| When I think about it, I know almost no one | | | | them lead productive adult lives, that |
| of my generation who doesn't have a story | | | | homeschooling is perhaps not as odd as it |
| about a school trauma with a teacher or other | | | | seems to some.I am putting the question of |
| students that affected their self-image for | | | | academic achievement entirely aside, and |
| at least a period of their youth, if not | | | | thinking only about the personal and social |
| beyond. I've come to the conclusion that | | | | skills a young person needs to create a |
| this is mostly because schools, especially | | | | worthwhile adulthood. If homeschooling |
| middle schools and high schools, become their | | | | parents, while providing a quality education |
| own mini-societies, however unnatural a | | | | at home, arrange and allow for opportunities |
| society made of up people of all one age and | | | | for their child to meet and interact with |
| maturity level is in comparison to the | | | | other children and adults of different ages, |
| so-called "real world". Thus, the culture of | | | | backgrounds, and interests, that child would, |
| the peer group and the school becomes the | | | | to my mind, have a much greater advantage in |
| "real world" almost completely to a middle | | | | his adulthood than someone who has spent |
| schooler or a high schooler. Just at the age | | | | almost all day, every day, until age 18 with |
| when they are supposed to separating to a | | | | others with not much more, and maybe far |
| degree from their families and realizing | | | | less, wisdom.Of course, there will always be |
| their own individuality, they are thrust into | | | | parents whose children are much better off in |
| a daily world where some of the most shallow | | | | school, in almost any school, than being home |
| "values" are used to judge them and, | | | | with their parents, if the parents have |
| inevitably, many come to judge themselves | | | | alcohol, drug, mental, or emotional problems. |
| negatively accordingly.Parents who homeschool | | | | But, for many others, it might be worth |
| and don't offer up their children to the | | | | giving some thought to the advantages of |
| prevailing culture of pre-adolescence and | | | | giving their child the time, the space, and |
| adolescence are often though to be | | | | the autonomy to develop into their own unique |
| over-protective and trying to shelter their | | | | self, without the warping pressure of modern |
| children from "reality". However, I contend | | | | adolescent culture.Linda Popolano is a |
| that since adolescent school culture only | | | | homeschooling parent and an Independent |
| lasts for a few years and then thrusts young | | | | Consultant for BRIGHT MINDS, which produces |
| people who have been almost wholly | | | | products which help all children, from the |
| pre-occupied by ideas and issues which will | | | | very youngest through high school, learn to |
| have virtually no future value in helping | | | | think critically. |