H. E. R. P. & E. S.

Are they really traitors, or are they getting their immediate educational needs met in a way that is different than yours and mine?

Framing this as “defecting” might not be as accurate as saying that traditional brick-and-motar schools are finding ways to try to mimic the homeschool environment because they KNOW something is wrong with their system.

Homeschoolers might flock to these virtual schools because they do not have confidence and support they need and they certainly are not getting it from anyone calling them a traitor!

Lead them out with a carrot, not by slinging mud! Save the mud slinging for the politicians!

Virtual school reading and literature teacher Stephanie Hoffman said she prefers the online atmosphere to teaching in public schools, which she did for about her about 10 years.
***
Even though she denies it, Stephanie is a “traitor” too!

What ARE we going to do? People making choices all over the place! What’s the world coming to!

Nance

Hey all, did you just hear the sound of “both-at-the-same-time” coming from the “either-or, never-both” advocacy?
Believe it or not!

I thought it was a nice breath of fresh air!

Nance

Mary –

Yep. I saw that too. And also disagreed with it as any sort of blanket statement. OTOH, hsing as you or I do it may be hard for some people. Attacking charter/cyberhsing parents for calling what they do “homeschooling” is inappropriate. Helping them to feel more confident in their independent abilities without chastising their words would be a much better approach. One you seem to take once they’ve screwed up enough courage to homeschool independently.

Annette –

Now we’ve seen you and your friend, Pat W., use this new phrase “heckler’s veto” a couple of times. Who taught you that one??

Never mind. I don’t need to waste any more time with you.

Nance

Annette –

It is very generous of you to share the link to your website — over and over again — but we’ve all seen your dumb opinions before and, personally, I don’t have time for them.

Mary –

Thanks for explaining, as I know you’ve done everywhere else. I don’t think there’s a person here who would disagree wth:

“Each individual deserves to know the importance of what the rights and responsibility are for the option they choose.”

Of course.

What that same person doesn’t deserve is to be told they aren’t really hsing or that they are a threat to hsing freedoms, etc., etc., etc.

The ever-evolving objections to the charterhsing choice are part of the same side of the discussion that repeats, as you do, that we all need to know our rights and responsibilities. Maybe that’s all you focus on though — and good for you.

Or did I skip over “the importance of” and I shouldn’t have? That changes the meaning of your post, doesn’t it? That’s where the anti-charterhsing folks get to slip in their dire warnings of doom and gloom for hsing as we know it. It stops being just information to base a decision on. It opens the door for pushing one over the other. .. hmm. . .

Maybe there are a few people here who would disagree with your post.

Nance

“Amplifying Our Differences:
Schlocky Political Theatre”
cultur...heatre

From the NYT — must be true! — so why insist it’s not?:

“. . .breaking down barriers and assimilating different traditions is the vogue right now. . . .”

I pick myself up off the ground
To have you knock me back down again and again!
And when I ask you to explain, you say

You’ve gotta be
Cruel to be kind in the right measure,
Cruel to be kind it’s a very good sign,
Cruel to be kind means that I love you,
Baby, you’ve gotta be cruel to be kind…

The title was sarcastic and alludes to several threads we’ve had recently here at HE&OS about the NYT. I have no doubt that the folks who regularly hang out here got my point. Sorry if you were offended. It was unintended.

Would any of you advocates object to cyber-charter or other publicly funded hybrid programs being called “state homeschooling”?

I think “public” in place of “state” is more descriptive. Or how ’bout “government (home)schools”?

The phrase “homeschoolers in general” is itself without any clear or generally applicable definition.

Fresh fire for today indeed.

Maybe one thing is safe to generalize — no hser or hs group is correct to claim to speak for U.S. homeschooling and to define it for us all, not HSLDA or NHELD lawyers and not blogging friends or antagonists, much less one mom phoning CANADA to proclaim what is or isn’t homeschooling, as if it were some universal fundament or point for international diplomacy.

(And then to quote that same Canadian back to U.S. hsers as gloating evidence we are wrong about OURSELVES? The mind boggles. . . no wonder we do this every summer and get nowhere.

