Home: The ONLY Place for School

The Right Perspective - Ben Graydon

   An article from USA Today came through my Inbox this week entitled "Home is no place for school." It was written by a Dennis Evans who, according to the byline, "directs doctoral programs in education leadership at the University of California, Irvine." It is significant because, piled on top of Rob Reich's paper last year ("Testing the Boundaries of Parental Authority Over Education: the Case of Homeschooling") dissing homeschooling, it highlights a growing antipathy on the part of government and "professional educators" towards an increasing number of parents who understand and take seriously their sovereign responsibility to raise their own children free from interference by government or any other institution (including "church").
   The article claims "compelling reasons to oppose home teaching both for the sake of the children involved and for society." First among them is a "misguided notion that 'anyone can teach.' "
   One might expect a professional teacher of professional teachers to be so biased, but that does not make his position correct. Mr. Evans asserts: "Good teaching is a complex act that involves more than simply loving children." But teaching is not the same as learning. To that point, Evans relies on " 'common sense' logic that the most important factor affecting student learning is teacher competency." That argument, however, is completely bunk.
   Learning and teaching are not inseparable. Learning is completely an individual act and accomplishment: a student learns when his brain, most often in connection with his will, decides to grasp something and it becomes real and meaningful to him. The teacher, while he can serve as an effective coach, is completely unnecessary. In fact, more often than not, at least in an institutional setting, "teaching" gets in the way of "learning." And, as Evans next paragraph points out, it is that very institutional setting that he most wishes to defend:
   "(S)chools serve important functions far beyond academic learning. Attending school is an important element in the development of the 'whole child.' Schools, particularly public schools, are the one place where 'all of the children of all of the people come together.' Can there be anything more important to each child and thus to our democratic society than to develop virtues and values such as respect for others, the ability to communicate and collaborate and an openness to diversity and new ideas? Such virtues and values cannot be accessed on the Internet."
   Inherent in his argument is the belief that government-run schools actually develop virtues and values that are worth having. What they do in reality, as Rob Reich pointed out last year, is expose children to all sorts of values and beliefs that differ from those of their parents so that the children will have many other options from which to choose and so that the children will not become "ethically servile" to their parents values and beliefs. And that in and of itself is enough to cause every freedom-loving parent to stay as far away as possible from government-run schooling.
  Are homeschoolers substituting the Internet as a source for learning values, as Evans implies? Obviously not: they are instilling their own values into their children in an environment that they control. And that scares Evans and Reich.
   The isolation implicit in home teaching is anathema to socialization and citizenship. It is a rejection of community and makes the home-schooler the captive of the orthodoxies of the parents," Evans writes. To which Christian homeschooling parents shout a hearty "Amen!"
   The Apostle Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, "I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil." Tot the Corinthian believers he wrote, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." So Evans and Reich are arguing directly with God, not with homeschoolers. And if the "isolation implicit in home teaching" (he obviously has not seen many homeschoolers!) is "anathema to socialization and citizenship," then the "socialization and citizenship" that he prescribes is anathema to God.
   Just the "common sense" that he finds authoritative belies his argument: walk down the hallways of any school and point out a good behavior that you want your child to emulate. Good luck.
   There are only two institutions in America that compel attendance for attendance' sake: school and jail. Mr. Evans is obviously defending his jailor profession. But school is no place for children or for learning the values that they need from their parents. The only place to get that is at home.

Published in The Times Examiner, 9-10-03
____________________________________
Read more of Ben Graydon's articles or
contact him via links at www.pureducation.com