department. My husband my actually be the one to homeschool if we decide to go that route. His job is flexible and he has far more patience than me and he is an excellent teacher.

Elina C. 25 from KS: I would love to, but I can’t. Tyler and I have moved to Germany to do missions work. It is illegal to homeschool your children here. I do have to admit that the German school system has very good structure. I am sure that I will do some side studies with my kids. Focusing on Creation Science, Bible and American History.

Others mentioned family situations that would make homeschooling impossible: joint custody of child(ren), financial situations that would not allow it, or the fact that a spouse did not want to homeschool.

31% or 14 participants said that they “Maybe or were unsure if they would homeschool”

  • 6  have children
  • 8 do not have children.

Elizabeth J. 27 from KS: I would love to, but I have compromised with my husband to say that it depends on the child and what the school has to offer at that time.

Christy L. 28 from CA: I don’t have kids right now, but if I do in the future, the decision to homeschool will really depend upon the child and where I live at the time. Right now, the thought of homeschooling doesn’t sound fun to me- but here in San Francisco the public schools are pretty bad, so if I still live here, we will either have to homeschool or move north. 

Chelsea W. 30 from KS: That is still up in the air…it just depends on so many things. I dont want to send my kids to public school if at all possible. We would like to do a private school if possible, but I may decide to homeschool. Just not decided yet.

Melissa G. 26 from VA: My decision to homeschool my children will be based on their personalities. If I have a child(ren) with a similar academic personality to myself, I will probably choose to homeschool. If I have a child(ren) with a more social personality, I may choose to send him/her to the local Catholic school.

Beka R. 25 from KS: I plan to homeschool my children if I choose to stay home when they are born. If I choose to continue working, I will probably enroll them in a private Christian school. I really want to homeschool because I think that schools have gone so far from the inter-grade learning, where younger students learn faster and pick up more by being there when the older students are being taught, and because of the safety issues within public schools. My best friend teaches 3rd grade and the lock-downs and inter-student violence is really concerning. However I’m not sure whether I’ll always work, or whether I’ll stay home and homeschool, or whether I’ll do some combination thereof. Right now, I plan on working and enrolling my kids in private Christian school. But who knows, things could change. 

Corinna R. 35 from VA: My oldest is 4 and I’m not sure if we will homeschool her or not. I think it will depend on how we like our options. I don’t think that private school is worth the money and I see so many advantages to homeschooling. You can really make it whatever you like. Although I cringe when I see families not requiring good obedience of their children. Then I wonder if the public school would be healthier for the children. They would at least learn some boundaries. 

Anthony T. 27 from VA: We haven’t decided yet. I think it’s a good possibility though. The reason why I would want to is because I just value our role as parents to be the ones raising our kids and teaching them things… not just academics, but teaching them how to glorify God. Regardless of which type of school you put your kid in, you’re relegating that role to someone else. It may be that the person you relegate that role to is a great person and can do those same things, but part of me just thinks that the ideal scenario is for parents to do that. I don’t know though. I think academically, my wife and I could provide a better academic environment than our kids could get in a school. I think spiritually, it would be ideal for us to teach them. I don’t know though.

The responders who said “YES! They want to/plan to/are homeschooling” was the largest group. However, the numbers need a little pinch of salt, I believe.

44% or 20 responders said “Yes, They want to/plan to/are homeschooling” 

  • Only 3 families (6%) are currently homeschooling
  • 7 people who said “Yes” currently have children.
  • 13 responders had no children.

I believe the “pinch of salt” is needed because while people said they want to homeschool or even plan to homeschool, I think parents’ opinions often do change when they actually have children (either for or against). (Just my little 2 cents.)

Here is what the families who currently homeschool had to say:

Jenna C. 28 from KY: Yes, because I can’t imagine sending them off for 8 hours a day without my supervision and guidance. I feel a tremendous responsibility to shepherd them and lead them up in the truth of the gospel, and also to prepare them to be adults who can thrive in this world. I feel that that is best done, right now, by me being with them as much as possible. I also know my kids better than anyone, and I know how they learn the best and what they are struggling with. it makes sense to me to be the one to teach them. We may reconsider this decision in the future, but right now, this is what we feel is the best choice for our family and our children.

