Oldest Daughter is running a little magazine for our homeschool group and she asked me to contribute an article on bullying. She has given me a deadline-she can be like a proper little editor at times!! LOL!
Now I was vaguely aware that for those parents in the UK who are registered as homeschoolers with their Local Authority the most common reason given for pulling a child out of school was bullying, but I wanted to do a bit of research.
I was interested by what I found as I pottered around the net looking at bullying and homeschooling. There are a few very keypad happy people out there who want homeschooling banned. THEY personally disapprove of the system and said parents who homeschool are 'fundamentalist', 'biased' and children brought up this way would be...wait for it...intolerant of others. There was some mockery over a home educated child reintroduced to mainstream education who found a lesbian couple's rather unpleasant behaviour difficult to handle.
I know a lot of homeschoolers. I can assure these dictatorial people that most of the children I know who are homeschooled are very well socialised thank you. Research from the USA and Durham Uni here in the UK would suggest that on average homeschooled children are better socialised than school children.
When it comes to 'tolerance' I have to say that while there seems to be a lot of people out there ready and willing to BAN homeschooling and force parents to send their children to school no matter how damaging that might be to the child; I have yet to meet a homeschool parent or child demanding that schools be banned, no matter how bad those schools might be.
So, I just have to wonder, who the intolerant ones are.
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I've just had this conversation with the husband of a friend, when he found out my son was homeschooled. "What made you do that" (sound of almost horror in his voice!) My little lad is sitting at the dinner table, so I can't go into great detail about what I think of schools, and what they're shoving down children's throats these days, but, I give one or two "positive" reasons for home educating, having met other h/s children who've turned out really well, etc etc. Then he rounds on me and says "Don't you think that's a bit judgemental". (I hadn't said anything bad about any schools at all). I didn't want to get too irate, so I just said, "yes, I suppose it is judgemental, we all have to make judgements about what we think is right or wrong for our children". Fortunately, he let the matter drop, but I felt rather annoyed that someone (who obviously knows nothing about h/s, felt he had the right to put me on the spot, in front of my child, whilst we were guests in his house!!There's nothing more narrowminded & judgemental than a liberal, they just can't see it though!
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