“You Don’t Go To School?”
GWS always reached out to children to write articles and the “Challenges and Concerns” section in this issue contained this interesting, somewhat cheeky, letter from a young homeschooler. Sadly, all these years later, many young unschoolers still get quizzed by adults as this writer describes. It shows how including school-age children in our daily adult lives is still considered a weird thing to do in modern society, even though compulsory schooling has only been around 200 or so years and children and adults have thrived, lived, and learned together for centuries before compulsory schooling existed. To me, this letter highlights how we’ve made schooling more important than social, communal connections because we think children won’t learn anything worthwhile unless it is taught to them in school.
An Open Letter To Inquiring Adults (Originally printed in GWS 69)
Anneke Chodan (NY) writes:
It seems like hardly a day goes by without someone asking me, “and where do YOU go to school, child?: At first, when asked, I’d say, “you tell them, Mom”. Now, I just answer with some variation of, “My parents teach me at home. The reaction is almost always eyebrows shooting up and the question, “You mean you don’t go to school? ’’ “No,” I respond, “l don’t.” Then, almost invariably, the interrogation follows. “Is that legal?” “Are your parents teachers?” “Do you have any friends?” and on and on. It’s come to the point where I feel like saying, “It’s really none of your business.” I don’t say that, of course.
How I would love to be able to write a letter that would be seen by everyone in this country, if not seen and understood by the entire world, that would explain about homeschooling and put these silly questions to rest, it would be something like:
Dear Everyone,
Being homeschooled for a fourth year, I have heard every common question and comment about homeschoolers. While I am sure you mean no harm, I am starting to feel like a broken record. Perhaps all your questions will be answered in this letter. Maybe, as well, the comments about homeschooling and homeschoolers will stop because of this letter. I sincerely hope so.
Many families, such as our own, homeschool because they believe that stupidity is in either individual schools or the entire system. For example, while I was still in school, there was a teacher who sent home a notice with mistakes in it that my mother would never have let me get away with even when I was in second grade, that teacher was the one that I would have had for third grade. Several other similar things had happened and my parents just decided that they had had enough. After that school year, I was taught at home.
Homeschooling parents are not sheltering their children from the so-called “real world.” After all, what is the real world? Certainly not being cooped up in a room with twenty-five other kids your age for about six hours, having to wear the most up-to-date clothes, people not speaking to you because you don’t have a Cabbage Patch doll, writing in math workbooks, or everyone using the same handwriting style. These are all part of school, and while there is nothing truly wrong with anything I have just mentioned, they do little or nothing to prepare kids for the real world.
Another group of people that I wouldn’t mind seeing less of are those of you who say something that boils down to, “Your parents will get in trouble for this” or “That’s impossible, you HAVE to go to school.” These comments are foolish and I am tired of them. Nevertheless, I have to keep explaining that no, it is not against the law. In fact, it’s not only legal, but surprisingly common. There are several local support groups of homeschoolers, each containing many members. In addition, there are some who, like my family, just stick it out without being part of any group at all.
On this subject, children do not need school to live or to be successful adults. An education, yes. School, certainly not in fact, some of the school ‘education’ is totally worthless. Furthermore, I have seen that many children “educated” by schools are quarrelsome or snobbish.
The last of the annoyances to homeschoolers, also the most common, is the well-meaning people who ask, “But, what about the socialization aspect?” or “Who will take her to dances and parties?” This is irritating for four reasons. The first is the fact that the law never said that children must be taught reading, writing, and socialization. The second is nobody will die from not going to every local social event. The third is that half of the socialization in school is either negative or the foolish sort of thing that I mentioned earlier in this letter. The last is that there are many people in the schools who have less of a social life than I do and are never questioned. Why? Because, of course, they’re in school.
Yours Truly,
Anneke Chodan