Christine M. 31 from KS: We currently homeschool our older two. We LOVE it! We are able to move at our own pace to keep the kids interested. They learned to read quickly, they have plenty of time to just be kids, and we’re able to slow down if we come across any trouble spots, but honestly, they are both way ahead of where they “should” be. I have a friend who currently has a daughter in 4th grade who is severely struggling because of her reading ability. Instead of being able to slow down, or even repeat a grade, the school has continued to push her forward so her “self-esteem isn’t damaged from being in with younger students”, seemingly ignoring the fact that she is struggling to read what’s required of her.

Jerusha C. 30 from VA: I just started homeschooling my oldest 2 children this past fall. [My daughter] went to public school k-5 but wanted to be homeschooled, and when she was in 3rd grade I started thinking and praying about it. I really didn’t want to because I my own experence but I felt God “calling” me to do it.

Other responses from those who said “Yes:”

Amberley A. 33 from WA: Chances are good that we will homeschool in the future (we currently have our children in a private Christian school – their grandmother teaches there and we get a super-amazing discount!), but we will probably homeschool in the future when she retires and/or for high school. The Christian school’s high school program is limited, and we also have quite a few things that we want to teach our children in high school that they won’t learn in any school environment because they are not traditional subjects. 

Stuart G. 29 from VA: We do plan on it. Honestly, we believe we can give our children a superior education – one that is tailored to their needs, talents, etc., and that goes much deeper than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. More importantly, I believe home-schooling will help us build stronger relationships with our children. Not that you can’t have strong relationships if your children are in public/private school, just that home-schooling might furnish more opportunities for such a relationship. 

Jenna N. 28 from KS: I (semi-ironically) became an elementary school teacher and after having been a teacher, I really can’t imagine having someone else have the amount of influence over my children that teacher’s have. Not to mention the colossal amount of time that is wasted in a classroom and my (slightly arrogant) attitude of knowing what I think teachers should be doing and if they are doing it the right way or not.

Emily H. 19 from GA: I do plan to homeschool my kids one day. Though it won’t be a perfect experience, I feel I have definitely learned from mistakes my parents made (and will carry on the successes) and would like to put it in action in one day.

Allison E. 24 from VA: Yes, I plan on it. I think it prepared me better academically and I want to give my kids that advantage.

Megan W. 27 from GA: As of now we are planning on homeschooling because, as of now, we believe it’s the best fit for our oldest. My husband and I want to have the final say on what our children are taught. Each year our kids are in school we will seek to make the decision that’s best for each of our children. 

Jonathan M. 30 from TX: Yes, because the more I look at the pathetic state of the recrutes coming in right out of highschool there is no way I would let my kids grow up that way. The other reason is that every time I hear about what they teach in schools it makes me fear for my kids.



Another responder said: Yes (or private Christian), I plan to (if I have children); I believe it prepares them academically for the real world better than public school; I believe it lays out foundations faith issues. 

The second half of this question was “If you do plan on homeschooling, is there anything you would do differently?”

While some responders said, “No, not really,” others gave many suggestions about what they would plan to do differently if and when they do homeschool their children.

The first three testimonies are from the moms who currently homeschool:

Jenna C. 28 from KY: I will be more intentional about training them in social interaction, and in providing opportunities for them to practice those skills. I will also be more involved in their learning, and will not focus so much on their “grade” but on how well they know the information. I will review with them and teach them how to apply the things they are learning to real life situations, not only during the lesson but in everyday life.

Christine M. 31 from KS: We do plan on giving them the option of choosing public school once they reach High School, and of course academics will take on a different look because there’s so much more available. But, overall my goal is to create socially active, politically literate, independent adults by the time graduation arrives. 

Jerusha C. 30 from VA: I have them enrolled in a correspondence school.

Melissa G. 26 from VA: MORE WRITING! And a greater emphasis on critical thinking over religious faith.

One Responder said: Yes, I would particularly focus more on spirituality (versus theology), concentrate on finding a church in which my children can thrive socially/spiritually, etc. Additionally, I would be more focused on classic education (more focus on foreign language, literature, etc.)


Megan W. 27 from GA: Yes. I will make lesson plans ahead of time and know what our goals are for the week, semester and year. There will be more structure then what I had.

Michelle D. 19 from KS: Can’t think of many, but perhaps I would involve my children in more group activities/co-op classes during grade school and middle school. I would not be afraid to allow them to have close friends outside of the family. 

Ruth M. 23 from OK: I plan to implement a little more structure and hit math and science a little harder.

Corinna R. 34 from VA: I will focus more on academic excellence. The materials are so much better now. I don’t have to invent the wheel like my parents. 

