A recent follower of Not Another Wave requested an article about homeschooling and feminism and well, aren’t you in luck? I was homeschooled for ten years and I happen to be a feminist. I should perhaps caveat this article by stating that I don’t usually discuss my homeschooling history with many people anymore. People tend to have very firm opinions on the subject, and out of all the topics to pick a fight with me about, home schooling hits my buttons. I got into too many fights about it, so I stopped telling people; this is the first time for me to publish my views on the subject in the volatile sphere of the Internet.
Homeschooling,
by it’s nature, is a unique educational experience, every child who was a part
of it probably had a very different experience in how they were taught and how
they think about it now; to that end, this article will be more of a personal
history about my experience with it and how that experience ties into my
feminist values now.
To start, let’s
cover the basics, three weeks into first grade my mother pulled me out of
public school; I have a September birthday, so I’m always the youngest in my
year and apparently, I was just too young for school, I was having difficulty
sleeping and was obviously just not the happy kid I had been before. Now this
was twenty years ago and homeschooling was still considered a very off-kilter
thing to do; my mother fought against a lot of people in order to homeschool
us, many believed she would forever disable to her children by not allowing
them access to stable education and good socialization (nice, huh?).
So, from the
time I was six years old until the end of my sophomore year of high school, I
was homescshooled through a charter school known as Horizons (here’s a link to
explain exactly what a charter school is). During the early years, we had small
group classes in a variety of subjects with other homeschool children, once I
reached high school age I started to attend larger group classes a few days a
week. When I was fifteen I finished my high school credits and began attending
a local community college; two years later I moved on to Brigham Young University
and received a BA in Humanities and an MA in English literature.
Now, remember,
during this time homeschool was a fledgling idea and the resources for homeschoolers
were very slight—my mother can legitimately be considered a pioneer in the
homeschooling movement in California. She helped to build up the charter we
were associated with, also being a prominent voice in campaigning for parents’
rights in the state of California.
In many ways
this article is more about my mother than anything else, since any consideration
of my time spent homeschooling must feature the woman who implemented the
lifestyle in my house, a lifestyle which would completely define my ideology in
many ways. And while my mother would not use the term “feminist” to describe
herself (mostly because of the negative associations that the word has) to me
she is a brilliant example of feminism. My mother is without a doubt, the most
independent and competent person I have ever met. She fiercely believes in
social activism and responsibility for our political actions, hence, in
California, state senators know her, California state laws have been the
recipients of her input, and large insurance companies fear her.
I grew up
marching on the state capital, going to protests, and watching my mother
campaign for the things that she believed were important, whether it be to
maintain our community garden, or fighting against the power-hungry
machinations of one anti-homeschooling California Superintendent of Education
(more on that story later).
My mother’s
motto? “Never take no for an answer” and they were words she lived by. This
leads me into the one of the first values my mother taught me: anti-authority.
It didn’t matter the position of the person telling her “no”, if she believed
that her cause was right, she would do everything in her power to accomplish
that; my mother would never do something just because someone told her to.
Many years ago, Delain Eastin, the California Superintendent of Education, believed that
homeschooling should be illegal and called homeschooling parents, “Out of
control parents.” Big mistake. As it should be, my mother was livid, because
what does “out of control” mean? Someone you can’t control.
Feminism has
always been about stepping beyond the bounds of patriarchal control: control
over women’s bodies, women’s choices, women’s education, women’s sexuality. The
few who believe themselves to be gifted with the superiority to be in change
often have the intention of superimposing their own beliefs upon the public,
seemingly believing that the ability to raise a lot of money and pander to lobbyists
as being a sign of their divine destiny to lead and “control” their
constituents. Not in my home. And my mother taught me that.
Along with the
anti-authority background came the importance of not following the crowd, the value
of our unique identity, personal experience and beliefs was constantly reiterated,
and my mother was proud of our non-conformist lifestyle. Case in point, do you
remember the Power Rangers? During this period, Power Rangers were the thing,
the thing that you had to watch. My mother, not wanting us to be like everyone
else, believed we should only watch the show if it was something that we really
liked, not just because everyone else was watching it.
Homeschooling
often receives a bad rap as producing awkward or badly socialized children. To
me, this is an offensive lie that pisses me off (hence all the fighting about
homeschooling in my early years).
While there are PLENTY of seemingly awkward people who were homeschooled
at some point in their childhood, you cannot tell me that there were not seemingly
awkward people at your public school. Some people are just a little bit outside
of social norms, who cares? And making broad generalizations that incorrectly
characterize the way that they were brought up, is not only rude, it’s ignorant.
Today, there are
hundreds of studies regarding the socialization of homeschool students versus
traditionally schooled students (look here for a great bibliography). One of my
favorite studies, completed by Larry Shyers, Ph.D (Comparison of Social Adjustment Between Home and Traditionally
Schooled Students)
states that homeschooled children actually have significantly less behavioral
problems which stems from their more varied socialization with adults and
children of other ages, rather than just with the children of their same age.
RANT: (In response to my confession of being homeschooled as a child, countless people have said to me, "You're very normal for a homeschooler." They say this with the nicest of intentions but it is one of the rudest, most condescending things that people can say. As if they are the authority on childhood socialization and as if they have a RIGHT to patronizingly pass off on my life and behavior.)
RANT: (In response to my confession of being homeschooled as a child, countless people have said to me, "You're very normal for a homeschooler." They say this with the nicest of intentions but it is one of the rudest, most condescending things that people can say. As if they are the authority on childhood socialization and as if they have a RIGHT to patronizingly pass off on my life and behavior.)
I remember when
I was preparing to attend community college, many people warned me that I would
struggle with culture shock. They were full of bullshit. Not only did I not
struggle with culture shock (either from my “sheltered” childhood or from my
“lack of socialization”) but I actually thrived in a college-type environment
having learned from an early age how to be self-motivated in my education. In
short, I was well-prepared and very successful at college and I have the
transcripts to prove it.
In fact,
homeschooling offered diverse educational opportunities: gymnastics, scuba
diving, sailing, historical reenactments, whale watching, horseback riding,
soccer, golf, swimming and a variety of other activities were all a part of my
education. My mother fiercely believes that experience, whether in or out of
the classroom, is the basis for any curriculum; that education is a lifestyle, not a twelve-year period of schooling.
Feminism requires
social activism; it requires independent and strong-minded women who recognize
the importance of education and the value of individual experience. It demands
that we think outside of the box and seek to remove ourselves from the
boundaries of control, those placed upon us by the expectations of society and
the machinations of the government. It requires women and men who aren’t afraid
to speak up for themselves and the dictates of their conscious. In many ways,
homeschooling taught me those ideals.
During those
early years my homeschool group once participated in a space exploration
program, it was basically a simulation of a space flight (mission control and
astronaut) with each child being placed in a different role and conducting
tasks associated with that team. During the month of preparation classes for
the experience I remember one of the teachers commiserating to another, “These
home school kids really don’t do well with instructions, do they?”
While she
intended it as a criticism of the way we had been educated, despite the fact
that I am a teacher myself, I consider it to be a compliment. No, I don’t
always follow instructions well, most of the time because I think that those
instructions are stupid. Or sexist. And that is a good thing. That’s what keeps
us free from the bonds of authority, governmental control, and patriarchy.
Sir Ken Robinson
in one of my favorite Ted Talks, discussing public education and how it could
be improved.