It’s clearly not universal but speaking only for myself, thanks to the many, many truly independent-minded parents (whatever they call themselves) who protect clear thinking first and let all their advocacy and well-doing flow from that.

Say lots of us feel “homeschoolers in general” don’t want baggage like the Pearls’ child- beating and will-breaking programs dropped on homeschooling. We here could proclaim that whipping babies and ritual beating of children with plumbing supplies is not homeschooling, and crank up a national campaign to protect “our” language and image from it.

Wouldn’t that be “kinder” than all these legalisms, and wouldn’t hsing earn more public respect and support by at least pretending that “homeschoolers in general” care more about homeschool reality for HEKs than public program terminology in news stories?

Good rant. I, however, remain unconvinced. FWIW, here’s my position– G-schoolers at home (and their parents) should be allowed and encouraged to participate in any kind of activity that’s open to “real” HEKs. Likewise, parents should be allowed to participate in the moms’ meetings. So, no separation. BUT, there still must be a recognition that the g-school at homers aren’t, legally speaking, homeschooling. The parents should not be allowed to turn any kind of legal discussion to the needs and rules of g-(home)schooling. IOW, the legal Q&A should not be allowed to take over the annual newbie FAQ meeting.

As for the slippery slope– Tim said it best over a year ago.

Tim did say it well. I wasn’t reading here then so thanks for the link.
And here’s something buried in those comments from someone I doubt I’ve ever agreed with on anything, but so clear that it absolutely glitters in retrospect:

“When one decides to homeschool their children, they don’t sign on for some movement . . .Nor are they responsible for the way some people may choose, frequently deliberately, to hear what is being explained . . .Bottomline, using certain techniques to reframe and point fingers . . .isn’t going to get anyone anywhere. ”

Daryl – yes, Daryl as one homeschooling parent and individual, not “homeschoolers in general” for one moment – I think this is it, your blog has discovered the Golden Rules for the protection of the legally home-educating universe, the three clearly kind and legally sound points all homeschoolers in general do surely deserve to know, respect, and have clarified at every opportunity.

1) legal homeschooling is not anyone’s defined political or religious movement,

2) however (or whether) we legally homeschool or not, each of us remains responsible only for ourselves,

and
3) reframing and pointing fingers isn’t going to get anyone anywhere.

Over several years, most of us manage to discuss this concern thoroughly, decide where we stand, and move on to learn about and consider other issues. But for a “handful” of hsers this word-protection cry is like some rhetorical loop of obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental wash-til-raw-and-repeat pathology deluding itself that it’s merely some normal, healthy concern for cleanliness.

In contrast, I do often take pains to distinguish between education and schooling in my own speech, and to persuade others it is an important distinction when it comes up in conversation, but I don’t proclaim my personal view as legal fact, driven to police it for every parent and reporter on the planet, to make it my cause celebre . . . I hope someone kind would suggest I seek help for my disorder if that ever starts to happen.

Fact: Shelley has actually lived and learned with her own children in both PA and Utah, and been active in her own right on this issue for many years.

Fact: Shelley didn’t ask for any personal counseling, any more than women trying to enter health clinics ask for the “sidewalk counseling” with which they are accosted by holier-than-thous with no better way to live their own lives on earth than to interfere with others’ lawful and responsiible choices.

Fact: if homeschool moms pushing their unsolicited online legal advice on all of us from their private homes in OH and ME have bar cards in any state including their own, I’ve never seen it mentioned to legitimize their counseling and advising and lobbying of officials as representing the interests of other families.

(Not saying a legal license would make all this unsolicited “help” any more welcome, just less legally perilous – it’s bad enough coming from attorneys who make a living in this area, sorry Scott, but you and Deborah Stevenson can both overstep, from the perspective of capable homeschoolers who feel we do just fine without all this intense, self-interested legal “help.”)

Here’s an image that fits real HEK power of story.
HInt – the bridge supports the beholder’s perpective without thrusting itself into the shot. Home education is the magnificent river. The canyon is all we don’t know, and still have to learn.. It’s not about the bridge.

