Should We Blame Public School?

Fair Warning… this is going to be a long rant. I am getting so tired of the bashing and blaming of homeschooling for bad behavior. Seriously, have you seen how many crimes are committed by those who were schooled more traditionally? Should we blame public school for their bad behavior?

We Are Being Lambasted

Seriously.

Isn’t this getting a little ridiculous?

Or am I just being hyper sensitive?

I have tried my best not to pit homeschooling against public school.

Not to constantly wax on about how fantastic our experiences are (although they certainly are fantastic, and I could completely bore you with the details).

Not to rave about the opportunities available to homeschoolers that are just not there for public schoolers (although I could practically write a book about them).

Not to make it an US vs. THEM thing.

But y’all… that is exactly what the media is doing. They have literally put us in the “bad” category! They take every opportunity to promote these negative misconceptions about homeschoolers (and they ARE misconceptions) every single time they find a news story where the “bad guy” was homeschooled, and they point to it as if homeschooling is the problem.

Bad Behavior and Mental Health

When do we just start calling bad behavior out instead of looking for someone or something to blame? Because at the root of all these tragedies there is a mental health issue.

Per the Association for Children’s Mental Health:

[mks_pullquote align=”left” width=”850″ size=”20″ bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]1 in 5 children and youth have a diagnosable emotional, behavioral or mental health disorder and 1 in 10 young people have a mental health challenge that is severe enough to impair how they function at home, school or in the community.[/mks_pullquote]

 

Both public school and homeschooled kids are impacted.  David Anderson, expert on schools and mental health at the Child Mind Institute,  explains…

[mks_pullquote align=”left” width=”850″ size=”20″ bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]Kids who suffer from mental health disorders … inevitably miss out on opportunities for learning and building relationships.[/mks_pullquote]

 

Homeschooling kids.

Private schooling kids.

Public Schooling kids…

All of them miss out. So let’s stop blaming how a person is educated for that person’s behavior, unless there is a clear and identifiable cause and effect situation.

What Can We Do?

The media is going to continue to tear us down every chance they get.

Why?

To make us look like misfits.

Lonely.

Isolated.

Troubled.

And we all know that is far from the norm… but those who have no exposure to homeschoolers DON’T know that. So it is our job to be the ambassadors for all homeschoolers.

State governments around the country are already trying to put legislation in place to be able to “inspect” our homeschools (under the guise of fire protection in California).

And I could give a litany of reasons I think this is happening… but none of them matter really. The simple fact is we are being targeted.

We have to find a way to constantly dig through the rubbish being published to look for the truth.

We have to make a concerted effort to show how fantastic homeschooling is. Submit articles to the editors of your local newspapers and online publications, to magazines, to blogs, etc. Find opportunities to defend our image and our reputation. Share about your success stories everywhere.  Look for and promote the successes around you. For example, see our article on the most recent research by NHERI about homeschooling and the fantastic statistics about how effective homeschooling is!

We need to show the reality of what homeschool looks like. We started the hashtag #365homeschool on Instagram last year for this very reason… to give outsiders a peek into the day-to-day lives of real homeschoolers. Now there are over 46,000 images posted on instagram with that hashtag. Join the effort! Share about your homeschool.

Let’s continue to steer the conversation to the real problem and not the educational circumstances and really become ambassadors for homeschooling!

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8 Comments

  1. Umm, you might want to get off the rant you are on. As a public school teacher of nearly thirty years, I can definitely say that there are sick minds everywhere. Just as these issues cannot be blamed on guns, bats, knives or bombs. No political agenda, religion, or school choice preference can be the blame either. The fault lies with the deteriorating of the human family, boys without fathers, and the liberal folks who fight to take God out of everything.
    I know many home schoolers who do a fine job. Unfortunately, they tend to be in the minority where I live.

    1. The point of the article is that we SHOULD NOT blame the public schools (or private or homeschools) for the crimes committed by those who are mentally ill. An important quote from the article is, “So let’s stop blaming how a person is educated for that person’s behavior, unless there is a clear and identifiable cause and effect situation.”

  2. Great blog about homeschooling! The media’s job is to blame something or someone instead of finding the root to the cause. Thank you for your advocacy!

  3. Couldn’t agree more. Homeschooling is being targeted clearly. When and if the law changes to insist that our homes be inspected then homeschool families need to pull together and hold homeschool in a public place like their local library. Keep our homes private. We need to stand firm in our right to educate our children.

  4. Absolutely! I read a blog post recently by a homeschool mom. She was writing about the family in California that supposedly abused their children, and she was arguing for more self policing within the homeschool community, and recognizing there is a problem. I was appalled. I asked her if she knew the statistics, and that it wasn’t a common occurrence. The media doesn’t publish common occurrences, because they are not sensational. People won’t watch/read if it’s not fascinating to them. We are under attack. We need to protect our community, because the media certainly won’t. We shouldn’t cast stones at other homeschoolers in the public eye. The media, and the rest of society will do enough of that. We need to focus on building our image. We have the best arguments. We should use them.

  5. Trish, I very much appreciate your article. It is so objective and right to the core…calling attention to mental issues, habits, and characteristics of bad behavior. Being held accountable and taking responsibility for one’s own actions results in good and bad consequences as our children learn practical and valuable lessons in life. We, as professional educators ; , private, public, homeschool, need to work together, not pitting ourselves against one another. After all, we have the same ultimate goal, to educate our children for the best possible life within the boundaries of mutual respect, love and compassion for others and our environment.

  6. Trish, you have shared a very important point here. Homeschooling is not as bad as they make it appear. The negative publicity is a gimmick they use to market public schooling. Education too has become a business these days. Thank you for sharing your views openly through this blog.

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