Amberley A. 33 from WA: Well, there are quite a few things we want to teach our kids that I wasn’t taught – Greek, things about finances/running a business/real estate, Also – we want to teach Bible – not only the knowledge, but the application of what it says and why it is relevant in their life, and mission trip/witnessing practice and experience. 

***

So, back to my original dilemma: Do I want to/plan to homeschool my children?

In past posts, I’ve shared very honestly about what I thought was great about my homeschooling experience and what I thought could have been different/better. Overall, I loved being homeschooled and think I had a positive experience for the most part.

But, I don’t really want to homeschool.

Here are my reasons (mainly selfish):

1. I struggle with patience with my twin boys and get frustrated very easily when I try to teach them things. I don’t want my lack of personal patience to interfere with the learning process or (worse!) cause them to hate school/learning.

2. I butt heads with one of my sons quite frequently. I think he learns better from other people.

3. I want to work. I really, really enjoy teaching writing and literature at our local university. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from teaching (though I only do it part time).

My boys will be going to Pre-K this fall at our neighborhood elementary school. (It is right across the street from us!) Since they will not be 5 until October, they will enter Kindergarten next year. Though I could keep them at home this year and do “home” preschool, I am having a baby in October (we like that month around here) and I know that at school they will be able to get the social and academic attention that I will struggle to give them in the first few weeks and months after our baby boy arrives.

Reading through all of the surveys has made me go back and forth on my decision though. I definitely feel guilty about not wanting to homeschool, fearing that I will not be able to provide the “good things” that I gleaned from homeschooling:

  • I want to provide the Biblical education that I received through homeschooling.
  • I want my kids to have the freedom to pursue special interests.
  • And I do not want my children to be bored in school and lose their love for learning early (something my husband struggled with in public school).

However, I have come to the realization that teaching the Bible or about one’s faith is an option for every family, whether you homeschool or not.

I can still encourage my sons’ personal interests (plus, they will have other adults — teachers, counselors — who will also inspire them and perhaps provide insight and opportunities that I cannot).

The “being bored” thing is one I am concerned about. And I would more seriously consider homeschooling if I felt like my kids were starting to hate learning.

My husband and I agree that we will take our schooling decision year by year and we would definitely consider homeschooling in the future if we think that this will be the best option for our boys.

What about you? 

If you were homeschooled, do you plan on/want to homeschool your children?

If not, do you (like me) feel guilty sometimes?

If you do plan on homeschooling, what do you plan to do differently with your children?

Please feel free to comment or ask questions below! And please share this via Facebook or other social networking sites if you feel that this post or series would be interesting or helpful for others. You can “like” this post on the Facebook button below.

*****

To be continued.

How Bad Homeschool Research Hurts Homeschoolers

HA Editorial Team12 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Kathryn Brightbill’s blog The Life and Opinions of Kathryn Elizabeth, Person. It was originally published on July 24, 2013.

When I was in college, I was one of the participants who answered the NHERI/HSLDA/Brian Ray survey of homeschooling graduates. I don’t remember how I got the survey, probably via email forward from my mom, but what I do remember is sending an email to my family after taking it in which I said something about how I wouldn’t believe a thing from the eventual study results. Aside from the fact that an email forwarded among homeschool groups asking people to take an internet survey is a lousy way of getting a representative sample (especially when we’re talking more than a decade ago, when we were nowhere as close to ubiquitous computing as we are now and computer access was still largely along socioeconomic lines), the survey itself was rife with methodological problems.

My memory is of a survey where I could tell exactly what answer they were looking to find, based on both the questions asked and the possible answers given for those questions. It was a survey that, even as a college student who had a positive experience and didn’t have the criticisms of the system that I do now, was so bad that I wondered why anyone would design it the way they did unless the goal was not usable data but a certain set of predetermined results.

If I got anything out of being homeschooled for twelve years by a math teacher, it’s a healthy appreciation for numbers. Numbers explain the world, or at least they can explain the world if they’re used correctly. Without good numbers, you might as well be stumbling around in the dark bumping your shins into the furniture. Bad numbers are even worse than no numbers; they’re like spreading Legos on the carpet while stumbling around in the dark with bare feet.

The HSLDA/NHERI numbers on homeschooling are like stumbling around on that Lego-strewn carpet. Aside from the aforementioned homeschool graduate survey, they also have test scores that they trot out to prove that homeschoolers do better on standardized tests than other students.