This river rivals the Grand Canyon in beauty. Viewing the Rio Grande from the middle of the bridge is a scary yet wonderful experience. . .

Huh?
So seen through your viewfinder, I can’t comprehend anything and don’t care to, am nowhere in the picture or the action (certainly nowhere near the home education river) and it’s not your lofty bridge at all, but mine?.. LOL indeed.

conerned was supposed to be concerned….

And unfortunately the bad stuff (in both directions) is sometimes real, actually happening the way it feels and not just an unfortunate misunderstanding. Today’s new annual PDK/Gallup poll, for instance, is unfortunate that way – public attitudes seem to be gradually responding to the PS frames of “choice” as a school thing, not a parent and child independence thing. PS unions, school boards, PTAs and principals’ sports assns etc are smart to foster this separation of families and parents from their own education choices.
But for us to help them do it to us, when it’s exactly what we didn’t want — not so much . . .

“…a good strategy to keep hsing from being seen as school choice would be to cause people to reconsider calling a public school-at-home program a homeschooling program. The key to having independence and to being *seen* (by the public) as independent is not to take public money where there is the accountability trade-off.”

*****************

This I really do think, has been the core of this difficult disagreement all along. I’d love to agree, I wish I believed this were a good strategy and could succeed. I don’t.

It’s all just so much bigger than that . . .the whole canyon and then some. So “homeschool advocates” keep dropping these little word pebbles off the bridge (or toss then into the river, pitch them at each other, whatever ) and that’s fine. But if that strategy by its very nature supplants or even contradicts other efforts that really can protect us– if, as I fear and have seen happen already, it in fact takes us into unforseen consequences that may well leave us worse off and LESS able to protect our autonomy and public support, then how can that be justified, or even excused?

Not to me.
It’s equating each family and individual’s sovereiogn intellectual independence with mere economic independence as if the former is only legitimized by the lattrer and otherwise has no validity, that’s the problem in my view.
That way, we ALL lose. To the State. We just do, no getting around it no matter what else we manage to defend. IN my view, I’m not calling Canada to spread it though.
Just sayin’ . . .

The independence to choose comes first. Our independence isn’t ours because we homeschool. We homeschool because we are indpendent, and no matter what we choose, homeschooling or not, we STILL are indpendent and sovereign. We don’t become slaves if we choose not to homeschool, or if/when we accept or benefit indirectly from any form of public assistance (g-schools, g-clinics, g-retirement, g-farm subsidies, g-worker’s compensation, etc.)

Education is never the government’s call, not for any family. We’re not “chosen” to home-educate in my world view – we choose it, because we can and we want to enough. Or not. It doesn’t confer divine status on us nor consign everyone else to hell.

Ladies?

Daryl, thanks for lunch . . . and sorry about that poor horse, did it fall off a bridge?

My apologies. If you both still find value in the conversation, feel free to continue it here. The only caveat is that, for reasons only know to the WordPress coders, it seems to put comments on moderated status at random. I can’t promise better than a 6 hour tuen-around for approval.

S’okay, thanks.
Ample time to digest in one’s own garden is part of any meal’s pleasure, and lucky us, there’s always tomorrow –see MacBeth, Scarlett O’Hara and Li’l Orphan Annie for perspective (hmmm, none of whom were conventionally schooled, maybe a promising next menu already?)

I think it’s interesting that these two points of view seem to me to feel threatened by the effect of the other. If I’ve got this right, homeschoolers feel threatened by what they perceive to be potential impact of parent-public charter/cyber schoolers, that it changes expectations of government and the public. Cyber/charter schoolers feel threatened that homeschoolers want to claim the term, and they perceive that this somehow diminishes their choice or status as involved, loving parents.

Homeschoolers truly, truly don’t want government interference or public perception to cause regulation creep or leap; cyberschoolers truly, truly don’t want to be pegged as “less than” homeschoolers.

Homeschoolers may not understand the determination of cyberschoolers to feel as fully involved in their children’s education; Cyberschoolers may not understand the determination of homeschoolers to maintain their independence.

