Homeschool Family Invites the Radio Host to Supper!

     One of our local homeschool mothers wrote the following letter to the radio host who expressed doubts about the socialization of home schooled children. Stephine (unique spelling) gave us permission to publish her letter here with slight changes to protect their identity.

Colonel Ray,

I was disappointed by the negative names you called home schoolers earlier this week.  Your attack on the parents’ decision of how to best educate their children was surprising in itself given your libertarian views.  However, your name calling was just juvenile.  Exactly what initiated your monologue on home schoolers’ social lives?  I am curious to know.  Apparently your hang up with home schooling is limited to your concern for the children’s social lives.  You didn’t mention the quality of education nor the opportunities available to them nor their ability to contribute to the community.

I am responding to your comments because my son is home schooled.  When asked, he doesn’t miss sitting in a classroom for 8 ½ hours every day.  I am not sure how classroom participation counts as socialization.  Perhaps lunch is the socializing time?  He was required to sit in an assigned seat and had exactly 20 minutes to eat.  No socialization there.  Perhaps it is recess?  He had exactly 15 minutes of recess a day.  I guess that is the 15 minutes of daily socialization you think he is missing.  No other free time to learn to build relationships.  Some of the extra-curricular activities he participates in are after school hours with children who attend a variety of school arrangements.  In addition, he actually gets to socialize during “school hours” with other home schoolers.  

My husband was home schooled.  It hasn't seemed to hurt him a bit.  He has served in federal law enforcement for over twenty years.  His assignments have taken him to as varied places as the White House, Baghdad, Singapore, Houston, and McAllen.  You could ask the officers that work for him or the fellow supervisors that he has dealt with all over the world whether he is socially inept.

Like you accuse Rush Limbaugh of doing, you should consider what you say and what labels you attach to people before you broadcast your comments valley-wide.

In order to give you a frame of reference before you speak of home schooled children again, I would like to invite you and your family to my home for dinner.  You can judge for yourself whether my husband and son are socially backward.  Since we have other things in common, I think it could be a pleasant and interesting dinner conversation.

I also would like to invite you to come visit our home school coop classes one day.  The parents and kids would love to have conversation with you.  Perhaps you could join us for one of our community projects, like putting flags out on the veterans’ graves on Veterans’ Day.  I will let you know the next project we have.  Stephine