WHO THE HECK IS
WHO THE HECK IS HE? Here’s a pretty benign article on how homeschooling has “grown up.” What caught my eye was this:
According to home schooling authority, Mitchell Stevens…
Never heard of him. He also doesn’t appear to “get” homeschooling, either.
Mr. Stevens, a sociology professor at New York’s Hamilton College, says the primary appeal of home schooling is its flexibility. “One of the biggest advantages of home schooling is that it enables parents to tailor an education program around a student’s particular talents,” he says. “So if a child is an extraordinary musician or has a big passion for a particular scientific or mathematical endeavor, you can create an academic program that really enables that child to nurture those particular talents. It grants families a degree of flexibility over their instruction that makes the pursuit of an extraordinarily high level of accomplishment a real possibility.”
Yes, but that’s such a tiny slice of homeschooling’s benefits.
UPDATE: I love Google. I found this about Mr. Stevens. He’s an academic who interviewed 100 homeschoolers and wrote a book about it. As far as I can tell from his CV, that is his sole qualification for the “homeschooling authority” label.