Reading through the comments on my post, The politics of home education, I was struck by how many of these themes come up again and again in discussion. What does it mean to be a part of the homeschool “movement?” How do we define (and hence control) it? How do we respond when the “movement” goes a direction we don’t like? What unintended baggage are we piling on ourselves when we adopt the label “homeschooler?”
When we decided to begin homeschooling, I did not immediately define myself as a homeschooler, nor was I aware of being a part of any particular movement, or series of organized activities working toward an objective. Homeschooling was the organized activity (more on some days than others) and the objective rested solely on our vision for our family.
I did, however, pretty quickly identify with the homeschool community, a body of persons of common and particularly professional interests scattered through a larger society. I found a great deal of information and support from fellow homeschoolers in my physical community, on forums and on blogs. The people I connected with most were those who shared quite a bit in common outside homeschooling, but there was still a certain sense of camaraderie with homeschoolers with very different views from my own.
To be a member of a movement, we have to be able to agree on a direction. Some things are easy. When a legislator introduces a bill calling for increased oversight through testing, home visits or additional paperwork, most of us seem to be able to set aside our differences long enough to pool resources and act as a pretty organized body to defeat the pending legislation. But then is that even a movement? To defend what we already have?
Or is that what communities do? In Customer.Community, authors Drew Banks and Kim Daus discuss community thus:
In the nonvirtual realm, the definition of community is much broader. We say that a neighborhood has a strong community if its members work toward the betterment of the neighborhood, even if they never talk with one another. We say that a store or restaurant has a community feeling if there is an amicable or social atmosphere where people interact freely, even if they don’t know each other. We notice a strong minority collective presence and assume that the “likeness” of a minority status forms a community, even though many of its members will never interact or have any type of relationship with on another. (p. 18-19)
And I’d like to add to that the fact that you can have a strong and vibrant community even when the members of that community disagree. Community is not about uniformity or homogeneity, but a certain level of commitment to the betterment of the community even if we disagree on exactly how to achieve those goals. A strong community should also be able to survive (and even thrive on) various and sometimes competing movements within that community, so long as a certain level of respect can be maintained and we resist the tendency to marginalize those with whom we disagree.
It should also mean that we don’t feel the need to disown the entire community when members within it do something with which we disagree. I felt no need to disown my community when a neighboring town decided to evict a now famous tenant, although I do miss seeing him in his field when I drive through on my way to Lincoln. I have no desire to renounce my citizenship because my country has elected a president with whom I disagree significantly. I can still in good conscious identify with a homeschooling community and the members of that community, even if we share very different parenting philosophies, political views, or religious beliefs because their actions do not define who I am, or what it means for me to be a homeschooler.
Welcome to Roscommon Acres, my little home in the country. I write here about life more abundantly, from the joy of a baby’s smile to the almost unbearable grief of losing a son. I am seeking beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of the spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3).
Just place "Tiggy" in the subject line.
I have been catching up on blogs since returning from my Thanksgiving vacation. Reading through the comment section on the politics of homeschooling took a long time — a lively discussion indeed.
Perhaps the answer can be found in not defending, defining or controlling ourselves at all. I would be happy if what we as a “movement” agreed upon was a parent should have the right to choose what is best for their children.
Brilliant observation.
~Luke
Beautifully written, Dana!
Nance
Yes, yes, yes.
Agree. Agree. Agree.
You know, it struck me when you said you did not intend to become a part of a movement….
When I first started to blog and someone “accused me” of being a part of the QF movement, I had to research it. I had never heard of the QF movement. We are “QF”, because we were convicted as husband and wife. Period. We are Believers, and this is what Our God told us. Emphasis on the US.
We were even basically kicked out of our church – our community for over 5 years – because we were “QF”, we breastfed, used cloth diapers and homeschooled. So, there you go.
I wish I could send the whole lot of them over here to your read your article. Our lives had no bearing or expectation of theirs. You are correct: it should be the goal of a community to have “a certain level of commitment to the betterment of the community even if we disagree on exactly how to achieve those goals.” I thought we had the same goal in that church – to worship God, but apparently not.
Thank you, Dana. I like to read the diversity you inspire on this blog. I do not have to agree with the way others homeschool or what they teach their children, but that is theirs to do, and I certainly would fight for their rights to do so.
