Membership drive?

Scary words aside throughout Suspicion can bring intrusions on family*, there is one sentence, not written by the writer of the article, but attributed to a freelance writer/social worker that jumps out at me: 

• "I think social workers should approach homeschools with an expectation that they are strong, healthy and functional.

"Homeschools?"   What the h. e. double-toothpicks is a "homeschool."  Yes, I've seen the word used, as one word, as a hyphenated word, and as two words, many times.  Often the people using it are the people who claim they have one, such as, "In our home-school ...."  I've even homeschooled myself, but I never thought of myself as operating a 'home school.'  The idea would have been painful, and probably counter-productive.

In some state the legal requirement is to "name your home-school," so there is a reason why people conceive of the setup as a school in their home.  Still, I find the concept dumb.  The construct is not a 'home-school' or a 'home school' or even my choice of spelling, a 'homeschool.'  The construct is a family.

People may choose to run their families in a bureaucratic style, but -- in the grand majority of cases -- homeschooling boils down to a family living together and acting in patterns.  Some patterns are looser, some are tighter, but all are parents and children living together.  No one is paid for the work, no one (despite some characterizations) is a superintendent, principal or teacher in the bureaucratic sense because the family is, a family. 

When a child in the family wakes up in the middle of the night and tries crawling into the parents' bed to be comforted, I'm assuming she doesn't pull on her mom's bed-covers saying, "Teacher, teacher."  If her brother is having difficulty getting the lid off the strawberry jam (I hope) he doesn't go up to dad and say, "Mr. [insert family's last name], will you please help me open this jar?" 

If this does happen, I don't want to know about it.

To my mind homeschooling boils down to parents and children continuing to live and learn together as they did before the children became what is now known as 'school age.'   'In our homeschool' = in our family.

The 'school' portion of the varieties of the homeschool words is an unfortunate necessity because so much of our social interaction is grounded in 'school,' and like the air around us, we don't notice it unless it gets too frisky.  It's too bad our 'air' isn't determined by our artistic, musical or physical abilities instead of a religion**-sized bureaucratic entity enforced on each person by law.

* An e-list friend wants to know what social worker shows up at 1am, "Imagine a knock at the door at 1 a.m.; you struggle out of bed to find a social worker and a police officer on your doorstep."   Is this a normal way to do business -- with no emergency involved -- or is this hyperbole that brings up visions of living in a totalitarian society?

** You think it's not a religion?  Try going against it, even in your own mind.

[Background from my point-of-view.  This article is printed in the Washington Times, a newspaper owned by the Moonies.  This is 'old news' as the Times is over 20 years old, but a Washington Post article underscores the continued ... wondering ... about the newspaper's slant:

• Moon's sermon tossed gasoline on the long-smoldering embers that some
  Times staffers have spent two decades trying to extinguish: the
  accusation that their paper is a mouthpiece for Moon's religious
  movement, the Unification Church. Or, at best, a public relations
  outlet for conservative values and the Republican Party.]

Information page from the website Homeschooling is Legal:  Homeschoolers and Social Services

Also, there's a nice, long discussion at HEM-Networking, starting with Message #26111.  Just click on "Message Index" and then "Expanded."

Comments

[Mary]

HSLDA has been using the Washington Times to promote itself for years now. And the Washington Times uses HSLDA to promote its acceptance as a legitimate news source with a conservative viewpoint. Unfortunately, it also equates homeschooling with the Unification Church (“the Moonies”) and it’s leader, Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Moon’s teachings are in direct conflict to Christian teachings. He believes he IS God. To quote Rev. Moon, “He [God] is living in me and I am the incarnation of Himself. ... The whole world is in my hand, and I will conquer and subjugate the world."

By extension, HSLDA is giving credibility to the Times with homeschooling families, encouraging them to read and subscribe to the views of the Unification Church.

I guess it’s more important to see your name in print than to be concerned about supporting a cult?

[Scott W. Somerville]

All of HSLDA's attorney rotate through the duty of dealing with emergencies at any time of the day, night, or weekend. I've had my share of late night calls (they mostly seem to come from California!), and they are nothing to joke about. While most child protective service workers do most of their investigations during the 9:00-5:00 working day, they tend to remove children at the end of the working day... or significantly later.

[Valerie]

Scott, what _are_ you talking about?

[Lynda]

I am concerned with this continuing lack of concrete evidence. Having lived in CA for over 50 years, homeschooled there since the 60s, been a resource since the 70s, I can say that the occurance of calls is RARE and of late night calls is about as frequent as finding hen's teeth. Scare tactics policies aside, here's a hint, East Coast time vs. Pacific Coast time.

[Valerie]

Ah, now I see it. I shouldn't approve comments after my bedtime.

[Scott W. Somerville]

Today's child protective services excitement is a family that had been homeschooling for several years, and relied on their local school district to provide them with textbooks. They changed districts and asked for books from the new school, which refused. The new school district said, "We have a distance learning program you can sign up for that will give you free books and computer software." The family signed their oldest child, a nine year old, up for the program but used their old books for the two younger children.

After three weeks of increasing frustration with the cyberschool, the parents decided "this isn't homeschooling." They withdrew the child and sent in the notice required to restart homeschooling. A social worker came to the house to "ask some questions" about the child. When the social worker pulled out a tape recorder and started taping the conversation, the parent objected. That's when the social worker said, "If you don't let me talk to the child now, I'll call the police and have her removed."

Fast forward three days... the family received a summons to appear in court next week, and the social workers are asking the judge to remove all three children from the home and place them in foster care.

I'd be happy to put you directly in touch with the family to get any additional details you need to know. Email me at [email protected].

[Valerie]

I think we can all agree that CPS can get over zealous. The flip side is that if something tragic did happen, we would also wonder "where was CPS?" Why didn't they catch this? The topic isn't simple.

Still, the original objection wasn't that HSLDA counsels families dealing with social workers, or that social workers visit homes, or anything like that. The original objection by my e-list friend was to using the 'midnight knock at the door,' so reminiscent of the late, not-so-great, totalitarian regimes where the 'midnight knock' is indeed a reality, as a frightener.

Perhaps HSLDA can publish a handbook on "If this, then that" concerning social services arriving at the door?

Ahhh, looks like you've got that one covered:
http://www.hslda.org/speakers/topic.asp?t=8

As do others:
http://www.homeschoolingislegal.info/cps.asp