“Homeschooling” seems like a descriptive term for what’s going on in each case, but homeschoolers worry that if it’s applied to a government partnership, they get lumped in with folks who have to or might in the future have to march to government regs and perception that “all homeschoolers” operate the way cyberschools or government-partnership schooling do/does. Cyberschoolers seem concerned that since they are schooling at home, there is no more apt description for what they do than the term “homeschooling,” and that anything else confers some kind of second class citizenship. They also seem concerned that drawing a hard line might exclude their children from certain group activities and enrichments. While homeschoolers seem concerned that not being clear enough sometimes causes cyberschoolers to misunderstand which set of regulations they come under – creating further ill will and also, sometimes, a mess for individual families.

And a million other things.

Jeanne,
If you are giving an overview about what this discussion is about, then no that isn’t it. Your overview much of it on target of a particular problem takes us away from what is really happening here in this comment section, and on NHEN last summer. A parent, Shelley, who has her child in a ps program, posted two(?) comments.
The rest of the discussion/debate is about hs advocacy concerning public school-at-home programs with the strongest criticism coming from JJ and Nance. That is how I see it. It wasn’t Shelley’s or any cyberschooler whose feelings caused the closing of NHEN Leg. forum.

Annette –

This is what I posted earlier today on the HSWatch list. It was in response to a couple of comments about a hser returning to ps.

***********

Re: [HSWatch] CA: San Jose: Seeking social interaction, some hs students switch to ps

I hope she enjoys her switch. Good wishes that I don’t think people always expect. Somehow I think we are expected to view this as a loss in some sort of battle.

And I pick up this attitude from both “sides” — hsers thinking in terms of “our numbers” being diminished, psers viewing a change to hsing as a desertion.

And I hope her state is like FL and makes it easy for her to switch back — and forth — as she needs to. I’ve seen this any number of times among hsers here.

Nance

****************

Note that I refer to some sort of battle that some people seem to think is going on — psers and hsers alike.

For many of us, there is no battle. No “loss” if anyone chooses something different. We don’t “win” if they choose our team.

From this perspective, I am at a loss to figure out what you want a “strategy” for. Maybe JJ gets it. I don’t.

Where’s the war you are fighting?

Nance

Homeschool advocacy versus a smear campaign

That is what much of this thread is about.

The object of the smear campaign is to interfere in homeschool advocacy. It’s an obstructionist technique. The motive is to discredit to others the one being smeared and to paint the individual as being the enemy (note the use of the words “attacking” people and “anti”-).
The method of the obstructionist is to redirect the discussion in such a way as to portray the individual being smeared as an antagonist instead of an advocate.

If a new day is here and this technique is put aside, I welcome it heartily. But if not and in the future, you see a homeschool advocate being attacked in this way, consider calling it for what it is–obstruction. Anyone who goes to so much trouble to try and prevent others from hearing, must be trying to prevent something that should be heard. Charters are not the threat. It’s us who might be passive to this activity.
Food for thought.

And your contention is that I smeared you?

Nance

I am a homeschool mom. I am a homeschool advocate.
Freedom good, responsibility good. Shouting bad. Smearing bad.

Sigh – til tomorrow.

So we’re going to “respect one another’s choices” but we’re going to tell each other what to call things?

You know, I really don’t think there has been one single new thing said here.

I have just been bumping around the NHEN Forums — here’s the link:

nhen.o..._ID=42

To read, go there and, if you need to because you haven’t been there in a while, you may have to scroll down to the bottom of the page once you’re in a folder, and change the settings to allow for older posts.

Or you can go read at:

nhen.o...id=499

This is an excellent collection of articles submitted on all sides of this issue.

Or you can go to the NCSW list — Annette’s list —

groups.../NCSW/

This has all the standard arguments spelled out as well as a chart I helped put together in the Files area. If it’s still in use. The chart lists the differents sorts of choices and tries to differentiate between what states offer.

All of this is publicly available information, except you’d have to join the NCSW list to see that stuff. But if there is anyone here who is not completely familiar with all the ins and outs of these debates, the information is available.

