I have no interest in winning over people like Vigil, who I think are so deeply invested in the system they can’t imagine anything different. Even the way they approach the problem is from the straight-jacket of group think. But I also think it’s important to point out that many home-schoolers, or at least the ones I know, would reject to Navy-Mom’s insistence that home-schooling will churn out God-fearing patriots. My wife and I are home-schooling our 7-year-old son, who, so far anyway, is a budding scientist and unrepentant atheist (any God-talk is “magical thinking” as far as he is concerned) and a hard-nosed individualist. He doesn’t buy into any collectivist or tribal mentality, including the so-called patriotism bandied about these days by Limbaugh, FOX blowhards, etc.
Of course, like most home-schoolers, we don’t fit the mold. We’re both agnostics and deeply suspicious of any dogma. We’re not materialists, by any means, just skeptics. We “un-school,” which means we have no set curriculum and let our child set the course. Every day is school. Every environment is the classroom. We have several friends and relatives in the school profession, all of whom are shocked (if not dismayed) by our approach. But you can’t argue with results. Our friends and family who disapprove of our decision to un-school nevertheless call our son wildly gifted, a label we find absurd. All people are gifted if given the right to educate themselves (see John Taylor Gatto).