Except that the numbers don’t show that. What they actually show is the results of those homeschooled children whose parents not only use achievement tests (which isn’t all of them), who were aware of the NHERI survey (again, not all of them), and who agreed to submit their children’s scores for a study that they were already told was intended to make homeschooling look good. We have no idea how representative that group is of homeschoolers as a whole because it was self-selected and we don’t know whether that self-selected group in any way mirrors homeschoolers as a whole.

The modern homeschool movement is more than 30 years old and we still don’t have a good idea of homeschooling demographics. We know that they’re predominantly white and might be mostly religious (but even the religious makeup is hard to guess because the religious and the secular homeschoolers seldom run in the same circles). We don’t know what the socioeconomic makeup of the homeschool population is, and we don’t know the average education level of parents or a breakdown of those parents’ degrees. Without that, we can only guess at whether the socioeconomic levels of homeschoolers in NHERI’s test score data in any way represent homeschoolers as a whole.

Homeschoolers are fiercely independent even without taking into consideration that the religious ones don’t trust outside researchers because they’ve been told by HSLDA for years that outsiders want to hurt homeschooling. As for the secular unschoolers, they aren’t exactly fans of the establishment, which makes it hard to pin them down as well. Compounding the problem, the people the religious ones do trust (aka, HSLDA and NHERI) aren’t interested in giving good data, they’re interested in giving a good sales pitch for homeschooling. And so, we’re stumbling around in the dark knocking our shins into furniture and stepping on stray Legos.

There are a handful of small studies about adult former homeschoolers, but the rest is guesswork. We don’t have a good picture of the socioeconomic status of homeschooling families. We don’t really know how homeschoolers as a population do on achievement tests because we don’t have any surveys that aren’t self-selected. We don’t even have a good idea of how many people are homeschooling. It might be a million and a half, it might be twice that. We need good data and we simply don’t have it.

Are the kids I knew in high school who were all upper middle class children, mostly of parents with degrees in STEM fields, an accurate representation? What about the kids I knew when I was younger whose blue collar parents had no college and were passing their non-standard English dialect on to the kids rather than standard English grammar? Was my dad right when he always said that math was a weakness that homeschoolers needed to watch out for because the kids were being taught primarily by mothers who had been put on the consumer math track in school? Was I right when I used to tell people that the reason they thought homeschoolers were weird was because the normal ones who are in the majority didn’t advertise that they were homeschooled?

I don’t know because no one does.

And yet the Brian Ray/NHERI research keeps getting repeated in conservative and mainstream media even though it doesn’t actually tell us anything.

I understand why homeschool parents want to like the NHERI numbers; they help reassure them that they’re on the right path and not totally screwing up their kids with the homeschool choice. That’s why what NHERI’s doing with self-selected, unscientific research methods is so messed up. Parents, good parents, are relying on data that’s given a veneer of science but that may well be leading them to make educational choices that aren’t the best possible for their children. If math education, for example, really is the weakness for homeschoolers that my dad thought it was, homeschoolers need to know that so they can compensate for the weakness. If more than a fringe number of homeschool kids are having trouble fitting in with mainstream society because of the homeschool bubble, parents need to know that to correct for it.

With nothing but bad data to rely on, parents are left stumbling around in the dark hoping that they aren’t going to bash their shin on the corner of the coffee table or step on a stray Lego. That’s not serving homeschool parents well, and it’s certainly not doing anything for the kids.

Adult Homeschoolers Speak Out: Part Eight, The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing

HA Editorial Team11 Comments

Adult Homeschoolers Speak Out: Part Eight, The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing

HA note: The following series is reprinted with permission from Brittany’s blog BAM. Part Eight was originally published on June 19, 2012.

*****

Also in this series: Part One: Why I Wanted To Write This | Part Two: Survey Stats and Large Families | Part Three: Top 3 Reasons Parents Homeschool | Part Four: Academic and Emotional Experiences, K-8 | Part Five: The Highschool Experience | Part Six: College? Prepared or Not? | Part Seven: What About Socialization? | Part Eight: The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing | Part Nine, Do Former Homeschoolers Want to Homeschool? | Part Ten: Are the Stereotypes Better or Worse?

*****

Part Eight: The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing

If you homeschool or are considering homeschooling, sometimes fears or uncertainties or just generally being overwhelmed by choosing a curriculum, lesson planning, or keeping up with all that socialization can sometimes make you forget the “big picture” of why you wanted to homeschool in the first place.

This post is the “big picture,” the reasons that former homeschoolers list as the best thing(s) about homeschooling. The second half of this post is the responses of these adults about what they wish had been different about their homeschooling experience.

I hope this post encourages you and gives you some food for thought as well.