Absolutely- ‘community’ is a much better choice of words. And Ditto Jacque- I’ve had the oddest conversations with people who assumed that I was part of some organization because I am a Christian.
great points… I have been struggling with the fact that I do agree with out new choice as president meanwhile many homeschoolers that I love and care about and probably 99.999 percent of homeschoolers feel differently. That does not mean that I will abandon the homeschooling movement… We are still working toward the same end. Happy, intelligent children with good morals.
In our house, a homeschooling movement involves getting up from the couch and walking to the kitchen table.
Good post, Dana. I like the thought of homeschoolers as a community. It hits the nail on the head.
Thank you, everyone!
And Jacque, that is a very apt comparison. It frustrates me that we can be so divisive as Christians, labeling and separating ourselves and each other rather than living by what Christ said…that we would be known by our love for one another.
Hi Dana, I completely agree. When our family began homeschooling it was something we were doing for our own family. I have never felt I was part of a movement for the same reason you say, I didn’t join one cojoined body of people working toward one goal to achieve something.
I am part of a community, one with different NETWORKS (another term to ponder). My networks consist of:
1. local homeschoolers I know face to face and interact with, I help them, they help me
2. local homeschoolers known only through our local homeschooling Yahoo Group
3. homeschoolers from across the world with whom I’ve connected via various Yahoo Groups and various online discussion boards in the past and in the present (these groups come and go out of my life)
4. homeschoolers who blog about homeschooling whose writings I read and some that I leave comments on their blogs
5. homeschoolers who read my blog and leave comments on my blog
6. I’m the passive recipient of support and information from those who communicate through the written word in Home Education Magazine (which I subscribe to) and formerly before it went out of print, Growing Without Schooling
There are those who homeschool who I feel completely NOT networked or connected with and I am NOT a part of their community at all.
I’m trying to think of something else to compare this to, this being a homeschooler meaning we are part of a homeschooling movement. Here is one, do you think this works? Perhaps those individual people who diet and exercise with a personal and private goal to lose weight—if someone said that there was a ‘weight loss movement’ afoot in the United States and that all the people on a diet and/or exercising to lose weight were ‘part of that movement’. Some of those people connect with others at Weight Watchers, through other weight loss support groups, some read books, some chat on discussion boards or Yahoo Groups, some join a website to do a weight loss program, some follow a prescribed plan sold by a corporation, some make up their own diet, some join gyms or centers to go exercise with others, some exercise alone, some make up their own exercise plan, some read books for ideas on exercise routines while others pay high prices to personal trainers with private consults (lessons if you will). Some people do their routine for a little while, some succeed at meeting their goal, some fail to meet the goal, some give up and go back to former ways of eating and not exercising.
Are all those dieters and exercisers who are shedding pounds part of a ‘weight loss movement’? Probably most people would say NO, there is no MOVEMENT.
Whoops the end got cut off by me, sorry….
Probably most peple say NO, there is no weight loss MOVEMENT. Weight loss is something that some people try to achieve by various means depending on their personal choice. It is just something that is DONE by some. Some who had weight loss as a goal sometimes stop having it as a goal and change their ways to do things that don’t help them achieve weight loss.
We could go further to say that for some people weight loss is not necessary or beneficial, for some weight loss would be not good (the ones already thin or too thin), for some weight loss would really help them and a professional (doctor) might recommend it as a goal to strive for. Others could benefit from a little weight loss but it is not crucial to their survivial.
There are many methods to obtain weight loss.
Weight loss gets talked about in the media. Sometimes the methods are controversial or can harm a person’s health. But not all people on a diet are in harm’s way or will ever be hurt by it.
The weight loss industry is also highly profitable and much marketing is done to try to capture the dollars of those who want to lose weight. Not everything sold for weight loss is really necessary as it can be achieved without spending lots of money. The less money you spend, sometimes the more creative and resourceful a person has to be.
Hmmm, this weight loss analogy is quite like homeschooling the more I think about it.
Or maybe trying to get our KIDS to lose weight in an increasingly fattening culture?? Under social pressures and government mandates, with people who aren’t so successful themselves moralizing about fat as evil and denial as virtuous. . .
