The Top 40

Thank you for representing home schooling in such a positive light. Home schooled kids can read, write and, most importantly, think. Also, the most common criticism is that home schoolers lack social skills. However, from my experience as a home schooling mom, it's the other way around. The public school kids in our suburban neighborhood are obsessed with school life. They think only in the context of that structure. They are trained to function within the subculture that is school society - they seem almost nonhuman - robotic, or at best, lemmings. Fitting in is literally a matter of life or death! Each of my kids developed a strong sense of self-awareness and self-worth very early and it would never occur to them to relinquish that for the sake of "fitting in". And depending on the day, work ethic seems to be innate. In fact, if anything, I am the one who is still programmed in the old traditional classroom habits. haha. They actually challenge ME!

All kids will be socialized, the only question is to what.

We really need to start a home colleging movement to shield young adults from internalizing the most noxious and dysfunctional ideas.

That thought has occured to me, Bob. But with minds like Ann Coulter and S.E. Cupp and Greg Gutfeld out there, I feel there is hope for my kids. It will indeed depend on how well I prepare them for the battle, the odyssey.. I nearly lost my soul at a small liberal arts college and I was raised by very conservative Christian parents. Luckily, family sat me down for the "vote straight Repub" speech before I wasted my virgin presidential vote on Bill Clinton in the name of "pro-choice". I was firmly wedged in my "tree-hugger" phase. I could not imagine being expected to carry a baby I didn't want to full term. I blame that entire pre-Rush Limbaugh chapter, one in which I wondered aimlessly in the ever-trendy, miserably-earthy "feel-good" wilderness, on that one Edie Brickell song! haha! We all wanted to be Edie Brickell! I literally thank God for my journey out of darkness - that my family had the courage to confront me even in my Edie Brickell phase, because it was a very close call. My kids will not be as ill-equipped as their mother. haha. They are already more politically aware and self-determined than I was in college. Even then, I am concerned for how they will manage to survive in the enemy territory.

*occurred (shameless spellcheck)

It would be good to start an underground railroad for urban kids imprisoned in public schools, too, Bob.

Brilliant. Too bad Republicans never have the balls to put it that way, and to take back the mantle of civil rights from the leftist pimps who profit from the dysfunction they propagate.

Very often I have heard successful people who were once tortured and failing school kids say they learned all they knew about the basic building blocks of education from a few weeks or months of instruction in private tutoring. But what the state intends to teach kids does take years to accomplish.

I am not only a home schooling mom, but a former public high school teacher. The kids are definitely learning the skill of demanding something for nothing. And the administration is definitely learning to press teachers to give them something for nothing. And we don't even have teachers unions where I taught. Between my experience in the god-forsaken public schools and my own recovery from the trappings trendy liberal culture, it was a no-brainer when my kids were starting school. I believe the people who deserve the "big balls" award would be the Christians who pioneered the home schooling movement and suffered indignation and even prison time at the hands of their respective state governments. There is not a single day that goes by that I don't thank God for their courage and pray He grants me half the courage when I am faced with such a "calling".

Been there and done that home schooling stuff. Now my kids are rational, inner-directed, responsible, competent happy adults who for the most part laugh at popular culture and political correctness. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and if I could make a living schooling another family in a homelike environment, it would be the best job I could imagine having.