I went to Day 1 of the North Carolinians for Home Education annual meeting. It's their 24th, but my first. My second lecturer was a father of 8 who has homeschooled for 24 years so far. His oldest three all have college degrees, two have Master's. His youngest is 5. He was instructing us on the general requirements for compliance with the North Carolina law. States generally fall into two categories: petition states and notification states. North Carolina is a notification state. You simply inform the state that you're homeschooling and comply with very minimal reporting requirements and that's about it. The state doesn't get a vote in it.
As he's been at it for a while, he talked about the three types of homeschooling families. The first type were the pioneers. They are the families that went their own way into the wilderness of home education 20 or more years ago, blazing a trail. Then came the settlers. They followed some of the well-worn paths, set up outposts and improved the communication among the other settlers. Then came the tourists. These are the folks who are homeschooling for a lark, for a change of pace, until they get over being mad at the public school or for some other insubstantial reason. He said that the tourists are what gives real homeschoolers a bad name.
I went alone today and learned a few things and observed a lot and will return tomorrow for some more. I haven't figured out whether I'm a settler or a tourist just yet.
15 years ago
3 comments:
I've heard this talk before by other homeschool speakers. It is an interesting analogy. I think you're more of a settler. Of course that doesn't mean that you have to stay settled in the same place forever. (Smile)
But think how important "tourists" are in other contexts! That metaphor involves multiple implications, and not just the "damn tourists" one.
By the way, it's just that sort of attitude--the use of that kind of analogy with a swift, cheap kick at the end--which, having encountered it way too often in my internet travels on the topic of homeschooling, has pretty much turned me off on the concept of getting involved in conventions and entrenched homeschool organizations or groups. I'm educating my kid as I see fit and best, not joining some sort of "Movement." Weird how so-called non-comformists end up entangled in the whole "ingroup-outgroup" mindset pretty much the same way as everyone else. Heh.
Reader: I might've overemphasized that analogy. He spent all of 35 seconds on it in an hour-long discussion. Also, he was very up front that his desire was for all of us in the room to homeschool. He and his wife have had a lot of success and he naturally wanted to share the good news.
But, yes, I'm seeing more and more that as social as I am, I'm not really a joiner. [For example, I didn't join the group to get the discounted admission; I paid more so as not to join a group I know little about.]
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