Day 15: Then why home school? Secular Thursday

First, I will admit that I'm using my blogging obligations to procrastinate from the cleaning obligations around the house. Hopefully I will only allow myself a temporary distraction. :)




Around the web and around real life, I've found that it is hard for people to conceptualize a reason for homeschooling that is not for religious practices. The school is going to teach what I'm going to teach, right? So why not take advantage of the system that my taxes are paying for? You’re wasting your money and time better spent on your own pursuits. You can work and go on lunch dates with your best friend and be free to watch torrid romantic comedies during the day. Why on earth would you want to do exactly what the public schools are doing? If not for religious reasons, what else could there be?



I'm even going to go a step further and peer into the future and see the dimension where my son goes through the entire public school system and comes out of it okay. At least, no worse than the average student in the United States. Why would I want to home school?



Secular homeschoolers have a harder time proving why their reasoning is acceptable -even a few of those in the community have a hard time justifying their reasonings and, myself included, will latch on to other issues such as bullying, special needs such as learning disabilities or illness, and even curriculum as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back to justify the reasoning of not being part of the herd. Being a secular homeschooler puts you open to scrutiny because faith, even for the faithless, is infallible. You cannot argue belief in a God anymore than you can argue the belief in love. Mr Franklin said it best, "...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." So why would someone, who could as easily as they could home school, go and fight for the qualities they wish the school system to have? Sure, they could, but even if we did, concessions would be made and averages would be instilled and even if there was an improvement, the glaring mediocrity in that new public school system would tarnish even the most humble of educational requirements we have for our children.



So, I home school because I feel it is best. I see it as the best and I have faith that it will do the best. I don't need to align myself with a reason, a cause or a condition to persuade beyond the purpose of what I feel. If I must, I will liken it to a calling to God -that I believe that I can provide a better education for my son. Let the demonic public education cronies strike me down if this is false because I will not make my son a martyr to prove he deserves better.

Day 2: Forecast- cloudy.

I'm not sure what I was expecting by coming out to the world that I had this wonderful idea of homeschooling. I want to find something to equate it to, however, I don't see this as life-changing as much as life altering. My best parallel is what the LGBT community uses with coming out of the closet and I wonder if they too had the realization that once their little secret was known that it wouldn't be the balmy, sunshine-filled day they would hoped it would be.

I think, sometimes, that people mistake my optimism for insanity. Yes, I have hopes for the human race and that one day we will all live in peace and harmony with each other. Our abilities as a species and the unofficial stewards of this world will one day benefit the universe. Okay, maybe it's a little insane but that doesn't mean that I'm without skeptism or reality. I want my hope to transcend reality, but realize that it may never come around in my lifetime or ever.

I don't know why I hoped people to easily brought on board with the ideas I have about my sons education, but I wanted to believe that my explanations and reasonings for why I want to give this a try would suffice even the hardest skeptic. I want the best for my son. What more of a reason could there be to try something out?

The sad thing that I've found is that already I have had to polarize myself, where I have to defend not only my conception but the marriage of that to my convictions. Marriage is a heavy word and it takes commitment that I'm not sure I'm ready for, but is that a reason to give up on an idea? Is it so, that an interlude of imagination and inspiration cannot be expressed without the dedication of a composed thought? Not every thing is bright in this world but we don't know unless we discover it!

So, in some senses sadly, I've had to galvanize and make this blanketed statement: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FAMILY'S BUSINESS. I don't tell you what is wrong with you or with yours, I've got enough respect for you know that you're going to weather the storms and come out of it okay, can you give me the same? I am not going to mess up your friend, your grandchild, your child's friend, your nephew, your future 'whoever' by seeing if a different way of learning would suit him better. Did you ever stop to ask what he may want out of his education? I did, and I'm glad to predict a sunny day.