Some parents dictate type and quantity of food and their children’s access to food, fixing what they will eat and when, banning what they cannot eat and shaming them for any desire to “cheat”, scheduling when they will play or exercise, maybe sending them to fat camp and specialists, buying meal plans for them to work through day by day for months and years and weighing them regularly to chart their progress. Some unschool types would see weight as an integrated part of health and not do any of the above.
The movement part comes in then, when one type of parent decides to save kids from the other type?
Or when we start passing laws in various communities about what kinds of foods can or cannot be served?
I think it is an apt comparison failing only on the point that there really is no need to defend your right to not overeat from legislative infringement. The pressure seems to be going the other direction.
I’ll never be able to find it now, but I read something interesting a while back about the increasing “balkanization” of America as we all seem to segment ourselves into a variety of special interest and minority groups, preferring to identify increasingly with our minority groups (real or fictitious) than finding commonalities between ourselves and others.
Dana, maybe the comparison holds even there. Remember the Haidt video from TED, talks about physical “purity” as an moral organizing principle, and says both conservative and liberal types are prone to get holier-than-thou with legislation and social pressures for what they consider healthy human practices. The conservatives express it through sex, but the liberals increasingly express it through food.
That tendency on everyone’s part to legislate body purity for our own good one way or another, would seem to make a very close analogy to the bipartisan No Child Left Behind accountability movements in education, then. And by extension home education regulations, as well as the homeschooling purists resisting public charters and cybers crossing over into homeschool support.
All springing from the politics of legislating purity?
And look at what’s happened with smoking restrictions and bans in the past few decades. Also seat belts, helmet laws, vaccinations, drug testing, etc etc.
Schools increasingly moralize over food choice and childhood obesity, with the (pardon the pun) weight of government behind it all. Banning cupcakes and soda machines, requiring set minutes of phys ed even in elementary school, weighing and calculating kids’ BMI the better to send home scary, scolding “obesity report cards” to parents . . .
I think there is an apt comparison there. All sides have their model of what we think a good citizen is and all have a tendency to use legislation to enforce it. There are clearly lines where outside involvement is warranted, but we seem increasingly willing to legislate every aspect of our lives, and war who should have control of what that should look like.
Great post! Something that strains community, in my mind, is that in the networks in our area there seems to be a default toward legalism. Most of the home educators I know are not that way, but yet it seems like we have to have certain rules, etc. in order to keep those families happy.
Do you see that where you live?
I’m not a part of any structured homeschool group at the moment and only show up for field trips now and again.
We had rules in the group I was involved with, but that can be both binding and freeing depending on how you look at it. Since ourse was a Christian group focused on supporting Christian homeschoolers with Christian parenting and education issues, it kept the tension down because everyone knew what to expect from the session.
Different people want different things when they come together as a group…some only want a social outlet where rules make little sense, others want a more structred support system or actual organization. None of it is wrong, and I think the best scenario is where all different kinds of support if available for those who want it.
re: I’ll never be able to find it now, but I read something interesting a while back about the increasing “balkanization” of America.
Hi Dana,
Your comment reminded me a book review/article (link below) about how many today are living life “in a giant feedback loop,… hearing our own thoughts about what’s right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear and the neighbourhoods we live in.”
The new freedom that many of us have to seek out like-minded communities is such a double-edged sword. In some ways it’s liberating to find others that believe as we do, but, it can also cause our thinking to become more extreme and oppositional.
Bad me, I’ve even got the book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart, waiting patiently on a bookshelf to be read. When I have time…
If interested, here’s the link:
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11581447
Sounds like a good book. And timely. I’ve been trying to think through a post on a similar theme. Need some time to put more than five words together at a time, however.
Thanks for this thought-provoking post and the lively discussion. It is human nature to want camaraderie with like-minded people, and naturally homeschoolers prescribe to different schools of thought about how to home educate. Despite the differences and the need to connect with a group that agrees with your ideas, homeschoolers are part of a larger community. When I talk to other homeschoolers, many with different philosophies than my own, I have gotten supportive and encouraging responses about various topics affecting home educators. It does seem to be a movement in that homeschooler really want to preserve the right to educate their children as they see fit whether or not they are religious, structured in their approach, or unschooling their children.