The popular media wants us to believe that schools provide a religion-neutral place where all reasonable people should send their children to be socialized. Recent trends here in the US provides a disturbing context for those assumptions.
An article in this morning's Washington Times describes a court case where a judge ordered a mother to send her Christian daughter to the public schools so the girl can consider other worldviews. In other words, the schools are not the religion-neutral place so often espoused, but a shopping center where children can pick and choose a philosophy apart from the guidance of parents.
What is particularly disturbing to me is that the mother was replaced by an appointed guardian when it came to the daughter's legal interests. When the mother wanted information about homeschooling presented as part of the case, this guardian is reported to have said, "I don't want to hear it. "It's all Christian-base."
If you are concerned that this is one of those sad cases where some disturbed mother is locking her child away in isolation, rest assured that it is not. Her homeschooling has enriched her talents to the point where even an opposing attorney in the case describes her as "brilliant." And the girl has surpassed the requirements for the local school system in subject matter and academic progress. She is also taking supplemental classes at school in Spanish, theater and PE and is involved in gymnasics and other sports.
As a mother in a homeschooling family that includes a spectrum kid, I am extremely upset at this precedent. "Special needs" children often receive closer scrutiny when homeschooled. This is a question of control -- and of the civil authority overstepping its bounds in forcing a family to accept a competing worldview.
This situation underscores the additional critical need to have strong families involved in homeschooling. The child in this case is the rope in a three-way tug-of-war between not only the state and the family, but between two parents who have split. No child should be put in such a position.
1 comment:
Agreed : no child should be made the meat in the sandwich over education, religion or parental break up.
Re Special Needs kids being home schooled. The irony is that we have them at home, giving them one on one instruction in the specific areas they are delayed in. The state may claim they are not getting sufficient education but could never provide this type of learning. A lot of kids in schools with these sorts of learning disabilities simply go to a Behavioural Correction room :-(
What hope?
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