[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Home Schooling

[Aberforth's Goat]

Infesting topic!

My parents (who were missionaries in Sicily during my teens) weren't
particularly impressed with the local schools, so they signed me up for one
of the highly conservative, right-wing Christian curricula that appeared
during the 80's. I spent five years in the system (US grades 8 thru 12;
presumably 3rd form through A levels in the UK).

I would receive a large box full of books at the beginning of each year. The
books spent the following year educating me; at the end of the year, I
supplied proof of said education in the form of tests and homework, all
returned in a smaller box. During the summer I received a letter with my
grades for the previous year. The summer before my senior year I flew to the
US and took my ACT's - final proof that I actually had learned something.

It was a quirky education - excellent in many ways, lousy in others. For me,
being responsible for my own education was empowering. My textbooks took a
rather extreme political stance (they came out of a movement known as
Christian reconstructionism), which let me develop a knack for ideological
differentiation, critical thinking and polemics, besides a passion for
philosophy and theology. Science courses were a problem, though: since I
couldn't actually do the experiments, I had to imagine them, then report my
imaginings (complete with accidents, humorous observations about fellow
experimenters and anomalous data). (The graders knew perfectly well that I
was making it all up, but apparently they enjoyed the stories well enough to
give me decent grades.)

Socially, those were the loneliest years of my life, although that had more
to do with my family's cultural and religious issues than with home
schooling per se. However, there are also good sides to being in a school
that was exclusively concerned with learning and not with taunting Draco,
winning Quidditch matches and chasing down dates for Yule Balls. Boring,
yes - but more conducive to learning.

If I lived in the US, I would think seriously about home schooling, *if* we
could (a) network extensively (b) with kids and parents from a spectrum of
cultures and world views. (I think the spectrum part is important. The one
thing even more insular than home schooling is home schooling within a
network of people who think the rest of humanity has missed the boat.)

I wouldn't do it in Switzerland or Italy, though.

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray)
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been
bravery...."