No Longer A Fringe Movement

In its day-to-day reality, home schooling demands not merely time and energy but a sense of direction and a plan. There is no curriculum or methodology, no path implied or imposed. Most states have statutes governing home schooling, but these are vague and far-off presences conferring no authoritative guidance. Meanwhile, at every home-schooling conference, a horde of vendors hawk splashy curricula, preying on the insecurity of parents. As a guest speaker at these conferences, I have looked out into a sea of parents yearning to be told what to do, how to do it and when. Bereft of every institutional anchor, these parents feel adrift.

When they speak in public, home-schooling parents often appear confident, answer detractors defiantly and are bold in their criticisms of schools. But privately they often wonder whether they're making a huge mistake. This doubt, I think, is part and parcel of the undertaking, central to its definition. Schoolteachers feel some variant of it, too. To educate is to be terrified at the enormity and importance of the task.

Home schooling has at last gained legitimacy among the educational alternatives available to Americans. Be that as it may, home schoolers still must define for themselves the meaning of an education and meet their obligation to the world spinning madly just beyond their doors. They owe it well-educated children.

© 1998