When my daughter was 6 months old (long before she was diagnosed with Autism), I founded a homeschool group in my State. It grew to 250 familes before I had to leave due to needing to do more than I could as a homeschooler. I founded that group on the fact that ALL were to be welcome. We even had homosexual couples in the group. Members were a mix of pagan, christian, jewish, athiest, wiccan. We were so very diverse. My goal was to bring that educational option to the people who were outcast due to the past diversion that happened midstream in homeschooling. Gah, I could go on for hours about it, but, I got hate mail and many harsh things thrown at me. At the same time, I spawned other secular groups to spring up. And for that I will always be proud.
That's really great Pen! I always knew you were a smart cookie
I think homeschooling is a fine thing, for those that are qualified to do it. The problem is that most aren't. We have a frighteningly large percentage of truly stupid people in this country. We need free quality schools that everyone can go to, that teach people to be open minded, rational, critical thinkers. The biggest problem I see with private and home schooling is that it's an option usually chosen by people with a strong bias of one sort or another... religious, racist, anti-government, and so on. A good public school can be an island protected from indoctrination in such things. No kid should grow up in a bubble learning only whatever narrow minded worldview their parents hold. Imagine if places like Bob Jones University were the norm! *shudder* The most important thing people need to learn is tolerance, and that's one thing that won't get learned in private or home schools. Yours was a pretty rare exception.