If there is anyone who knows of any new informaiton, any new perspective, anything that isn’t just a repetition of the same old lines, some angle we haven’t seen before, I’d love to see it.

Otherwise, I think Daryl had it right, and we are done here.

Nance

So we’re going to “respect one another’s choices” but we’re going to tell each other what to call things?

If one of them has a hard-fought legal defintion, yes.

I do have one new thing, sort of – this coming Sunday, the NYT will review “When Sex Goes to School”, a new sociology book. Substitute “home education” for “sex education” and see what you think of its insights. I just saw it for the first time but it seems BRILLIANT as a new explanation of why we keep talking about this in the ways we do.

“We can’t agree about (home) education because we can’t agree about (home), and the way in which we disagree about (it) has everything to do with how we’re breaking apart as a nation.”

And this:
“What exactly are we fighting about?
The drama of this book comes from watching the exceptionally thoughtful Luker try to figure that out. She concludes, “the two sides have very little in common.” (Shades of Tim!)

They disagree on “basic questions about human nature,” and therefore on the kind of society they want to live in. Conservatives are “modern-day Calvinists” who believe “humans are fundamentally capable of the worst” and that society must protect itself through hierarchies, boundaries and unquestionable moral codes. Liberals worry about society encroaching on the individual, and have doubts about all of the above. . .

“If what is at stake is both a real and metaphorical attempt to manage one of the largest and most pervasive cultural, social, political and economic shifts of our times within the intimate realm of the family,” she writes, “you can imagine that it might be difficult to get opposing sides to sit down and come up with a working plan.” It might indeed.

Hi Tim – this intrigues me, something else new?
What IS that hard-fought legal definition, please and its citation if you have it? Is it a federal definition of hsing that would apply to us Floridians too? —
or do you mean that once any state has such laws defining homeschool then all hs advocates in all states should respect that as the legal definition, explain and use whatever labels are written into that law, for clarity’s sake, even if some hs advocates object to it as dangerous or undesirable?

Gee Nance, just repost the Dead Horse pic, worth a thousand words to say nothing left to say!
. . .thanks for those particular NHEN links though, and reading through them makes me remember how forums really can provide lasting forensic value, sort of a coherent historical path through such controversial issues.

It’s all there and then some. So you’re right, no need to warm up the leftovers here at Daryl’s Diner! (Where I fear horsemeat could be the next course!)

Could it be there is some advantage for you in not challenging her stereotype and perception that hsers can be so cruel?
*********
Another dead horse! LMAO!!!

You really are too much, Annette.

“Some advantage for you” has taken several forms over the years of this discussion. Ranging from some idea that JJ or I or both of us were receiving some sort of payments from charter schools — really, I am not kidding — to some idea that PDE was a money-making (or sometimes just power wielding) venture that was going to profit from taking a certain stand.

Shelley’s remarks about her experiences are not unique and if you would just read the comments linked you would see this. Or maybe not. You have seen it, repeatedly, but refuse to or are incapable of absorbing it.

Again, though, not a new tack on your part but completely irrelevant to any serious discussion that has ever taken place.

Nance

LOL -Did I? I don’t recall that far back! I can’t be the only person who has wondered what is going on, but my list of tactics have really brought clarity for my musings.
homesc...p?t=11

>>pitting one faction against another to make a preordained viewpoint appear “sensible,” while making opposing views appear ridiculous.>>>

JJ wrote:
This I really do think, has been the core of this difficult disagreement all along. I’d love to agree, I wish I believed this were a good strategy and could succeed. I don’t….But if that strategy by its very nature supplants or even contradicts other efforts that really can protect us– if, as I fear and have seen happen already, it in fact takes us into unforseen consequences that may well leave us worse off and LESS able to protect our autonomy and public support, then how can that be justified, or even excused?

I never got an answer about whose efforts are being contradicted. What would be those better efforts? Who is the difficult disagreement really with? What is the difficult disagreement? The fact that publc schooling is defined already which eliminates defining ps-at-home programs as hsing too? The objection being to hs advocates clarifiying ps-at-home programs (NOT people) are not hsing programs? If no answers are forthcoming to these questions, then I’m done here.