Survey Question: What was the best thing about homeschooling? 

Here are the top three answers:

  • #1: Closer Family relationships (15 responses/ 34%)

#2 & 3 are tied:

  • Flexibility (10 responses/ 23%)
  • Freedom to pursue interests (academic and extracurricular) (10 responses/ 23%)

Almost everyone mentioned more than “best thing.” I have divided all the responses into these five categories (the numbers listed are how many people mentioned each one):

Family

  • Closer family 15 
  • One-on-one time with parents
  • Greater appreciation for parents

Academic

  • Freedom to pursue interests (academic and extracurricular) 10
  • Ability to work at your own pace 7
  • Laid back schedule 2
  • Fewer interruptions
  • More time efficient
  • Better Learning
  • Reading
  • Never stopping the learning process
  • Getting college credit in high school
  • More attention
  • Learned how to think for oneself
  • Learning for learning’s sake and not for grades
  • Freedom to adapt to personal learning styles
  • Custom education
  • No wasted time on “busy work”

Personal

  • Flexibility 10
  • Promoting Independence/ independent thinking 3
  • Sheltered from bad influences
  • Reduced Peer Pressure
  • More confidence/ less social pressure
  • Having “real life” experiences
  • Self-motivation
  • Learned strong work ethic
  • Matured quickly

Social 

  • Being able to travel 2
  • More time for volunteering 2
  • Unique experiences (field trips, etc) 2
  • More free time
  • Meeting lots of different people

Religious

  • Bible Education 3
  • Closer walk with God 2
  • Faith integrated into every aspect of learning

Wow! So many “best things” about homeschooling! I hope these lists are encouraging to you.

The second survey question I asked in my survey was this:

Survey Question: Do you wish anything was different about your homeschooling experience? 

Here is the statistical break down:

  • 43% (19) said “No, they couldn’t think of anything they wished was different”
  • 56% (25) said “Yes, they wished ‘xyz’ had been different”

The answers were both fascinating and widely varied. I have divided the “Yes” answers into Academic and Social categories.

Academic:

J. M. 30 from TX: I wish my folks had spent more time on math and science. (even though I was ready for collage level study I feel like I could have done even better if we had)


R. M. 23 from OK: I wish we had done more science. 

M.G. 26 from VA: Looking back, I think that my education lacked any real writing component. However, I have compensated for it since.  

J. D. 18 from VA: Sometimes I just wish I had a teacher to help me through situations that I didn’t understand the material.

M. W.  27 from GA: I wish there had been more structure and a more complete curriculum.

R. P. 30 from MS: When I got to high school I would go to the homeschool convention each year and pick out my books for the coming year with my mom. I then went through the text books pretty much on my own. I wish my mom had held me accountable a bit more because I didn’t end up finishing as much as I could have (although in the end I was completely prepared for college). Also we didn’t do science labs in high school, which I wish we had even though that tends to be hard. In WA state we have a program where you can go to community college for free for the last two years of high school and graduate from high school with an AA. I kind of wish my mom had pushed me to do that, but it may be that I wasn’t socially ready at that point. 

E. M. 26 from FL: I highly recommend co-op. I wish we would have done more of this early on in my experiences. It provided more structure. 

E. H. 19 from GA: Not much, just that maybe we had been part of the co-op longer and we had been stricter on keeping grades.

M. M. 29 from CA: I honestly kinda wish I wasn’t [homeschooled]. Although I wouldn’t be who I am today, but I really felt I was [robbed] in the education area. 

Social:

Several people mentioned that they wished they could have been involved with sports:

Kelly C. 29 from VA: I wish that it would have been easier to get involved in sports. The only option for me was a rec league and the one time I got involved in a rec league it was all boys (on a boy/girl team). 

Beka R. 25 from KS: I look at my younger siblings all involved in basketball, and I wish I had given it a shot . . . looking back I think I would have enjoyed that very much.

Samantha C. 24 from MO: Being able to be involved in competitive sports, like softball, would have been nice. 

Others focused on deeper social issues:

S. G. 29 from VA: I do wish I had been forced into more social situations. That could have made the public sphere less trying. Even today, conversing with people remains difficult for me; I believe my schooling experience plays a large role in that difficulty.

J. C. 28 from KY: I wish my parents had been more involved in my schooling and in making sure I was involved socially, not just by putting me into social situations but by training me in how to act in those situations.

B. H. 23 from VA: That I would have had a bit more contact with other homeschoolers, but I did have adequate social activities in Youth Group at Church. 

