Writing on Suite 101, Lisa Russel explores the question, Is Homeschooling the Gateway to an Anti Establishment Population?
Some Homeschool families have little trust for government schools and corporate propaganda. Is this a bad thing? Are homeschoolers raising anarchists or whistle-blowers?
In a culture that values faith-in-leadership and subservience to authority, homeschooling as a social issue tends to ruffle feathers. The ongoing debate of “who owns these children” raises moral, ethical and spiritual questions that no one seems to have the answer to.
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Where so many families and individuals are being trained to set aside their own needs for the good of the country, to set aside their inner desire to jump around and play for the good of the class, or to set aside the needs of their bodies, for the good of the school, homeschoolers may just provide the balance that a healthy nation needs.
I came back to this article for a second time and still find this piece a bit off. While I agree with the bottom line, “homeschoolers may just provide the balance that a healthy nation needs,” and think her point on corporate power in education is not discussed enough, but the Parental Rights amendment and German homeschooler affair seem off tone for her argument. If our form of government isn’t continually balanced and refreshed by its social movements we end up with nothing more than hollow and corrupt set rules.
Read the piece here.
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What do you mean by “off tone?” It sounded like she was listing the German homeschooling thing as a way of showing that there’s too much gov corruption- an argument that the parental rights people seem to agree with. I haven’t read the parental rights amendment info, though. Is it contrary to this? And yes- corporate influence in education is really not discussed enough.
The shortest response is that I believe homeschooling does offer a ‘bottom up’ balance to big government and centralization of power. The examples used in this piece are ‘off tone’ because they refer to HSLDA’s activism, which has always displayed a ‘top down’ approach. A reading list can be found a the bottom of this post.
Thanks for writing.
OK, I see. There is a difference, thanks for responding.