Homeschooling our children was not my idea to begin with. Nevertheless, none of my kids have ever darkened the door of a public school. Well, that isn’t altogether true in strictness; we enrolled our eldest son in a Computer Science and Programming class at the local Vo-Tech school when he got old enough to attend. As a member of that class, our son was chosen, along with a few other students, to travel around to the public schools in the district to give classroom presentations, recruiting public school kids to attend Vo-Tech. In that sense at least one of our kids has, in point of fact, “darkened the door(s)” of public schools. More than one of them has in fact darkened those doors; I’ll get around to explaining how, and why, down the page and/or in a future article.
A few of our kids are pretty good athletes. Our 23 year-old daughter, for example, was, at one time in the not too distant past, an accomplished gymnast. She won a number of individual and all-around championships during her short career as a competitive gymnast. I can’t tell you how many events she won off the top of my head; suffice to say it was quite a few, stretching across several regional states including our home state. This was all a lot of fun for yours truly, btw,… “kicking ass and taking names” in surrounding states with my kids. But seriously,…
Involvement in competitive sports is one way in which my wife and I have kept our kids physically active. “Socialization skills” was never a primary reason for involving them in competitive sports, at least not for us. If you, as a young parent, are considering homeschooling your child/children, this issue of how they will learn and develop “socialization skills” will be a big obstacle you must prepare yourself to deal with, perhaps even in your own mind. The (false) idea that children can’t possibly develop good social skills outside a modern school setting, public or otherwise, is one that has been drilled into the heads of people for several generations to perfectly good effect. William James once famously observed that “there is nothing so absurd than when you repeat a thing often enough, people begin to believe it.” I have it on good authority (mine) that James wasn’t the first to say that, but this is precisely, and nevertheless, what has happened with the “how are they ever to develop socialization skills outside of public schools(?)” absurdity. I’m content to give Mr. James credit for recognizing the truthfulness of the statement in any case. And the real question is, “how are they to develop good social skills in a public school setting?” The answer to the question, stated either way, all depends on what each individual considers to be “good social skills,” one supposes.
Every experienced teacher knows that pupils educate each other more than he educates them. The thousand nameless influences—literary, social, moral—not only of the play ground but of the school-room, the whispered conversation, the clandestine note, the sly grimace, the sly pinch, the good or bad recitation, mould the plastic character of children far more than the most faithful teacher’s hand. -Robert L. Dabney to Dr. Ruffner
As I said above, it was never my idea to homeschool our children. This is perfectly true. Indeed, I was “against it” at first – totally against it, in point of fact. I went along with the idea of homeschooling initially because, and only because, we lived in Alaska at the time and our eldest was nearing the age at which he would begin his formal schooling. At that time, we’d learned, the Alaska public school system was already teaching children as young as third graders explicitly about homosexuality and anal sex as a “natural” and “alternative lifestyle.” I didn’t believe it could be true this was happening until my wife produced the evidence. As such, there was no way in hell I was going to allow our son to attend a public school in Alaska. My thought was, “I’ll let her [my wife] homeschool him while we’re stuck in this degenerate shithole, but when we get back to ‘God’s Country’ he will attend the public schools as God and nature intended.” Meanwhile, I was getting all sorts of negative feedback from a couple of my superiors in the Air Force for daring to even think of homeschooling our son for any reason and for any amount of time.
One thing I always hated about my stint in the military is that I had to work for people “stupider than I am,” and in more cases than I care to put a number to, WAY “stupider than I am.” And that’s saying a lot! There were intelligent people I worked for in the military, don’t get me wrong; it was the stupid ones I hated working for, and the Air Force seemed to have more than its share of stupid NCOs who outranked me. I figured that if it were true of the Air Force, it must be true of the other branches as well.
I was a buck Sergeant about this time; there was a MSgt in my unit I took direct orders from whose wife was a public school teacher in Anchorage. I think she actually taught third grade, if memory serves correctly. As a would-be homeschooler under her husband’s charge, this guy took it upon himself to berate me (and my wife by extension) at every turn for our decision to homeschool our son. If I could have gotten away with it, I’d have thumped his head for him once and for all for the way he insulted us on a daily, almost an hourly, basis. I couldn’t do that for obvious reasons, so I argued with him about it instead. For months. Long story short, and hindsight being what it is, I’m very glad this worthless, childless half-wit was placed in my path and in a position of authority over me. He was too stupid (literally, too stupid) to understand the effect he was having on me, but the effect he was having was to develop in me a staunch and immovable position favorable to homeschooling. Not 100% favorable, but favorable nonetheless. Who’da ever thunk it? The Lord do work in mysterious ways!
Back at home in “God’s Country,” my wife was in her second or third year of homeschooling our son when I really began to take a noticeable (to her) interest in what was actually happening. Don’t get me wrong, this is one of those things I tend to be very good at – acting like I’m oblivious, or at least indifferent to, what is going on around me when, in fact, I am perfectly cognizant of virtually every detail of what is going on around me. My kids have all made the mistake of believing otherwise on more than one occasion during their individual lives.
I was extremely interested in what she was doing with our son and the success she was having. I involved myself in certain (indirect) ways. For example, I transformed a room in our house into a “school room” that I designed to look and feel like a public school classroom; I established a “dress code” in which the boys had to wear slacks and a belt, a button-up shirt with a collar and dress shoes to class; the girls, on the other hand, were required to wear a dress or skirt of appropriate style and length, and dress shoes. And, of course, they all had to be properly groomed before entering the classroom. I even wrote a family “Declaration of Independence” from the public school establishment that hung in a prominent place on a classroom wall. I didn’t necessarily believe (wholly) in some of its principles per se, but I thought it nevertheless important to formally pronounce and observe a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind, declaring the causes which impel us to the [temporary] separation.” Thanks to Mr. Jefferson for those lines!
