Guest Author - Doreen Farrar

Meg asked me the other day why I thought homeschooling has become so popular. Millions of families, in every state of the USA, in perhaps every province in Canada, and in many other countries as well, have tried homeschooling in the past few decades. Some of these families have decided later to switch (back) to public or private schools, but many have continued to homeschool. Some families are in their second generation (or more) of learning at home, possibly the best endorsement that the concept could have.

Why has this happened? What has changed since the 1960's when our parents sent us to school, believing that learning en masse was the best thing for us? Why have we decided that this belief is no longer true (if it ever was?) Well, I've got an opinion on that (as always), but I'd like to stress that this is MY opinion, and nobody else should be blamed for it, if you disagree.

What did you feel when you read the preceding sentence? Have you noticed how quickly such sentences have become routine? Forty years ago, when I was in school, we would have been surprised to see it. Of course, my opinion was my own. Of course, I would take responsibility for it. And, of course, I could expect that other people would respect my right to holds that opinion.

At the same time, my parents knew that my teachers would do their best for us, and the teachers knew that the administrators would support them in their efforts. Everyone involved in our education could be trusted to put our education first. (This was still the case in 1984, when I was substitute-teaching. It may still be the case today, but I suspect that homeschooling is merely a part of a larger trend, so that the quality of modern teaching may actually be irrelevant.)

By the 1970's, the trust we'd grown up with was beginning to erode. There had always been problems with our society, and they were becoming more visible. My school had a "special education" program, but other schools didn't. Pregnant students were welcome in my high school classes, but not all schools accepted them, married or not. My school was "racially integrated" from the beginning, but that was probably because the town was in the North and mostly white, anyway. We trusted our local officials to care for and about all people in the town, whatever their color or culture.

Then came the desegregation battles and anti-war protests of the late 1950's and the 1960's. We began to understand that we couldn't trust the people in power blindly. Then, we watched the Watergate hearings and heard Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon resign in disgrace. We began to have our bags searched at the airport, we lived and lost through the "savings and loan" and televangelist scandals, we experienced the layoffs from "secure" jobs, and we mourned the massacres and mass suicides (from Guiana to Munich to Waco to New York City to the Palestinian and Jewish communities in the Middle East, and, unfortunately, beyond.)

What, after all of this, did my generation have left to trust? Well, nobody, really, except ourselves. We became tired of being betrayed, and we began to "do for ourselves," in a movement that may have begun as a backlash, but appears to be on its way to becoming a new society. We are opening our own businesses; growing our own food and making our own clothes, soap, and families; forming our own churches; and, as a natural outgrowth, teaching our own children. It's a matter of trust.