Home is where the heart is, not where the school is.

Disclosure: I am a public school teacher. I was, previously, a private school teacher. I have taught kindergartners and I have taught college students. I am also kind of smart, which may or may not be evident from what you read here.

There is a very famous bloggy person whose blog name rhymes with The Flyin’ Ear Flommen who homeschools her children. When Dan and I raised the possibility of writing our opinions about homeschooling, I went there first to see what she had to say about it. Plus, since where The Flyin’ Ear Flommen goes, commenters by the truckload follow. And that’s much easier research than the tedious real kind.

And what I found there supported what my gut told me. And everybody who has already decided that you disagree with me (I’m looking at you Pam D and Nutmeg) take a deep breath and stick with me.

Most of the people who homeschool their kids do it for reasons that have nothing to do with providing the best educations for their kids. In fact, most of the time people choose to homeschool, they are doing so in order to fulfill a need of their own, and not any of their kids needs at all.

If you have a child with a disability so serious that finding a school to meet his/her educational and psychosocial needs is an impossiblity, then homeschooling is a valid option.

If you live so far from the school that your child would spend an unreasonably long time commuting to and from school to the detriment of that child’s physical, emotional health or balance and well-being of the family, homeschooling is a valid option.

If sending your child to a dangerous or substandard public school is the only option for your family because of economic hardship, homeschooling is a valid option – of course this means that an adult is sacrificing work, and therefore earning, time to be home educating the child/children.

Otherwise. Send your kids to school. You don’t like the district you’re in? Move. You can’ t move but you don’t like what or how the curriculum is being taught? Get involved. It is the responsibility of every citizen of this country to support public education. It has always been in the best interest of every American citizen to have a well-educated populace. You don’t like the schools? Think beyond your own kitchen table and consider that one day you might be depending on one of those people attending the school of which you disapprove to fix your car, fill your teeth, or prepare your tax returns. At the risk of getting all hoity toity up in your grill, Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” You don’t like what you see? Change it. And not just for yourself, but for all of us.

Anti-homeschoolers argue that homeschooled children miss out on a ton of valuable socialization. Homeschoolers argue that this is nonsense because their children are exposed to lots of people through the course of the day. Frankly, I think this particular issue is a wash. Six of one.

But. Not everybody can teach. If you’ve ever had a shitty teacher, you KNOW that’s true. Parenthood, and an intimate knowledge of your kid and your kid’s learning style and temperament doesn’t automatically qualify you to teach. Most reasonably intelligent and motivated people could do the research and background work to learn what they need to in order to convey the facts, the data, the processes, the equations, the terminology, the basic skills that teachers convey. But to say that this is all school does is shortsighted and just plain wrong.

School settings create environments in which students can do two things:

1) establish their own identities, as is developmentally appropriate and natural, separate from their parents and families of origin. That separation and subsequent emotional growth is thwarted when the student doesn’t have as many opportunities for self-exploration outside of the family circle.

2) learn how to think, communicate, behave, and relate to people in groups, even and especially when members of a particular group – including, sadly, teachers sometimes – are objectionable, dumb, and not especially nice.

Unless there is a really good reason to keep your children at home, and unless you are willing to devote a huge amount of time to the work of teaching your kids (Most people underestimate how much time and energy teachers spend in preparation and response in a regular education classroom setting with a determined curriculum. Planning an alternative curriculum tailored to a student’s individual needs while still maintaining the state standards is a massive undertaking. You cannot work outside the home and homeschool.) you are doing a disservice to your children and to your community and to all of our futures by homeschooling.

Teaching takes patience, not rocket science.

I will agree with Jane on at least one point in this debate: She IS smart. From what she tells me she always got excellent grades and she sports an Ivy League education that she downplays at every opportunity (including this one, most likely). She’s quick on her feet and can process certain kinds of complex issues really quickly.

