Homeschooling almost as bad as public schooling

To keep up to date on recent activities by homeschoolers and unschoolers, I'm a member of several lists on the subjects. But the homeschool lists are virtually worthless, outside of a few suggestions on good museums to visit or somesuch. The parents themselves are awash in the "schooling" mentality and have essentially nothing worthy to offer on the parenting of children.

The homeschooler parents continually complain about "problem" kids and "rebel" children. One "respected" homeschooling mom recently penned a long article on how to handle such children (evidently not understanding that ALL children are rebels when their lives are dictated to them).

The article outlined in great detail the manipulation (er, "handling"), giving extensive guidelines under the following titles: "intervention," "distractions," "breaking the procrastination cycle," "bad habits," "the reward in raising a rebel," "recognizing the triggers of rebellion," "making a disciple," etc.

At one point this concentration-camp guard, er "homeschooling mom," gives the following "helpful hint": "When your rebel is young, give your rebel the least amount of choices possible. Making choices can frustrate him and you. You make the choices for him."
 This, my friends, is the nadir of parenting, the low point, the abysmal mindset of the schooling mentality, the skeptic of children's hegemony and rationality, the hater of all things good, the lover of ruling instead of rational rules of conduct that we all must abide by.

The very thing that enriches life, choices, is the very thing that this homeschooling "expert" wishes to deprive her children and other children of. She makes clear that homeschooling is different from public schooling only in the identity of the concentration-camp guard: parent or strangers.

If this woman and the other millions of schooling parents around the world would be honest about the "rebellion" and the efficacy of their children, they would see that the real solution is wrapped up in one polysyllabic word: unschooling.

Unschooling is the honoring of freedom and self-determination. It is the honoring of the child's choices in life. It is the recognition that our children are their own sovereigns, that what they make of themselves and their lives is on their lively shoulders.

To find excuses to send one's kid to any school or to homeschool means that you don't truly honor your child and his/her happiness. Whether it is convenience or an immoral conviction doesn't matter.

The only true honoring of another life, their lives, is to let them be free to explore this wondrous world at their leisure and initiative.

Then sit back, my friends, and watch a flower blossom into colors you could never have dreamed of. Watch the blossoming of an individual, not a rebel.