Embracing our Differences

Homeschoolers are a diverse lot.  And we’re growing more diverse every day.  Each parent brings to the homeschool classroom a variety of gifts, talents, life experiences, personal qualities, and practical challenges.  And our children, like us, bring a vast array of spiritual, emotional, and academic strengths and weaknesses to the table each morning when we commence our school days.  These factors are at the heart of what makes each family unique and of how we create our homeschooling experience.

As members of this diverse community, we are often very aware of our differences, and yet, not surprisingly, we are unified behind a single purpose.  Within the framework of the greater purpose, we are individually driven by a variety of “secondary” motivations. But, we’re all working toward a single goal—to equip our children to live, serve, and work in the world into which they one day be thrust.

So why do so many of us have such a difficult time accepting the homeschooling approaches and methods others have chosen for their own families?

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post that touched on this issue.  In it, I asked the question Who Am I?, and in response to that question, admitted a bit of insecurity concerning my own homeschool choices.  But I also mounted a defense of the methods that I utilized during my (up to that point) 16 years of homeschooling experience.

Some time ago, as I browsed the homeschool blogosphere, I read a statement that got under my skin.  It was a blanket statement of opinion that drew a line in the sand between traditional and non-traditional homeschoolers.  The statement that first drew my attention was this:

“Many of us tried to reproduce the school atmosphere and teaching methods at home.  There is no need or value in doing that.” (emphasis mine.)

I beg to differ.  I agree that there is not a need to do it that way.  However, I disagree that there is no value in doing it that way.

My daughters are a testament to the intrinsic value of this approach.  I have homeschooled for 18+ years.  If I had to classify myself, I would call myself a “traditional” homeschooler.  We like desks.  We like textbooks and workbooks and other traditional learning methods. We like following (for the most part) a traditional school calendar.  And I can tell you from personal experience that the “school-at-home” approach has great value—for us.

All three girls are now high school graduates.  Each one has transitioned to the “post-homeschool” world with great success.  The approach that we utilized provided a learning environment that built into my daughters the tools that have helped them to thrive in their young adult years—a love of learning, strong study skills, discipline, and academic independence.  Because it’s what I’m most comfortable with, I hope this approach will also work for my 6-year old son, but if it doesn’t, we’ll adjust.  That’s the beauty of homeschooling.

I have purposely not linked directly to the blog I’ve quoted.  My purpose is NOT to criticize its author or to pick a fight with non-traditional homeschoolers.  Their methods have value—for them.  Non-traditional methods are a perfect fit for many families.  But some of those methods just don’t work for me or my children.  And by the same token, most non-traditional homeschoolers would not feel comfortable using the methods that I have utilized.  And that’s okay.

As members of a large and diverse community, we need to embrace the differences and learn to focus on our common goal.  In doing so, we give each other a little bit more freedom to make homeschooling decisions without fear of criticism or judgment.  We need to be careful not to allow our belief and confidence in our own personal preferences scare new homeschoolers away from approaches that might be a perfect fit for them and their children.  A successful and rewarding homeschool experience isn’t likely to be found in any one particular method or approach.  The reward comes from finding out what works best for you!!

Birds of a Homeschooling Feather

The e-mail appeared to be as innocent as any other from the Christian Homeschoolers Around Leavenworth Kansas (CHALK).  It was a reminder for their monthly meeting.  Then I noticed that sentence in the middle of the text.  It was the sentence that said, “You are not welcome here.”  That’s because CHALK “is a homeschool group that meets together once a month for mom's meetings” (emphasis mine).  In an email chain between the leader of the group and a prospective member, it was made clear that men are not welcome: neither husbands nor stay-at-home homeschooling dads.  

In another part of the email, I saw mention of their statement of faith.  There is a statement of faith that the group asks all members to sign.  It isn’t mandatory, but they make it clear that by joining the group you agree to the tenets of the statement.  The statement contains standard Christian concepts quoted directly from scripture, and many Christian groups require members to sign them.  I was once asked to sign a statement of Christian faith by a practicing lesbian who was also a homeschooling group administrator, a concept that I found both ironic and amusing.  No one has ever been able to explain to me how these faith statements fit with James5:12, "Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your "Yes" be yes, and your "No," no, or you will be condemned," or Matthew 5:37, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”  Oddly, no one who ever required me to sign a statement of faith ever asked me whether or not I agreed.  It has always been a case of sign, or leave.

In the Today Show Online article As home-schooling moves to mainstream, stigma fades, a generally fair article about homeschooling, black homeschooler Angela Jenkins searched for other black homeschoolers with whom she could connect.   She “started DFWhomeschoolcafe, a website originally created to connect people of color to home-schooling resources and provide a place for them to share ideas with each other. Her site is one of various sites and support groups for people of color.” The article also listed websites such as the Black Homeschoolers Club, the National Black Home Educators, and Mommy Maestra, “a Latina home-schooling blog.” There are Yahoo! and Google groups, like the CHALK group, for Chinese-Americans, Latinos, Native American, and Muslim homeschoolers.

We read and hear a lot in the media about how politically polarized our nation has become.  I think our nation is segregated far beyond political divisions, and the evidence for that segregation has been staring me in the face for decades.  I grew up in a city that had a Polish community second only to Warsaw in size and population.  There were sections of town that were “Italian,” Czechoslovakian,” and “Black.”  Once in awhile we drove to “Chinatown.”  I am certain that at one time there was a need for birds of a feather to flock together as successive waves of immigration swept across the country.  People tend to be distrustful of change and look for support from a comfortable source: people like themselves.  At the same time, I suspect that the great melting pot doesn’t exist, and it doesn’t exist by choice.  We may be dumping beef and potatoes and carrots into the stew pot, but no matter how often we stir the beef is hanging out in one third of the pot, the potatoes are piled in the another third, and the carrots are bunched together in the last unclaimed section.   

I'm left with more questions than answers.  How can Christian homeschoolers spread the word of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross if they only associate with other Christian homeschoolers?  Is the "evil one" at work in a homeschooling group when they require a signed statement of faith and actively exclude people from participation, or are the members merely treating other people as they wish to be treated?  Why must homeschooling groups be segregated by gender?  Don’t fathers of homeschoolers have something to offer to the homeschooling conversation?   After all, the dialogue does concern their children.  Don’t fathers who stay at home and homeschool need dialogue with other homeschoolers concerning curriculum, lesson plans, resources, and field trips?  What don’t I understand about being Latino or Black or Chinese or female that makes mastering algebraic facts different than it is for male Caucasians?  Why are caucasians excluded from the category "people of color?"  "Caucasian" does not mean "white" any more than "Black" really means "black."  Just look at a cross-section of "people of color" and you'll see a wide variation on the theme of brown.  Frankly, I'm more of a reddish-pinkish hue than I am white, unless you're looking at my naked legs in the dead of winter. Then you might have a point.  Is it possible that homeschooling critics make a valid point about homeschooling when they raise issues concerning homogeny?   Where is the diversity in self-segregated homeschooling communities?  Or, was Thurgood Marshall wrong?  Is separate really equal?  Is separate preferred? Is the call for diversity a sham?