Ooh – a challenge! Love a challenge.
1)Talking to parents and the public as if HSing law were very little of what matters, just a bit of modern social red tape.
2)Among real hsers and real hs advocates.
3)Can’t answer – it makes no sense to me as put
4)The objection being that the help is more confusing and legally wrong than the problem it purports to cure. Tehreby making things worse.

Not sure if my last comment went into the moderated status or if it just didn’t go thru.
Here goes again:

Whose efforts do you think are being contradicted?

And you said above “this difficult disagreement”.

What is the difficult disagreement specifically in your mind?

Stuff is disappearing. I had to or three posts vanish that were up for awhile earlier. Five went altogether but oddly not the LASt five, wonder where they were in the sequence? Oh welll . . .no biggie. Thanks again Daryl.

I’m giving up reading this. Sadly, Nance and JJ don’t seem to want to get it. I think they understand that they are wrong, but they seem to think that repeating the same untruth will somehow make it true and win them the day.

I performed a test just now with my nearly eight year old son. I asked him if calling him by a different name made him that person. Not even eight and he understands that calling something what it isn’t doesn’t make it what it isn’t.

Is gschool homework considered homeschooling? By the definition given by some it would seem so, but it isn’t. The McDonalds hamburger eaten at home is still not homecooked. Soccer played with a basketball doesn’t become basketball.

One final thought before I go wash my brain out with soap. If you work for a large company that allows you to telecomute, are you self employed because you work from home?

That’s really the point, Annette. You can’t or won’t remember that we’ve been over all of this.

You won’t look at the old posts. You won’t move on. You won’t get over it — we disagree, we will always disagree.

Instead of hammering away at whatever disorganized attacks you seem to be picking at random from the pile of the ones used over the years, if you had anything new to add, anything new to suggest, any direction that this discussion could take beyond what we are seeing here — then this might be worthwhile.

But you don’t. You never do.

So, are we done?

Nance

Nance,
You’re free to go on your way, but if you don’t mind I’d appreciate JJ’s answers. I think JJ and I are nearing a communication breakthrough that will have lasting ramifications. So, unless JJ needs handholding, I think she can handle this on her own without you.

Glad sam spoke up with that As political strategy this clarity campaign is at the level of a bright 8-year-old. And if I call this a real conversation, does it make it one? Nope. Night all.

Sam,
You said that you were giving up reading. That’s what the desired end result is of what they want. Cause such a commotion no one wants to touch the topic with a 10 foot pole. I see worse kinds of dyfunctionality resulting from that. The topic isn’t the problem. Hsers and cyberschoolers aren’t the problem. The hs/ps issues in themselves are small potatoes. People can usually discuss things and find a way to make it around or over an issue. Those making the distinction between psing and hsing are not hitting anyone over the head to get agreement on the issue. They are just voicing their position and facts. If there is true criticism from JJ of what is happening here as it involves homeschool advocates clarifying psing-at-home is psing, then it shouldn’t be an ordeal for everyone if JJ offers an objection and offers a substantial alternative to the audience that is involved at the time. It doesn’t have to get nasty and divisive. What I want to know is JJ dedicated enough to her alternative–if she has one–or to the method of obstructing discussions? Can we have a new day and leave the baggage and nastiness behind but respectfully deal with the disagreement? It is clear some of us have our mind made up. We have to be able to put out the info and give the undecided a chance to hear both sides of the coin without getting all the garbage.
JJ , what do you want to do? Walk away from here with a plan for something better or keep the same old thing going?

I don’t see anyone — including our patient host — stopping you from putting out whatever info you want to put out about charters or hsing or anything else, Annette.

Sam may have the right idea though — maybe we should go talk to our children, they will know this is a waste.

Nance

My 11-year-old son wants Pluto back as a regular planet, concerned that it’s been diminished somehow by today’s official change in name and status. He seems to feel dimished too, a little, ormaybe just let down or disappointed? Something that matters to him about the label change, though I’m sure the planet formerly known as Pluto cares not a bit.
Dunno what that means if anything, but — hey!
Does “dwarf homeschooling” work for anybody??

