Homeschool Training and Support

A comment on a previos post, which was super briefly about homeschooling, suggested that if there was a support and training system in place for homeschooling parents, more would do it.  The implication I read (mostly because I kinda know the commentor) was that if the state had some trainging and support systems in place, more would homeschool.

There are such things in places like California.  And, from what I've heard they work.  Sort of.  I don't know much about the system and I haven't researched it and will not take the time to do so unless I feel it pressingly important.  However, what little I know leads me to believe that providing such creates a new kind of dependence.

The kind of dependence created is rather antethema to some of what makes homeschooling so valuable to the community as a whole.  Part of the reason (not all of it, of course) that homeschooling is so great IS the difficulty of it.  Granted, putting my children away from me for the greater part of the day and entrusting them into another's care would be far more difficult for ME than what I do as a homeschooling Mama.  But what I do is too difficult for the majority of parents who send their children to public school, thus they send them to public school.

Additionally, creating a training and support system through the State simply creates a school at home situation.  There is a difference, ya know, between school at home and homeschool.   Homeschooling is less about recreating the school environment at home and more about teaching our children through life, in non-threatening ways, and in ways that are tailor-made for each of our child-students.

Finally, I desire to point out that "training" outlets and "support systems" are already in place.  The difference between a State providing such and the way it already exists is that the individual who desires to homeschool their child or children must research and learn and find the training and support systems which currently exist.  Whereas, if a State provided training and support structure became standard, the very nature of homeschooling as it is today would change in a big way for the majority of homeschoolers... at least the new ones.  Some folks, including the person who made the comment to which I am sort of responding, would consider this a good thing.  However, for those like me... who are actually DOing the homeschooling and like and appreciate the way it is now, well... we just don't.

So, I hope the California model will stay right where it is in California.  I hope also that the Florida virtual schools will remain rather obscure.  And finally, I hope that homeschooling continues to be about seperating oneself and one's family from the support structure of the government because if it changes from what it is (in that regard), our whole country will lose a source (small though it may be) of a different kind of strength.