To date, we’ve recorded almost 800 episodes of the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. In that time, we’ve seen a few often-recurring themes discussed. Without a doubt, “freedom” is at the top of the list. Homeschooling brings and expands FREEDOM for families. We are free to teach to our children’s strengths and passions. We are free to teach the subjects we want, from the books we want to use, at the times we want, wherever we want. Most importantly, we are free to teach our children the TRUTH according to God’s Word. Homeschooling and freedom go hand in hand.
That fact is TERRIFYING to many.
Some form of the question “what about parents who can’t or won’t school at all?” – an abuse of that freedom – is probably the third most common objection raised by opponents of homeschooling. While “what about socialization?” and “you’re not a certified teacher!” are still in the lead, just about every true homeschool opponent will argue that homeschool families are likely to take advantage of their freedom and neglect to teach their children at all – or at least up to the “standards” of the public schools.
We recently published a special in-depth look at the “school choice” issue, Strings Attached: The True Cost of School Choice, and it’s generated a lot of attention. In the last month, it’s had over well over 5,000 views on YouTube alone, and it has dozens of comments (not all of them positive!).
While I know that many of these negative comments come from trolls and ne’er-do-wells who just want to undermine homeschooling (or are just bored and spiteful), sometimes these questions are genuine, and many times they offer a great opportunity to make a well-reasoned and winsome apologetic for homeschooling (and Biblical parenting principles), that will be seen by many more people than just the person asking the question.
Here was one comment on the video: “What can you do about parents who can’t or won’t school at all? That is a hugh quandry [sic].”
Ignoring the irony of the misspellings in the question, neglect is a serious issue worthy of an answer.
Thankfully, actual neglect is a very rare exception in homeschooling, and there are already laws in place in every state to deal with neglect and abuse. Here are the facts.
1) Actual rates of abuse and neglect are many times higher among public schooled students than among homeschoolers. In fact, a shocking amount of abuse happens at schools.
– https://www.nheri.org/homeschool-abuse-and-neglect-research/
So, if abuse or neglect (even educational neglect) were cause to oppose a movement, then public schools are the biggest offenders and should be opposed vehemently.
The truth is, there are a some really bad parents in the world and far too many children are abused and neglected. However, statistically the parents who are abusive and neglectful aren’t the ones volunteering for more one-on-one time with their children, so the actual numbers of abused and neglected kids are much higher in public schools, where parents can essentially offload their parenting duties to the schools. Actual cases of parents using the excuse of “homeschooling” to keep their kids home to abuse or neglect them are very rare.
2) Despite decades of worry about “parents just not schooling their kids,” homeschooled students massively outperform their public and privately schooled counterparts on academic, social, college readiness/performance, and career performance standards.
– https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/
Additionally, homeschooled children are much more likely to follow in their parent’s faith when they graduate. This fact is terrifying to many progressives, which is ironic, because they don’t understand that ALL education is discipleship, and if they were really committed to THEIR religious worldview (usually some flavor of Marxism or Atheism – both completely religious, in spite of the constant denial) they would recognize that homeschooling is the very best way to transmit it to their children. Thankfully, these parents can trust that the schools (that originally formed their religious worldview) are doing a great job passing it on to their children.
– https://www.nheri.org/Gen2SurveyASpiritualandEducationalSurveyonChristianMillennials.pdf
3) While I am not an advocate of the unschooling movement, there are now a few decades of statistics that show that kids who grow up in very unstructured academic environments still fare very well in the real world. Consequentially, it should be understood that most of the “schooling” that goes on in school is unnecessary and counterproductive, and much of it is designed to achieve social, rather than academic, outcomes.
To clarify, I believe that unschooling, as a movement, is misguided, because children need the guidance of their parents. The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” God has much to say about a parent’s responsibility to actively train the minds, hearts, and souls of their children. To ignore this clear instruction is foolish and sinful.
That said, we have seen the fruit of very “unstructured” homeschooling in the lives of dozens of families and have yet to come across a child or parent that regrets taking a relaxed approach to homeschooling. There are terms like “delight-oriented” homeschooling and our favorite, “lifeschooling,” to describe what many families are doing as a direct response to the terrible results they see in the “traditional” education system.
What is critical to understand is that the parents who are “lifeschooling” their kids, for the most part, are SUPER ENGAGED. These are parents who have not only made the very big decision to keep their kids home from school, but they’ve also had the courage to completely re-examine the education paradigm and do something, that in all but a few small social circles, is widely misunderstood and criticized. Many of these families dive deep into Bible and literature, sports, the arts, homesteading, robotics, speech and debate, spelling bees, and the other varied subjects and pursuits that their kids show an aptitude in. They allow their children the time and attention to pursue what they love, and in turn they are creating a generation of MASTERS at their chosen crafts.
So in conclusion, what do we do about the “parents who can’t or won’t school at all?” We let the results speak for themselves.
Boy in Trees Photo by Victor Chaidez on Unsplash
Boy and Girl on road Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Boy Crying Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
You must be logged in to post a comment.