Busy Bodies

Here is another excellent post by Purva Brown the Classical Unschooler.  She is addressing so-called "free range children" and the busy bodies who seek to destroy their families using the state. Mrs. Brown shared a quote from C.S. Lewis in her article and I'm going to share it here because it is just so good:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

New Favorite Blogger

Purva Brown at The Classical Unschooler is officially my favorite blogger. I enjoy reading many things written by men, but I don't get the connection with them that I can with a woman/fellow mom like Brown. Since the birth of my first child (over 27 years ago) I have been very deliberate about training them and educating them. I have a purpose behind my choices, I have put hundreds of hours of thought and research into how to go about guiding them through childhood. When I read her words, I feel a kinship that I don't get with most women.

The way she uses words, the way she explains her point, the just-plain-sensibleness of what she says all appeal to me.

And then there is this:

If wishes were curses, about 80% of the internet would be writhing in pain and flames on my living room floor. Sigh. One can hope.

What is there not to like in that?!?!

I wish her much success in her blogging endeavors and I hope that many, many, many moms are inspired, encouraged and enlightened by her posts.

I've Never Considered Any Other Way of Educating My Children

Sometimes I come across a blog post or magazine article that really moves me. One that seems to have reached into the recesses of my brain and extracted my very thoughts. This is one of those blog posts. I offer no disclaimers such as, "I don't agree with everything she says, but..." I agree with all of it. This is fabulous stuff, in my opinion. Enjoy.

What I've always Wanted to Say About Homeschooling (But Was Afraid To) by The Classical Unschooler

Identity Abuse? Are You Serious?

There is a young woman in Texas who has rebelled against her parents and left her family against their wishes. I'm not sure exactly what her plans were, other than what she says in the video, that she wants to travel, get an education and get a job. I will let her speak for herself here, then I will provide my opinion on this issue.

This video has, not surprisingly, resulted in a bunch of other rebellious home schooled adults to jump in and shout, "Me, too! Me, too!" and "Her parents just want to control her" and "This is identity abuse!". The young woman herself barely mentions her parents except to say they refuse to help her. They have denied this. I don't know who is telling the truth. My bias is with the parents, because the girl has shown herself to be a deceiver. She conspired with her grandparents to leave her parents' home, purposefully concealing her plans from her parents. Both of her parents have dedicated their lives to raising their children in a way the parents deemed to be proper and that is their right. They have wronged no one.

Also asserted in the video is that she has no medical records and no education records. While her grandparents may have convinced her that this is terrible, I have to say that those are not the sort of records that I have ever been asked to present. Not even when I joined the Army. As a parent of home educated adults, I also know that it is possible -- and not even difficult -- to apply for college admission without a certificate of graduation from high school. Colleges know that most home schoolers don't have them and permit alternative ways to demonstrate readiness for college, such as college entrance exams. 

As to the assertion by some, such as the proprietor of Home Schoolers Annonymous, that her parents have committed the unforgivable crime of  "identity abuse" I say, stop trying to turn every thing you don't like into some sort of crime. Parents have no duty to their children to make sure that the children will be able to comply with every totalitarian government requirement.

What really bothers me about his whole scenario is that I don't hear anyone saying how ridiculous and tyrannical it is that in the "land of the free" a person can't get government permission to drive a car on a public roadway unless the person has fully registered themselves and received the proper government identification number. How is that rationally related to driving? How is the Social Security Act of 1935 related to getting in a car and making it go in an orderly and safe manner?  When did we become such sheep that obtaining employment doing the most menial of tasks is prohibited without your papers?  What interests do colleges have in knowing a person's federal tax identification number? Hint: follow the money. Note also that such identification is NOT required to run for office or to the hold the office of President of the United States.

So this young woman wants to submit herself to the tyranny and get all the proper paperwork. She now needs to provide sufficient proof to a judge as to the circumstances of her birth. He won't accept her sworn affidavit or the affidavits of her grandparents? Their sworn statements would be sufficient in a court to send a man to the electric chair in Texas, but their combined testimonies can't be trusted when they say that they would like to register her birth as having happened on a certain date, at a certain place and to certain parents, who are citizens of the United States?

I have given birth at home several times. I have registered births in two states and in both states I filled out and signed the form. I promised that I was telling the truth and that was enough. In a few weeks, I would receive a copy of the birth certificate in the mail. (After paying the fee and requesting the copy. The copy doesn't come automatically on the basis of registering the birth.) No one ever came to my house to verify if a baby had, in fact, been born. Because we didn't hire a midwife, I believe I also had to provide an affidavit of a person who had seen me pregnant and then saw the baby after its birth and was aware of the date and location of the birth. This information could just as easily be provided the day after the birth as it could 18 years later. The information is no more trustworthy or less trustworthy just because a few years went by. We aren't asking if someone remembers seeing a bear cross the road, we are talking about if they remember the birth of a person who is alive and standing there right now! In one state, there was a box I could check on the form if I wanted the State to register the birth with the Social Security Administration for me. I did NOT check the box, and yet, a few weeks later, her Social Security Card arrived in the mail. She received the mark of the beast, whether she wanted to or not.  That's why we practice paedobaptism. (Not really, that was joke, folks.)

Wouldn't it be great if we had some sort of uprising where masses of people sued their states to able to exercise their right to drive a car without possessing a federal identification number? Since when did moving around on public roads become a privilege granted only when the proper obiesence has been paid? Instead of petitioning a judge to be permitted to register her birth, she should be petitioning to be able to drive without having to a show a document which proves nothing other than her parents filed some paperwork 18 years ago.