K. C. 24 from VA: I wish that I had a better homeschool group in high school. Having a good local group is key to not feeling isolated. 

S. M. 29 from WV: I wish it had not been illegal at the time and that it had been more widely accepted. My brother and I were teased and bullied mercilessly by public school kids about being homeschooled. My two younger brothers have had a completely different experience because homeschooling is so common now.

O. G. 29 from KS: I kind of wish I had been pushed to try more things. I was a little timid. 

M. V. 27 from IA: I wouldn’t be homeschooled. I wish I’d been sent [public school], actually. If I had to still be homeschooled, I wish my parents had pushed me into doing things besides choir and 4-H and work, to try new things instead of just doing what was immediately available. 

I suppose another angle of this is that I wish I had spent more time doing things with people who were not homeschooled and who were not like me, so I didn’t have the huge learning curve post-high school graduation. 

I think this is an often-overlooked disadvantage of homeschooling: Sometimes homeschooling students get jobs or are pushed into service activities and spend too much time doing adult things before they are truly adults, and missing out on important kid activities instead. 

In my 10th grade year, my mom took on responsibility of two young boys for a lady in our church who worked; we essentially became a two-kid daycare . . . I didn’t enjoy it (I’m not much of a kid person) and school had to be fit in on the sides. I have heard my parents’ current pastor’s wife say that she prefers her daughter, who does like kids, to not always be babysitting, because she doesn’t want her daughter to grow up being a sort of pseudo-teen-mom. And I think that happened to me a little in my 10th-grade year. I also worked a lot (at the Y, which was fun), but sometimes that stood in for other social activities. I didn’t actually have to work. So, different: not so many adult activities, so soon.

Finally, one responder gave this answer which I though was really interesting (and I wasn’t quite sure how to categorize it):

C. R. 35 from VA: Yes, I believe that it is a really struggle for homeschooling parents to release their children once they are grown.   

I think these “wishes” are very enlightening. Some of them are more tied to being a “first generation” homeschooler than others. For example, there are more co-op opportunities and sports opportunities today than there were 15-20 years ago.

Perhaps these other academic and social “wishes” will help give current homeschoolers insight into where they can pursue conversation with their children or perhaps make changes.

What about you? 

If you were or are homeschooled, what is the very best thing about it?

As an adult homeschool alumni, is there anything that you wish had been different about your homeschooling experience? What advice would you give to homeschool parents today?

Please feel free to comment or ask questions! And please share this series if you think it would be interesting or helpful to others by linking to Facebook or other social networking sites (you can “like” this post by clicking below”)

*****

To be continued.

Adult Homeschoolers Speak Out: Part Seven, What About Socialization?

HA Editorial Team17 Comments

Adult Homeschoolers Speak Out: Part Seven, What About Socialization?

HA note: The following series is reprinted with permission from Brittany’s blog BAM. Part Seven was originally published on June 14, 2012.

*****

Also in this series: Part One: Why I Wanted To Write This | Part Two: Survey Stats and Large Families | Part Three: Top 3 Reasons Parents Homeschool | Part Four: Academic and Emotional Experiences, K-8 | Part Five: The Highschool Experience | Part Six: College? Prepared or Not? | Part Seven: What About Socialization? | Part Eight: The Best Thing vs. What Was Missing | Part Nine, Do Former Homeschoolers Want to Homeschool? | Part Ten: Are the Stereotypes Better or Worse?

*****

Part Seven: What About Socialization?

Ask any homeschooler (past or present) the # 1 question he or she receives about homeschooling and it will be this:

What about socialization?

Most homeschoolers will laugh at this question and give some rapid-fire answers about the number of activities they are involved in or how they are so busy that they have to squeeze school work in their socializing schedule.

I have been anticipating this post for almost a month now and I have thought long and hard about why this is such a hot-button issue for people. Any Google search on “Homeschooler + socialization” will reveal a barrage of blog posts and e-articles that all profess that homeschooled children are, indeed, socialized and even better socialized their their traditionally schooled peers.

The comments to such articles are even more revealing. Every reader seems to have an opinion on this issue and the comment battles that ensue would probably fit neatly into the movie “Mean Girls.”

So why does the issue socialization bother so many people, both homeschoolers and non, seeming even more important than academic success?

I believe this is because social apptitude is spotted, judged and/or pitied long before intelligence is ever assessed in most social situations. In plain English, this statement could read like this: “He is so smart, but….bless his heart, he seems a little awkward, doesn’t he?” (That was the polite version. You can make up your own, non-sugar coated statement here.)