The earlier proposal said that to be a planet, a body need only be round and orbit the sun. Under that definition, there would have been dozens of new planets added to the solar system (wow – do we have room for all that??) something the astronomers gathered in Prague refused to accept. . .
“Poor little Pluto,” said Patricia Tombaugh, the 93-year-old widow of the man who discovered Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh. “Kids are going to be upset.”

JJ,
Do you understand that I want to honor your point of disagreeement? I don’t want to shut it down, send it to the dark side of the moon, or disrespect your opinion or you. I want to photograph it and put it in a nice frame and offer it as a means for better understanding the issues.

You mention “better efforts” that are being contradicted. I have asked you what are those better efforts that are being contradicted and whose are they. You will not answer. There is contradiction going on here, but it is not your efforts that are being contradicted. All you have put forth here and other places about the “difficult disagreement” (not sure specifically what you think that is) is contention and negative communication tactics. You have left me no choice, but to find someone else that may better represent and communicate a viewpoint and position that is the same or similar to yours. I will look to build a communication bridge with those individuals–*if* there are individuals who represent the same or similar viewpoint as yours–whatever that is other than you object everytime certain hs advocates type a word about the hs/ps issue. You attempt to appear as advocates for ps-at-home folks, but I’m not sure that is what they want. If some do, I’d like the chance to persuade them, by holding up places like this comment section, that it isn’t a good choice if the purpose is better understanding between hsers & psers-at-home is the goal. You participation in this topic only serves to deepen any divide that exists between hsers & psers-at-home. Who needs that or wants that?

Annette:
I never got an answer about whose efforts are being contradicted. What would be those better efforts? Who is the difficult disagreement really with? What is the difficult disagreement? The fact that publc schooling is defined already which eliminates defining ps-at-home programs as hsing too? The objection being to hs advocates clarifiying ps-at-home programs (NOT people) are not hsing programs?

JJ:
Ooh – a challenge! Love a challenge.
1)Talking to parents and the public as if HSing law were very little of what matters, just a bit of modern social red tape.
2)Among real hsers and real hs advocates.
3)Can’t answer – it makes no sense to me as put
4)The objection being that the help is more confusing and legally wrong than the problem it purports to cure. Tehreby making things worse.

Me:
JJ can only post and hope you will take the time to read. I can only do the same. We have repeatedly explained, pointed to links, etc. That you don’t see what is in front of you or don’t understand what it says . . . well. . . good luck in finding others to talk to about this.

Nance

I stated:
I never got an answer about whose efforts are being contradicted.

Let me try again:

Whose efforts are being contradicted? Specifically who? JJ Ross’ and Nance Confer’s efforts?

I asked:
What would be those better efforts?

JJ:
1)Talking to parents and the public as if HSing law were very little of what matters, just a bit of modern social red tape.

Annette asked:
Who is the difficult disagreement really with?

JJ:
2)Among real hsers and real hs advocates.

Annette asked:
What is the difficult disagreement?

JJ:
3)Can’t answer – it makes no sense to me as put

JJ:
The fact that publc schooling is defined already which eliminates defining ps-at-home programs as hsing too?

Annette asked:
The objection being to hs advocates clarifiying ps-at-home programs (NOT people) are not hsing programs?

JJ: The objection being that the help is more confusing and legally wrong than the problem it purports to cure. Tehreby making things worse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#3. What is the difficult disagreement?

The term difficult disagreement is JJ’s. If she doesn’t know what she means by that, how is anyone else to suppose to know?

Nance, you do well holding JJ’s hands. She’s lucky to have you there for her. If we could all be so blessed–NOT!

Error. Correction to #4:

Annette:
The fact that publc schooling is defined already which eliminates defining ps-at-home programs as hsing too? The objection being to hs advocates clarifiying ps-at-home programs (NOT people) are not hsing programs?

JJ: The objection being that the help is more confusing and legally wrong than the problem it purports to cure. Tehreby making things worse.

Grow up, Annette.