There is identity abuse going on this country. And it is being perpetuated by the government, not parents.

Advice From a Seasoned Home Schooling Mother

I have always disliked the term "home school" because it contains the word "school". We do not now, nor have we ever, attempted to set up a school in our home. We don't attempt to school our children. For the past 24 years we have been educating them. It isn't semantics, educating and schooling are not the same thing. I used "home schooling mother" in my title because people understand that I mean my children don't attend school. They are educated at home.

Looking back at over two decades of educating my own children, it is almost difficult for me to remember those first days. Education at home is now as natural and normal for us as indoor plumbing. We have long ago ceased to marvel that we are doing something so amazing and novel. But I do remember some things about getting started. I remember my commitment. I was never the type to say, "We'll try this for a year and if it doesn't work out, we'll do something else with the children." No, I was committed to at least a complete high-school level education right at home. I also remember that I sought out the wisdom of those I respected who were already doing it. That was definitely something I did right. Support was something I thought I needed, so I sought it out and found it.

During a recent visit with a friend from back in the day, when we were both starting out in home education and our oldest children were very young, I expressed my reasons for no longer being involved in a home school support group. The group of which the two of us (my friend and I) had been a part was specifically formed as a support group for the parents. It offered little or nothing in the way of activities for the children. We met once per month at a church building that had a gymnasium and the children were permitted to play, supervised, while the adults (primarily mothers) met to discuss challenges, compare curricula and encourage one another. Once per year we held a meeting in the evening so that working fathers could attend the meetings. But all of the current home school groups I know of are all about the children. They either have co-op classes or offer enrichment activities or are geared toward providing opportunities for the children to socialize with other children. This last goal is directly opposed to some of my reasons for not sending my children to school. The parents tend to have everything under control. They get advice from the internet and curricula from the internet. They look at me like a strange dinosaur rather than a resource. These women have nothing to offer me and they don't feel I have anything to offer them. So I don't waste our family's time or resources to cavort with other home schoolers just to say that we do it. If something isn't contributing to our goals as a family, we probably don't have time for it.

My solipsism, however, continues to tell me that I must have something to offer on the basis of all of my experience as a home educator. So I will give my unsolicited advice. My target audience is the parent who isn't already surrounded by experienced home educators and still has those nagging fears and unanswered questions about whether or not they should keep their children at home. I offer this as encouragement as much as advice.

1. You can't ruin your child in a year.  This is sort of a motto with me. No matter how badly you mess up the first year of home education, your child will NOT be ruined. It is likely that your child will not be harmed in the slightest. You don't have to commit for life, like I did, you can just say to yourself, "We will try this for one year, and then at the end of that year, we will evaluate what happened and where we want to go from there." Even if your child doesn't finish a single lesson in math, or doesn't advance one bit in reading, it doesn't mean that all of you haven't learned things. There is nothing that a child is supposed to learn at age 5 that can't also be learned at age 6 instead. There are no rules for when things need to be taught. Children are resilient. It will be o.k.  This is even more true of older children, even high school aged children, because they are even more capable of making up lost time. We all know people that have graduated from high school a year early by simply doubling up on classes. It can be done.

2. Focus on character building first and academics second.  If your children are not obedient, if you don't like your children, if you can't even get them to take out the garbage or feed the dog, don't even think about trying to force them to do school work. You will be setting yourself up for serious conflict. It is hard enough when you have a great relationship with a joyfully obedient child to always get through a difficult math lesson without tears. Not having well-behaved children is NOT a reason to avoid home education, but rather a sign that you need it more than ever. If you don't know how to go about training your children in righteousness, seek help. There are some great resources out there, including books. And don't be afraid to get tips from older folks in your church who have adult children you think have turned out well. Despite being controversial, I don't think there is a better book for restoring order in the home than Michael and Debi Pearl's To Train Up A Child. If you don't enjoy the company of your children, it is your fault. If you don't enjoy them, then probably no one else does either and you aren't doing your job. You owe it to them, and yourself, to rectify the situation. The home should be a place where family members live together in harmony. Make that happen first, then turn your attention to book learnin'. A special note here about starting home education with children who are older, you might need an entire year just to get used to living that way. You may need time to get to know one another, to create chore schedules and organize the home so that it functions well having lots of people in it all day long, every day. Don't be afraid to take as much time as it takes to deal with this first.

3. Develop your own home educating philosophy and set goals in line with that philosophy.  Families choose home education for many different reasons. Don't pattern your home education after a family that has different goals. There are many styles and flavors of programs, curricula, methods, and you want to find one that matches the way you think and believe. This means that you will have to do a little bit of research. What is classical learning? What is unschooling? What is the Charlotte Mason method? What are unit studies? Do we want to accelerate their education? Do I want to teach all of my children together or have separate products and programs for all of them? Do we want them to be prepared to go off to college, or do we have other ideas for what they will do after high school? In the alternative, you can just purchase a packaged curriculum or some workbooks, or just go light on academics the first year while you form you own philosophies and goals.In any case, don't be surprised if whatever you choose to do the first year is not what you choose to do in subsequent years. It happens to all of us.

If you take my advice, at the very least you should end your first year of home education saying, "That was fun. That was exciting. We learned a lot."