The word “temporary” I enclosed in brackets in the preceding sentence because, although it was not actually a part of our “Family Declaration” I had written with my own pen, and posted up with my own hands, it was nevertheless my intention to reconcile our differences with the public school establishment, and enroll our kids in the public schools “where they belonged,” A.S.A.H.P. This I would do as the head of household, when the time was ripe. Or, so was my intention. Twenty some-odd years down the road, and hindsight being what it is, as I said above, it is now easy for me to see in retrospect that this “reconciliation” with the public school establishment would never, could never, and will never, come for us.
Our sixteen year-old son, Sam (Samuel), is one of those “pretty good athletes” in our little brood I mentioned above. He is the latest to have “darkened the door” of the public schools. Only a few years back he played on the local (championship) peewee football team, unassociated with the school system. He was a starter on both sides of the ball. I’ll never forget the day their coach approached me at one of their practices, inquiring when I planned to enroll him in (public) school. My answer was, “he goes to school at home, Bill.” Bill replied, “no, I mean when are you going to put him in school here?” “But why?,” I asked (playing dumb). “So he can be a Blue Devil,” Bill replied, matter of factly. “So he can play football?!; you want me to put him in the public schools so he can play football?!,” I retorted; “are you out of your mind?” Bill’s demeanor changed upon my answer instantly; he looked down at the ground a bit ashamed and said, “yes, I see what you mean.” I shouldn’t have done that to Bill, in hindsight. He really is a great guy, and a dang good football coach.
Where I come from, we are hard-core “competitive athletes.” It’s ‘in the blood,’ so to speak. The H.S. football team in my hometown has lots of championship appearances, and near championship appearances, under its belt. I was a part of that initial process back in the days when virtually no one knew who we were, nor could find us on a map. It took them a while, but our State’s H.S. athletic association finally got around to making rules governing the admission of homeschooled kids in public school sporting activities. I’m too much of a skeptic to have ever advocated for something like that, but it’s a done deal now, and it is what it is. If it could be done without further eroding the liberty of homeschoolers, I suppose I could have gotten behind such an effort. But that’s not the way things work in the real world, as I’m sure you all know. The road to Hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.
Notwithstanding all of that, ol’ Sam had been pestering me for a while about wanting to play on the football team before I finally agreed to discuss it with the coach this past August; “no promises, Sam.” During our discussion concerning the matter I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our coach is not opposed to homeschooling if it’s “done right.” He’s relatively new to the area, so we hadn’t had a chance to get to know one another on a personal level prior to that meeting. I didn’t ask what he meant when he said “if it’s done right,” but that’s just because I’ve always relied on the fact that “the results speak for themselves” in our little outfit. Our coach is smart enough to recognize good results when he sees them, and, as God is my witness, I did tell him that he would see those results for what they are in ol’ Sam soon enough if we could come to an agreement on how to get him on the team.
I don’t know how many times over the last twenty or so years – dozens, at least – my wife and I have been approached by total strangers in public, pronouncing to us that our kids are the most well-behaved kids they have ever seen. I don’t know, moreover, how many times – dozens at least – we received “congratulatory” notes and letters in the mail from the local Vo-Tech staffers commending us for having done a “fine job” in educating our son and preparing him to excel in that Vo-Tech course aforementioned. There was a time when we were receiving these congratulatory messages on the Vo-Tech letterhead two and three times a week. I personally thought this was all kind of dumb, and actually a bit strange to be perfectly honest. But my wife saved them all in spite of me, as though each of them were worth a hundred times their weight in gold.
I can’t blame her, I suppose; when I consider that I was mostly working against, or at least doing very little to help, her to start with on this whole homeschooling thing, her cherishing those little notes to this very day makes complete and perfect sense. Somewhere deep down in her soul, and/or in the back of her mind, she probably hates to be the one to say “I told you so, Terry.” I’m willing to lay down good money that she hates it about as much as I hate to be the one to tell our H.S. football coach, “I told you so, coach,” but I told you so, coach. Meanwhile, I do remind Sam from time to time, whether he needs reminding or not, that, “what goes on in the locker room, stays in the locker room; your momma wouldn’t understand!” But we’re not trying to raise angels in any case; at least I’m not.
More to come in a future article. Stay tuned.
Ha! The line about working for people dumber than you really got me, I have always felt that about people who claim to be my “leader”, most of which I would not let change the oil in my car and am a hundred percent sure would steal the money in the ashtray if I let them try. Thieving is not my main concern however, I am of the opinion that we should have been looting the corpse of Babylon this entire time instead of spending all of our time and energy trying to “balance the budget ” of a nation that invaded us and is stealing everything we have, but that’s another discussion. I simply don’t respect them as men, sticky fingers or not, therefore they are not my leader, simple really. I don’t expect perfection, I expect a genuine effort at manhood, no more, no less.
Keep these articles coming, every one has a good method, such as dressing for school even when home, that hopefully we can put all together, along with a Southern curriculum, to one day raise our future generations ourselves. Cant wait for the next one, it is after all primarly how we pass on our identity in these times, as we are barred from being in our own communties together. Our story and our identity is much more than a subject called ” history” and only WE can ever be qualified to tell it. Its much more than “school”.
In the article posted earlier here by “Dissent Mama” she quoted “A people without history are as a beggar with no idea where they came from or where they are going”. That story must be the domain of us and no others, thanks for helping those trying with these articles.