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Docta Ignorantia LXV Homeschooling Thanks much for the Homeschooling article from WSJ. They are right on the point that hs'ers are politically active, at least many of them. Between about '85 and '95 Mary and I were very effective in expanding educational opportunities for everyone, especially via electronic network. We got a lot done locally, state-wide and nationally developing what we called shared-schooling, which meant mixing web-based, public school-based, private school-based and homeschool-based resources. Doing education without faction. The particular question focused by this WSJ article is that of standards and on that we tried, without immediate success, to get a reasonable, non-factional approach coordinated. We pointed out to hs'ers of all factions -- we don't belong to any faction and talk comfortably with all -- that, for a number of reasons, which we detailed, some sort of standard has to be articulated. We said that if we don't do it it will be done for us and we might not like what that is. We said that hs'ers should be proactive in restoring our entire system of education by promoting the essential values of hs-ing. But interestingly, our pleas not only were ignored, they were branded the first steps of a fascist march to conformity and away from freedom. Fear of government people was rampant. The barrage came with equal vigor from both the secular and the so-called religious wings of the hs movement and spared neither our persons nor our accomplishments. Of course, the march of events, as we said it would, bore us out on this need to articulate what we as educators are after and to offer our successes as help to other educators. We said that hs-ing is mainstream education. We said that the movement needed not a set of standards but simply an accurate statement of what is an educated person. My suggestion was: "An educated person is one who has cultured taste, who can distinguish between the eternal and the ephemeral." I also spoke of education as training the heart to be clean and the hand to be skilled. However, hs'ers violently opposed the idea that hs-ing is mainstream education. Reasoned discussion was overborne by posturing and so we left the posturers to their own devices. By the late 90s the hs movement's visible leadership was in the hands of people having primarily political or commercial interests. As you know, neither of these interests must guide education, which nonetheless is responsible for teaching their proper use, which includes serving education but not guiding it. We had already started processes which of their own intrinsic logic would produce the attitudes and articulations we envisioned. Events necessarily bear us out. Nature insists on the natural, one way or another, sooner or later. So there is redeveloping among people -- because it is their nature -- a sense of what is an educated person and that the inate and inalienable calling of each personality is critically important to that personality and to society as a whole -- and so must be led out (ex ducare) and fostered. Significantly, the Army is just now seeking articulation of the accomplishments of hs'ers so as to recognize their traits and certify them fit for service. This is a welcome development to me and a very unwelcome development to the left wing of our hs colleagues. Our right wing hs colleagues -- so-called religious hs'ers (I am disinclined to credit them with being religious) -- appear to be welcoming this initiative from the Army. I probably would not approve the reasons they are welcoming it, not that that matters to them! :-) Recently I reminded our left wing hs colleagues that I had forecast this development 15 years ago and recommended that we welcome and seek to assist the Army/military by offering encouragement and useful articulations -- the same recommendation I had made 15 years ago in a general sense. The deafening, anti-military silence which has greeted my reminder and recommendation was anticipated but still disappointing. So life goes on. It just happens that Mary and I have lived rather close to the beating heart of this particular aspect of it, homeschooling, and have a very happy sense of having accomplished and/or foreshadowed significant benefit for our system of education. Our manifesto on the subject, dating from 1989, is still valid:
Adwaitha Hermitage
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