In response to Harvard Magazine

In the May-June 2020 issue of Harvard Magazine, in an article titled “The Risks of Homeschooling,” Erin O’Donnell got one thing right: homeschooling is risky.

But risky for whom?

O’Donnell’s article, which is woefully under-supported by any studies and based on one main source, claims that homeschooling doesn’t provide a “meaningful” education and prevents students from contributing positively to society.

I beg to differ.

I was homeschooled from preschool through high school. Instead of a classroom, my brother and I (who were homeschooled by my mother) had the world. In addition to completing a rigorous curriculum from an accredited academy, we were able to explore our passions with time to spare, unrestrained by artificial class times. And for those worried about socialization, my brother and I spent countless hours in rehearsals for children’s theater, on the Little League baseball diamond, and in dance classes.

O’Donnell argues that it’s important that children are “exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints.”

Can I interest you in homeschooling?

Institutionalized school might provide a microcosm of community values, but there is no better preparation for the real world than the real world itself. In my homeschooling days, I had field trips to the zoo, studied science in the park, and visited museums during the weekday. To learn more about an area, we traveled there, unbound and unbothered by state-regulated spring break schedules. Being exposed to the “real world” outside of a school is the perfect setting to learn about community values and a plethora of viewpoints.

And the learning didn’t end with school work. I went to the bank, city hall, and other adult errands with my mom. Learning how to navigate the real world was part of the education itself.

O’Donnell also criticizes homeschooling as an “unregulated regime” that “seeks to remove children from mainstream culture.”

I can’t deny her there; homeschooling can be very unregulated. But that’s the beauty and the point. Perhaps, if the ultimate societal goal was to form a population of sameness and conformity, then the unregulated, rogue ways of homeschooling would certainly stand in the way.

I will admit that O’Donnell scrounged up a convincing-sounding argument; she warns readers that in some cases, children might grow up in an abusive or uneducated household. In this case, homeschooled children might not have anywhere to turn for their resources. I agree that this is troubling. However, this has nothing to with homeschooling.

However, what about the unfortunate cases in which a school faculty member has abused a student? Is this a good case for outlawing the institutionalized school system altogether? Outlier situations certainly exist, but they cannot be used to define the whole, for public or homeschool situations.

I don’t know if Harvard’s article was strategically timed for when most of the nation’s students have transitioned to e-learning, but regardless, I would like to make one thing clear: the current e-learning disaster and homeschooling have very little in common. E-learning exists because of a global crisis that has kept students stuck at home. Homeschooling, pandemics aside, does the opposite. The majority of homeschooling takes place outside the home and the classroom. With e-learning, students and teachers struggle to navigate a clunky interface of Google docs, attempting to adapt a classroom setting into a Zoom conference. Homeschooling never needed to adapt at all. Nothing against the need for e-learning; it is the only choice for a public school transition during a pandemic. But a comparison to homeschooling? I couldn’t confuse the two if I tried.

So, O’Donnell, I commend you for your discovery about homeschooling. You might be late to the party, but you’re right: homeschooling is a risky endeavor. An education that inspires individuals to think outside the box certainly does pose a threat to gathering “active, productive participants” in a system of uniformity. If I was in O’Donnell’s shoes, I might be nervous about homeschoolers, too.

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