Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Homeschooling Camelot

In short, there's simply not
a more congenial spot
for happy-ever-aftering
than here in Camelot.

Kate Fridkis writes about going to college after a lifetime of homeschooling. My heart melted over this article. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or shoot HOORAY. One tidbit about "the real world":
For my whole life, people have been telling me that I must not know what the real world is. People always think that home-schoolers live these small lives in a constricted little world. I don’t know how to explain my life to them. I don’t know how to clarify the open-ended world of my childhood, in which the rules made sense and I worked hard because it was fun to be productive. What world is that? It isn’t normal. There are no grades.
Kate also blogs, and I'd love to delve into everything she's written there. Let's just say that the parts I've read really resonate with me! But it probably would mean even more to my kids and some of their homeschooled friends, like the article about not being "for" homeschooling but being it.

I'm not suggesting that homeschooling is a bed of roses. (Well, maybe it is, but that means it comes with some thorns, right?) I'm not suggesting there is a one-size-fits-all decision about where to send your child to school -- or not. I'm not saying that people can live in that lovely World Of Unschooling for decades upon decades.

But for one brief shining moment -- the moments that make up a childhood, the moments that are so influential in how we see ourselves, how we view work, how we view family, how we view our peers -- there can be joy and freedom, there can be learning for the sake of the sheer joy of learning, there can be a life for a child that is lived in the here-and-now and not merely in preparation for the some-day.

It may not be perfect.
But honestly, I really don't think there is a more congenial spot.

3 comments:

  1. Great article. I wasn't home schooled, but I can relate to much of what she wrote, especially "...it was much more important to memorize than to understand." So true.
    Got any more articles? Send them my way. (Alex and I have considered homeschooling since Audrey was a baby, and I've been doing a lot of research lately.)

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  2. I loved the article, and then made the grievous error of beginning to read the comments.

    Foster my curiosity as a child, willya? Now I see internet comments and think, "I shouldn't... but what if someone says something else terrifically insightful?"

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  3. When there's an article online about homeschooling, I try not to let myself read the comments. But y'know, it's the same way with you-tube videos or other online articles. Whenever I read comments, I become frightened about the future of our country and our freedoms: I hate seeing the depth of stupidity, inanity, and profanity out there.

    Paul was accusing Andrew (at supper tonight) of exhibiting "availability heuristic." And that's where I am: I want to hang out with the oddballs I know and consider to be normal. Normal in their ability to THINK. Normal in their ability to express themselves. Normal in their ability to spell. Normal in their ability to listen to both sides of an argument and be polite to those they disagree with. When I read online comments (well, outside my comfort zone of reading friends' blogs) I begin to realize that my happy little circle of oddballs is an anomaly. And I'd rather live in my happy LaLaLand, thankyouverymuch.

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