Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Village Can't Have 'Em, Yet

Watch this video and tell me what you think.



I'm not "anti-anything that's not home school". I appreciate what the public schools are trying to do in our community. I appreciate teachers of most stripes and parents who can't or don't think they can home school their children. Saying that, I think about all of these things (in the video) when I wonder if I'm doing the right thing by my children by homeschooling them. My main goal in schooling our children ourselves is to raise them in the faith and to get to Heaven the best way I know how. I don't have extra thousands to send them to the finest Catholic schools around here, so homeschooling it is! There is about as much support for homeschooling as there is for any other school choice nowadays. I really never get flack for it. When I say, "I home school" after someone asks me what grades my kids are in, etc., I always get a positive reaction (usually followed by some comment like, "I always wanted to do that, but I never could!", or, "My neighbor home schools, that's really neat!", or, "Wow, I give you a lot of credit!" or some discussion on why I do it which at least gets a negative person really thinking about school choice and freedom to choose the forms of education we all should have.) So when I watched this video, I thought about how a person who sends their kids to school would view it. I know people who send their kids to school but have the scenes depicted in it at their homes (when their children are home) despite the fact that they don't home school. I know people who don't home school that care very deeply about their children's faith and foster that faith so much that they are bound to "turn out okay" despite the negative influences they might encounter in school. I also know families that, once their children reach high school, it's a little different story and the negative influences seep in despite the parent's best influence and intentions.

Like I said, let me know what you think!