acs,

You wrote:
>In the country at large, homeschoolers are definitely the minority, often mocked or mistreated because of their decision. As a result, a little defensiveness makes sense�

I�m not sure that most homeschoolers are very defensive about homeschooling, except in the limited sense of wanting to protect their legal rights. E.g., out here in California, a lot of us are rather concerned about the recent state appellate court decision against homeschooling (although it does not affect my kids since they are enrolled in a public charter school, and we do expect the decision to be overturned on appeal to higher courts anyway).

And, in fact, when I have talked both with acquaintances and with random strangers about our homeschooling over the last four years, I�ve gotten an overwhelmingly positive response. I think the reason for this is all the news stories about how US public schools stack up poorly against schools in many other countries, and also the obvious behavioral and social problems in many US public schools. Perhaps, evangelical homeschoolers who announce that they are homeschooling to protect their kids from Satanic influences (such as evolution!) get a less sympathetic response than I�ve gotten, but we are homeschooling for primarily academic reasons (I�d like my kids to understand evolution better than public school kids do).

The main �defensiveness� I�ve seen among homeschoolers is among the �unschoolers,� and those who lean in that direction, who are defensive about their kids� being behind in grade level even in the three Rs (not all are, of course, but there are some who are). In fact, I stumbled on this site because I was getting tired of keeping quiet about the fact that my kids were way beyond grade level in academic subjects � it makes it hard to share information on books and resources when it is considered ill form to mention that your kids are academically advanced.

I was actually rather startled to see the interest in homeschooling here. My guess is that homeschooling seems more prominent in the �gifted community� than it really is, simply because of the novelty factor: after all, homeschooling is �news� but sending kids to the public schools is not news. I wonder if anyone really knows how widespread homeschooling is in the �gifted community�?

You wrote:
>I, who have a kid in a regular public school placed in his age-appropriate grade, start to feel like I don't quite belong here (maybe my kid isn't gifted? maybe I'm a bad parent? maybe they are all laughing at me). The same kinds of insecurity and defensiveness start to grow. And I start of feel a little evangelical about regular school.

Well, for my part, I thought your description of some bad homeschooling experiences that you knew of was quite appropriate: that�s the sort of information Jamie was asking for. As Kriston has said, homeschooling is not a goal in and of itself. The purpose is to give children the fullest opportunity to develop their potential (hopefully, in a way that does not make them miserable).

For some of us, homeschooling seems to be a good way to achieve that goal. But homeschooling is not a magic bullet. It�s certainly possible to do it badly � personally, I�m doubtful about how the unschoolers are doing it (but it�s their families, not mine � in a free country, we accept that other people will make decisions we disagree with). Even those of us who try hard to do a good job homeschooling are certainly not perfect � we just try our best.

Anyway, I agree with Kriston: the goal is to figure out how bright kids can receive better educations than they are generally now receiving. To the degree any of us can share information about methods, resources, ways of thinking that can help reach that goal, we�re all better off.

Incidentally, most of my children�s friends out there in the real world actually attend public schools � the local home school group is just way too �unschoolish� for us. We did just find out last week that one of the other kids in their dance class was also homeschooled, but, by and large, it seems to me just as foolish to limit our interactions to others who are pursuing the same educational method as we are as it would be to limit our interactions to people who held the same political or religious opinions or had identical tastes in art and music that we have. Aside from the fact that it is boring to interact with people exactly like yourself, I�m not sure where I could find people exactly like myself � it would limit human interaction quite considerably.

It�s probably unavoidable that we homeschoolers sound a bit enthusiastic since we are working hard at something that we think is working out pretty well; and I do think we owe it to people like Jamie to share our positive experiences and our reservations about the public schools, just as you owe it to Jamie and everyone else to share your cautionary tales about homeschooling and how you have worked things out for your kids within the public schools.

But it would certainly be a shame if you really felt you did not belong here! (And, yeah, I do know the universal parental anxiety of �OMG! Am I doing the best thing for my child?� I fear that is part of being a parent for all of us.)

All the best,

Dave