But I’m also kind of smart. I’m not sure how our intelligence is relevant to this discussion, but Jane brought it up, so I feel I should make mention of it, too. My IQ has been tested at genius levels. There, I said it in public. However? It should be noted that no quantity of IQ can prevent every stupid decision or bad conclusion. Jane and me included. And now, on with the show.

I don’t homeschool my kids. But when we considered our options, homeschooling was one of the choices on the table. The negatives aren’t nearly as bad as Jane suggests, and there are some impressive positives that even I wasn’t aware of.

But first, I’d like to remove from Jane’s argument the idea that you can get involved and make a difference if your student has a shitty teacher. Jane belongs to the Teacher Mafia, Local 327. Has your child ever had a terrible teacher that’s been a terrible teacher for a decade and they just can’t seem to get rid of her? No level of involvement short of a Chris Hansen style sting is going to get the school to act against a teacher by terminating her. They’re unionized. They’re tenured. Short of getting caught having sex with a student, there’s no way you can make a difference by getting a teacher to improve or be removed.

You totally guessed my next point, didn’t you. Studies show that less than one one-hundreth of a percent of homeschooled kids are ever sexually molested while in their learning environment. Compare that to data from the US Department of Education stating that “nearly 9.6% of students are targets of educator sexual misconduct sometime during their school career.” Thank God the Catholic deaf kids in Milwaukee had to go to special schools, right?

On this next point, I have to concur with Jane. She said “…an intimate knowledge of your kid and your kid’s learning style and temperament doesn’t automatically qualify you to teach.” I don’t know about you, but to me that read a lot like “…being able to start every foot race with a 30-yard head start doesn’t automatically give you the blue ribbon.”

I mean, come on. One-on-one teaching? Intimate knowledge of how the child learns? Unquestionably greater desire and motivation to make sure the child gets the education s/he needs? It’s true – all of that doesn’t mean a parent is qualified to teach. Related: many of those who’d be awesome teachers don’t teach. Also related: teaching is not brain surgery. Only brain surgery is actually brain surgery. I’ve looked through my Facebook. Lots of dumb former classmates are now imparting their halfwit knowledge to our future generations as teachers.

I’ll say this again: I think Jane is not the norm. She IS smart. I know her kids love her. And she kicks teaching ass. And every kid who’s been in her classroom should feel fortunate to have been there. But Jane’s not the norm. She’s not even the Cliffy.

And I’m not going to bombard you with data. But I will hit you with links where you can dig deeper, if you wanna. The gist of the linkage? The success of homeschoolers in national academic contests is enormously disproportionate to their numbers, relative to traditionally schooled children. They’re more than twice as likely to be actively involved in an ongoing community service activity. They’re more likely to attend college. In every objective measure, homeschoolers test higher.

Devising a curriculum from scratch based on the needs of your child IS a big job. So big that no teacher does it. Not even Jane. She does it for an entire class, not one student. And in this beautiful free market society, there are organizations and companies dedicated to helping you, should you want to homeschool your child – and all for a lot less than what you’re paying in taxes for a public school education.

Oddly, Jane poo-pooed what I felt was her strongest argument: homeschooled kids may grow up to be social retards. This is the only facet that I think is inherently dangerous in homeschooling a child. This is the only non-no-brainer for homeschooling. Only with conscientious planning and scheduling of socialization time can a parent be reasonably sure their child will learn to navigate their teenage years. But it can be done.

You want to get involved? Get involved with your local or state government. Help to push an agenda that would allow homeschooled children to have checks cut to them, diverting funding that would have been spent on them in a public school, so their parents can use that $5-6,000 per year on their education. THAT, Dan & Jane readers, is what will spark change. The Big Three auto makers were pretty fat and happy, putting substandard product on the roads, until the Japanese sat down to the table and started eating all their market share. Then there was change aplenty.

Contrary to what Jane says, the only disservice you do in homeschooling your children is not giving your kids the chance to get cyberbullied into suicide or ridden like a dollar pony at the county fair. You’ve got to be smart and conscientious and willing to put in the time, but I have yet to meet a homeschooling parent that doesn’t already realize all of that going into it.