The issue of socialization and homeschooling is so dynamic because, whether homeschoolers like to admit it or not, what they are doing is counter-cultural. It isn’t “the way” most Americans are educated or how most adults learned to interact with the world.

This is neither good nor bad.

It simply is.

But because it is “different,” it may and often does present some challenges.

My survey results revealed some of the challenges that adult homeschoolers have faced as they entered adulthood. The numbers are primarily positive (though perhaps not as overwhelmingly confident as most homeschoolers, both past and present, may think they ought to be).

I had two questions relating to socialization:

Survey Question: Are people every surprised to find out you were homeschooled?

67% (29) of responders said “Yes!” 

Most said people were surprised because they were “so normal!”

One woman said: “Yes! Just the other day a nurse was bashing homeschoolers and I turned to her and said that I was homeschooled. She was shocked.” 

16% (7) said people were “Sometimes” surprised. 

One adult homeschooler  noted that “[u]sually [the statement] is followed by a question about being social and I have to try not to laugh, but most of the time people are positive about it!”

4% (2) said people were not surprised at all to find out they were homeschooled

11% (5) said the question either “doesn’t come up” or that they “don’t tell them.”

One man revealed, “People think I’m crazy or some kind of weirdo. I don’t share this unless I have to.”

My survey question specifically about socialization was linked to the question about higher education:

Survey Question: Did you pursue higher education after high school? If so, what is the highest level of education you have earned? If so, do you feel that homeschooling prepared you socially?

(Looking back I wish I hadn’t attached this question to higher education because not everyone pursued higher education and, therefore, did not answer this question — though only 2-3 did not.)

The statistics for this question are as follows:

60% (26 responders) said Yes, they felt socially prepared for higher education/the real world.  

40% (17 responders) said either “No, they were not prepared” or mentioned difficulties they had 

Of the 60% who said “yes!,” a majority argued that homeschooling gave them a chance to interact and socialize with people of all age groups instead of simply interacting in peer-age groups.

Megan W. 27 from GA: Yes. I had always been exposed to different people and encouraged to interact with them.

Ruth M. 23 from OK: Yes, I don’t think I had any more difficulty socially than a person who had gone to a public school. Actually, I believe homeschooling helped because it trained me to be willing to branch out and meet different people, even if they didn’t belong to what I saw as my “group.”

Elizabeth H. 21 from DE: Socially, I am comfortable talking to a wide variety of people, both age-wise and culturally.

Jonathan M. 30 from TX: YES!! I feel that I was better prepared socially due to the fact that while homeschooling I learned to sociallize with people of all ages. I have noticed that many people who went to public schools are locked into their peer group and have a hard time with people outside of their peer group.

Elizabeth J. 27 from KS: Yes, I had many friends, and lots of experiences that were similar enough to my public school peers that I had things to talk with them about. I was comfortable in the large groups of mixed ages and abilities, something that bothered a lot of my public school peers as they were used to same age grouping.

On the negative end of the spectrum, adult homeschoolers related these experiences:

M. G. 26 from VA: Although I have no social skills, I can’t blame that entirely on homeschooling. Yes, homeschooling gave me very few outlets to force myself to be social, but since people make me nervous and I don’t like to be social anyways, that may have happened regardless. . . Social function is probably the biggest disadvantage.

E. J. 24 from VA: That is a bit of a difficult question because I was an extremely shy child. I was socialized. There was a group of about 50-60 homeschoolers that would meet at least once a week to play, and I was often around adults that my parents knew from church, work, or their hobbies. As a child, I was very comfortable speaking with adults and I disliked events geared toward children as I found them condescending. However, as an adult, I have had some small issues with relating to everyone. Whether this is because I was homeschooled, or because of my personality, I am not really sure.

R. P. 30 from MS: I had good social skills for dealing with people of all ages in a personal and professional way. When I went to college I greatly gained social skills with my peers. Part of that may be delayed because I was homeschooled. 

K. C. 24 from VA: There were some gaps in my social abilities, and felt socially immature for a while.

M. W. 30 from OH: Homeschooling set me back at least 2 years socially. I made up for a lot of it by getting a job at McDonalds my junior year in high school.

J. C. 28 from KY: I wish my parents had been more involved . . . in making sure I was involved socially, not just by putting me into social situations but by training me in how to act in those situations.  

