In Defense of Homeschooling

Dear Harvard University and Harvard Magazine,

Contrary to your woeful stereotyping of homeschoolers in the biased, speculative and wholly unsubstantiated portrait painted in Harvard Magazine currently, here is photographic proof that my homeschooled 10th grader is not chained to the kitchen table by horrible authoritarian parents who isolate and indocrinate him. 

There he is at the *Harvard Museum of Natural History* taking in the *gasp* evolution and zoology exhibits.  He wants to be an evolutionary biologist and a paleontologist.

Here he is at Columbia and Yale and MIT participating in enrichment programs for high school students, rather than languishing in a bookish prison as your article depicted. 

He has recently walked the Freedom Trail in Boston and visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History, the National Gallery of Art, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Historical Society, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University, Yale Art Gallery, and too many others to list here.

I will stack his DIY interest tailored education against any public school in the nation and feel confident it is at least equivalent, if not far superior. 

In some of the photos, he has on a ballcap that reads "Assume nothing." I would like to suggest that you adopt that as your mantra in attempting to understand the diverse and wonderful practice of homeschooling.  If Veritas is your motto, you need to seriously reexamine what you have published and your call for a presumptive ban on an educational modality that is effective, creative, and stimulates a lifelong love of learning.

Sincerely, an Ivy League educated libertarian retired lawyer who finds your latest foray into journalism laughable.

Hey, Harvard Magazine!

Here's something that I wrote a long time ago that I would like to serenade Harvard Magazine and a certain ignorant law professor with...  In case it isn't painfully obvious, it's to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE HOMESCHOOLER

Under the Department of Education

We’ve produced some hopeless dolts

But at least they are quite passive

And the bulk of them don’t vote.

“There must be accountability!

Now teach them to the test!”

And stupidity marches on…

CHORUS: 

Glory, Glory education

Is a joke in this great  nation.

Glory, glory education

While testing marches on.

We have hamstrung all the teachers

With our great assessment tools

We have killed their creativity 

And generated fools

The kids are bored to tears

So that the brightest of them drool

Public education marches on.

CHORUS

If you live in a great district 

Then your kids have got a prayer

If you’re poor or from the city

Well, the rich folks do not share

When there’s 40 children in a room

Then chaos reigns supreme

And testing marches on.

CHORUS

The No Child Left Behind Law

Makes sure no one gets ahead.

They will drill and kill the subjects 

Till the kids wish they were dead.

We give lipservice to improving

But the game is rigged, you see,

And Bureaucracy marches on.

CHORUS

We tell kids that they must study

And that college is the goal

But when graduation comes

They’re in a financial black hole

And the jobs that they have worked for

Have been shipped out overseas

As propaganda marches on.

CHORUS

If you’d have your kids be thinkers

Then you need a better tool.

Pull them out of institutions,

Roll your sleeves up and homeschool.

Though they won’t have a diploma

Stamped and sealed by government

They will think for themselves!

Glory, glory education

Take a permanent vacation

Join the happy homeschool nation

And learning marches on.

Feel free to share with credit...

2019 Not Back to School Interview

Q: What is your favorite subject?
A: Mathematics... NO! Evolutionary biology, paleontology (I am really into the Ediacaran fauna right now), and history.

Q: What are you best at?
A: Making connections between things; generating hypotheses; imagination; procrastinating. (Same answer as last year.)

Q: I need to get better at __________.
A Not procrastinating and meeting deadlines, note taking, the Great Evil (math), handwriting, dealing with time pressure on tests.

Q: What's the best thing about being a homeschooler?
A: I can do whatever I want. Nah. I get to make my own schedule, and I get to choose what I want to learn.

Q: What's the worst thing?
A: No summer break.

Q: What kind of work do you want to do when you grow up?
A: I want to be a paleontologist and a professor. I would love to do vertebrate paleontology (yes, dinosaurs), but it probably makes more sense to do invertebrate...

Q: This year I want to learn about ________.
A: AP Bio, Entomology, review Geology, Paleontology (Permian/Triassic periods, paleoart, scientific reconstruction, preparator skills); anatomy; zoology; medieval history; anthropology; German; Latin; history of Eastern Europe; the ancient Near East; archaeology; paleoanthropology; and maybe forensics. Scientific illustration and cartography. Survival and camping skills; special effects and animation.

Q: I want to do more _________.
A: Biology, classes with Wendy and Crystal, hanging out with my friends. Field trips. The Great Courses, Outschool and Coursera and Ed-X.

Q: I want to do less _________.
A: Math. Handwriting. Duolingo.

Q: Who is your best friend?
A: Koby. And Julian is a really good friend.

Q:I want to go on a field trip to __________.
A: National Museum of Natural History. Newseum. The Bruce Museum.

Q: I want to go on vacation to __________.
A. Washington DC. Philadelphia. Boston.

Q. The most fun or best thing I did last school year was:
A. Yale Splash, and visiting the Yale Peabody Museum and Yale Art Museum. Our trip to Philadelphia, especially talking to the preparator at the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University. And Wayfinders (Mom adds- playing with foam swords.)

Q. What is your favorite book that you read last school year?
A. It's either The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Stephen Brusatte or The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Q. What is your favorite online class that you took last year?
A. I can't pick one. Really, I enjoyed them all. But top of the list? Marine Biology; Mesopotamian Cosmology; Statelessness: The Art of Not Being Governed; Bioinformatics; Feelin' Blue: Genetics and Heredity; Irish History; German; Latin; Dungeons & Dragons: Sleepy Hollow and Dungeons & Dragons for Teens; and I enjoyed Chemistry, too.

Q. Of all the field trips you took last year, which was the best?
A. Yale Peabody Museum (Dinosaurs and the Mesopotamia exhibit). The T. Rex exhibit at AMNH. World Between Empires and Arms & Armor at the Met.

Q. What are you looking forward to doing this year?
A. Classes with Wendy Raver and Crystal Ferreira. A trip to DC. AP Bio. Fencing.

Q. What are some colleges you might want to apply to?
A. Yale, Cornell, University of Alberta, University of Montana, Richard Gilder (AMNH, mom), Columbia, SUNY Stonybrook, Hunter College Macauley Honors, NYU, Columbia, University of Chicago, Fort Hayes State University.

Looking forward to another year of learning together!