A great big thank you to Pamela Dayton at The Dayton Time for providing me with data and links. Tongueless smooches your way.

Podcast

There was a girl. She liked a girl. She wanted to take that girl to a dance. But the school said no. Kevin Bacon tried to help out, but in this version of the story, John Lithgow was way too powerful, and he cancelled the whole dance.

Here’s what Dan and Jane think about it.

Audio gadget not working? You can download the file here. Just click!

How confident is Dan in his masculinity? Here he is in drag, circa 1985. Spoiler alert: Have a hanky ready. It’s gonna bring you to tears.

Robert Graves Was Onto Something

My son is eight and prefers showers to baths. My daughter is six and takes about a month and a half in the tub, so often showering is more expedient and leaves us time for some other trivialities – like eating meals and occasionally leaving the house. I loved giving my babies baths when they were, well, babies, but now it’s just a pain in the ass, so I’m perfectly happy for them to shower instead. The only hitch in this is that they are both terrible at thoroughly washing and rinsing their hair. My kids have a lot of hair. Well, my son does anyway. Think Troy Polamolu, but blond. And 61 pounds. And without nearly that much hair.

So instead of reaching in and scrubbing heads and getting good and soaked anyway, and because we’re always short on time, a few times a week my husband or I ends up showering with one of the kids. Except for the one time when my son was about 2, pointed to my crotch and said, “Uh oh. It broken,” (thus proving once and for all that men are hardwired to assume that the penis is of central importance and the source of power to be guarded and protected at all costs) neither of them has ever said or done anything to make any of the four of us uncomfortable about our nakedness in the shower. I wasn’t exactly thrilled when my daughter pointed out that I was fatter than her father, but I can’t really blame her for being an observant little shit girl, now can I? Yes. Yes I can. I will hold it against her until she is 17 and on her way out the door to the junior prom and then seek revenge in a way that only a mother can.

I mentioned something like “we were talking while we were in the shower and…” the other day and a friend of mine almost fell off her chair. She was semi-cool enough not to say anything judgmental but was clearly rattled by the thought of my husband showering with his six year old daughter or me showering with my eight year old son. Hmmm…and then I was forced to think about whether this is OK or not. Which I resent, because thinking is hard and makes my head hurt and takes time away from more important activities like trying to decide if I like the edges of brownies better and therefore should buy one of those weird shaped brownie pans or if I like the middle better, especially when it’s a little undercooked and smushy.

I did what any self-respecting parent would do, asked a bunch of women who were drinking margaritas and eating tater tots and wearing bowling shoes what they thought about parents bathing with their non-infant kids. One woman out of the ten said it creeped her out and she’d never done it. Everybody else sort of shrugged and said, “I dunno? Does it seem weird?” And the one whose kids I know the best so I can attest to how normal and cool and fun and smart and well-adjusted they are said that she’d wondered the same thing and asked around, too. The response she got made perfect sense: The kids will let you know when it’s weird.

Sometimes you ask for advice and the advice you get seems sort of kind of OK but doesn’t really fit. This advice clicked into place in a very satisfying way. It felt right and got to why I don’t think it’s a big deal to be naked around my kids. Nudity does not equal sex. Nudity does not even equal sexuality. Assuming the connection of the two on my kids’ behalf is weird. Like all obscenity trials have demonstrated, obscenity or indecency is in the eye of the beholder. And nobody here is beholding anything obscene or indecent. We’re just showering. And showering is something you do naked. And naked is the way we all are under our clothes.

I reckon my kids will develop their own body image and self-concept issues without me adding the burden of making their bodies secret or potentially shameful. In the meantime, at least everybody is clean.

…but Dan thinks…

Poetry to back up nudism? Whatevs. This will be the shortest post I ever make on JYIS. And I won’t even use my own words to make my point. Here’s all you need to know:

Seacrest out.