Myths About Socialization And Other Nonsense

Recently, I received the following note in my inbox.

Steve,

My name is Matt Scott. I am the editor of the Beginner's Guide to Home School. (beginnersguide.com/home-school)

Our site is intended to be a resource for someone looking for information on home schooling.

If you think our site would be of some interest to your readers, would you please consider adding us to the Home School links section of your blog?

Thanks in advance!
Matt Scott
beginnersguide.com/home-school/

These sorts of invitations come to bloggers from various organizations looking to generate a little more traffic to their site. I examined beginnersguide.com's homeschool page and then followed up with my response.

Matt,

Thank you for your interest in my blog, Walden's Wits. While I find your site to be useful, I also deem it to be inconsistent with our own experience in homeschooling our children. In particular, some of the cons you list are ones we have managed to avoid or simply not found in homeschooling.

For example, you listed "Socialization issues" as your first negative about homeschooling. As you can see in one of my posts here, it's clear that socialization is something that homeschooling actually helps resolve. NHEN also has a good article. I think you'll find that most homeschoolers will agree with me that socialization is not an issue when it comes to homeschooling.

As another example, you listed "Minimal regulation can lead to poor quality control." I'm not sure why this is listed as a negative aspect for a family considering homeschooling. If anything, the law that Colorado has regarding homeschooling is a model for other states. Parents have the options to choose from a wide variety of curricula and customize their children's education to meet their individual needs. Parents need freedom to homeschool their children effectively without the state looking over their shoulder to make sure every rule is followed. You should realize that regulation is a poor substitute for parental interest and control. Regardless, this negative aspect is one for legislators consider, not the family looking into homeschooling. If you would like to examine this topic further, I would refer you to the experts at HSLDA.org.

While your site is useful and helpful in other respects, these examples lead me to believe that your study of homeschooling is at best incomplete or outdated. While it's quite possible that you have some empirical knowledge of homeschooling, I'm concerned that your site does not accurately represent homeschooling to those interested. Therefore, I must decline presenting your site to my readers as a valuable resource worth their time. Hopefully, changes to your presentation will allow me to endorse it at some future date.

Sincerely,

Steve Walden
Walden's Wits

While I appreciate efforts like this to help folks decide whether to homeschool, the information has to be accurate. Perpetuating myths like homechooling will turn your children into backwater hermits has to stop. Maybe with some new data, they can change their site to more accurately reflect homeschooling to those who are considering it. In the meantime, I think it's better to sit down with an experienced homeschooling family from their church and find out why they are homeschooling. Experienced homeschooling families know what works and what doesn't. They will know whether some site or book out there has its facts straight and can help you decide if homeschooling is right for you and your children. If you can't find someone like that, I'm always available. I even have an FAQ.