The questions have been answered. At last you have read the answers. They are not what you want? Too bad. Do you think continuing to ask the same people the same questions will get a different result?

I suggest you go with your plan of looking for other people to bother.

Nance

Well, I guess we can see JJ is allowing Nance to be her mouthpiece again, and it must be that JJ isn’t up to the challenge of answering *all* my questions after all.

Here’s a small hint concerning who you both work at contradicting:

homest...1.html
**snip**
Commentary on the legal differences between ALPs, or Parent Partnership Programs and Homeschooling.
To know the difference is not a judgement.
It is necessary in order to provide the best option for your family

washho...d.html
**snip**
Home-based Instruction vs Alternative Learning Exp. Programs

Maybe JJ is having a life.

And I’m off to have one too.

As usual, this has been a complete waste of time and energy, Annette.

I hope you can find someone who can answer your questions to your satisfaction — or maybe you have. Maybe these two links satisfy you. Great!!

Have a good day!

Nance

Give a girl a chance to write! Been blogging this at length . . . Sam is included since he’s new, hope he doesn’t mind.
For those who just read headlines, here it is, no need to follow the link:
“DWARFING PLUTO And Shrinking Ourselves, A Joyfully Unclear Meditation”

JJ wrote: political campaign’s concept is so simple — simpleminded really…

Making a distinction between ps and hsing is the modus operandi of many statewide hs organizations, hs advocates and hsers in general.

ROFL! Everybody’s doing it?
Raise your hand if you’ve heard THAT one before . . .
The Well-Trained Mind classical homeschooling curriculum explains this logical fallacy very clearly. Maybe not for an 8-year-old but I bet most hsing parents could understand it . . .

Yeah, I’m laughing too. It a barrel of laughs here.

Again, you wrote about better efforts and that they were being contradicted. So far I have tried to point out that the contradiction is by you and Nance when it is the modus operandi of many hs advocates (as seen by on many hs sites). Should we engage in data collection comparing the states that have ps-at-home programs with the statewide homeschool organizations of that state making the distinctions?
Sure would like it if the Idealist would answer the questions.
“Idealist Homeschool Advocacy” will it get anything done or keep hsing free? That’s the question.

Did you catch this part about John Holt’s ideals?

“I wonder if home education as a movement with lobbyists and magazines, catalogues and conferences and church study groups, was ever about the kids either. Once it began morphing toward politics and the law, I mean, defining away John Holt’s ideals of not defining anything or anyone by how they choose to learn, and of cooperating happily with “school” for the benefit of our own children, whenever we wish. I wonder if homeschooling/home education understands anything more of its own wonder and power, than all this simple-minded schoolish labeling and forced choice, legal definitions and penalties, rote drilling at the lowest kind of knowledge Bloom described. “

Obviously we don’t have to agree on this either. Helen Hegener once gave me the veteran-to-whippersnapper Lloyd Bentsen slapdown of Quayle, when I dared express my own passion for Holt. (I knew John Holt, John Holt was a friend of mine etc . . .)

Collect all the data and authority in the world and it still can’t prove there’s only one way to view planets, or Holt, or homeschooling, or the Constitution and truth, beauty, justice and the American way, while all the other ways are wrong . . .and would you really want it to?? That’s what home educating as we see fit is supposed to MEAN –and if I were writing a definition for us all, it would!
(But I don’t define, don’t ask me. . .)

Collect all the data and authority in the world and it still can’t prove there’s only one way to view planets, or Holt

JJ–

I think it’s Holst who wrote “The Planets,” not Holt.

And, with that, I think this horse is not only dead, but the corpse is now bloated and smells quite ripe. How ’bout we all declare victory and go home?

Yes, Daryl, I’m done. It is clear, JJ has no interest in giving up her baggage for the interest of whatever it is she disagrees about here. All hope is dead as well. False alarm.

If there are psers-at-home that would like to speak for themselves (rather than JJ and Nance doing that for them), I welcome any and all to the NCSW list. groups.../ncsw/
Also, I welcome emails if anyone (except JJ & Nance) would like to share their thoughts. :
ajcjdm@yahoo.com