Tolerance and Acceptance.

You probably know by now about the huuuuge stink Dana Goldstein caused by blogging that liberals ought send their children to public school.  She's been (I think rightfully) smacked down by her fellow liberals in just about every corner of the internet I've come across. 

It's really strange, though.  Not that I believe for one minute that Dana Goldstein or anybody else should be telling people where they need to send their children to school.  But it's very strange that people who work in public education aren't backing her up.  I don't mean "teachers as an entire group" or "the NEA" or anything like that.  I mean the usual bunch of yokel edubloggers who are always out criticising homeschooling, or rolling their eyes at some "homophobe" who doesn't want their kid taking sex ed, or some parent who wants Creation reflected in the curriculum.  Seems like they abandoned one of their own and just left her to twist in the wind.

Kinda sad for her, huh?  It wasn't that long ago that Goldstein's thoughts reflected the majority of public opinion.

But it means now homeschooling just means "not going to a conventional school" because the demographics are changing.  You see, more liberals homeschooling is a good thing.  It unshackles kids from "the man" and "the system" and allows for free thinking.  But when conservatives do it, it's indoctrination.  Just so you know.

One thing I'd really like to see?  An acceptance of mediocrity.  I don't mean that in a bad way.  I mean... how about accepting that most homeschoolers are just sort of boring and average?  Average intelligence, average abilities, nothing really remarkable or unusual.  Do we all have to raise champion spellers or early readers to be accepted out there?  It's something that's been on my mind.

It seems that people are accepting of the super-genius kid who stays home because his local school won't offer Calculus for six-year-olds, and they're OK with a Mom who homeschools her child with Down Syndrome because he keeps getting sick when he's exposed to large crowds... but otherwise?  Seems like people still want to know what's weird about you that you are homeschooling.  Are you religious or what?

I'm actually OK with people stating they think that ideally, a child should homeschool because (reason) or go to school because (reason).  Just don't expect that one blog piece saying that homeschooling isn't a liberal thing to do is going to make me hightail it over to the enrollment office with Emperor.  Actually, it makes me feel better that I'm not one of *those* sanctimonious idealists she was blogging about.  Yay for me! :)