Whether the response was positive or negative regarding socialization, nearly all responders seemed to define “being socialized” as:

  • Being able to talk to people of all ages
  • Having friends
  • Being involved in activities

While I think these three things are important, somehow these answers left me wondering: Are people really “socialized” if they have friends, are involved in activities, and can talk to people of all ages? Are these three things really what non-homeschooler are asking when they ask, “What about socialization?”

One woman wrote, what I believe is, an excellent response to this question. Though she had friends, close family relationships, outside activities, and a part time job while being homeschooled, she still said she was “Absolutely not!” prepared socially for life after homeschooling.

M.V. 27 from IA writes: Imagine human social lives like a game . . . In a real game, the rules are carefully explained. In society, the rules are unstated and must be figured out carefully (incidentally, they change from country to country and region to region). What kids need, then, is an opportunity to practice the game and learn what the rules are. 

High school, mean as it can be, gives them that opportunity. It teaches them to respond appropriately to peer pressure, to interact with the other sex, to behave appropriately at social events, to make small talk. 

Obviously, not everyone who goes to a public school graduates with a perfect knowledge of these rules, and not everyone who is homeschooled fails completely here. My sister, for instance, picked up social rules quite well. The fact that some people do fine, however, doesn’t change the fact that society does have rules and homeschooling reduces the opportunities by which to pick up on those rules.

Missing public school means that I missed four years of an opportunity to learn some of those rules. I had a very small circle of friends at [college] and had no idea how to interact with roommates; I started getting better in [grad school] and then [when I went to work overseas].

I found this response to be very insightful and true, in many cases. Learning social rules is difficult, and if one does not learn those rules as a child or teenage, then he or she must learn them (sometimes more painfully and embarrassingly) as an adult.

I can relate to this. Even as an adult, I sometimes lack insight into when it is the right time to ask questions, especially in a group setting. Growing up, “right now” was always the right time to ask any question! In college, I always forgot to raise my hand in a classroom setting, often blurting out whatever was on my mind, often to interrupt others or be reminded by the professor “to give someone else a chance to talk/answer.”

Although I have gotten better as I have gotten older (and wiser), I have even had difficulties at my job when, at a meeting, I asked a question that–I thought!–was very applicable. I was reprimanded later by my superior privately (much to my intense embarrassment). Knowing these “unspoken rules” of group settings continues to be difficult for me, though I am slowing figuring them out.

Another issue that I believe many homeschoolers struggle with socially can be related in this example:

C. M. 31 from KS: I was a bit green when it came to dealing with people who didn’t have my best in mind, and I found myself in situations in college that I would NEVER walk into now. 

I have found that many former homeschoolers (including myself) feel blindsided when they discover that in “the real world,” not everyone has their best interest at heart. Growing up, everyone had my best interest at heart: my parents, friend’s parents (all of whom were homeschool families), Sunday School teachers, pastors (let’s see, who else did I interact with….?)

As a child, this trust in others is healthy. As an adult,  naive trust in others can be disastrous.

After reading my “Homeschoolers Speak Out: the High School Experience,” one reader commented on the issue of homeschoolers making bad decisions, even after a moral upbringing:

“I am saddened by the (seemingly) higher rate of moral failure among our home schooled families (children). Is this because of over-sheltering? I don’t know.”

While I think over-sheltering may be (and often is) an issue, I also think it is also because some (perhaps many?) homeschoolers leave home believing that everyone has their best interest in mind. Many have made bad decisions as a result of naïvety, either in choosing friends, in dating or marriage, on the job, making large purchases, or making other life changing decisions.

Ultimately, socialization is a complicated issue. I do think that it is important for all children to have friends, opportunities for activities, and the ability to interact with both peers and people of all ages (yes, being able to interact with your peers is important!).

However, I believe that true socialization is more than that, including:

  • Developing working peer relationships (with roommates, co-workers, in general social gatherings, dating and marriage)
  • Developing conflict resolution skills with non-family members
  • Being socially aware of self and others
  • Knowing and acting within social “rules” (ex. Knowing when to speak, listen, respond, or just be quiet!)
  • Being able to navigate social situations with confidence
  • And more

I do realize that the above skills are not possessed by everyone, children or adults, homeschooled or not. But it is, of course, the hope and goal of parenting (and homeschooling!) to be able to socially prepare our children for life outside the home.

What do you think? 

If you were homeschooled, do you believe you were prepared socially for “the real world”?

If you homeschool now, what are some concerns you have about the issue of “socialization”?

How do you answer the question, “What about Socialization??”

Please feel free to comment or ask questions below!

*****

To be continued.