Mom Is Teaching

O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1594

If you haven’t read it yet Dana took apart yet another anti-homeschooler’s irrational claims that homeschooling is what it isn’t. A good tip would be to actually spend time researching a subject before attacking it, it helps avoid those embarrassing moments of misinformation.

It’s actually not this post that I wanted to mention, but the post previous where she first mentions the person’s arguement. A great conversation breaks out in the comments over the word (or words) homeschool and whether this term creates the limited image some people see homeschoolers with. One commenter Julie says

But, I have stumbled upon the word homeschool too. Oh, I use it because then everyone knows what I am talking about and it is the agreed upon word to describe Marissa’s school experience, but it is far too narrow to describe what I see as my role.I know it is silly, but I would even prefer that we all wrote it as two words. You know home school, with “home” an adjective modifying the noun school (like public school instead of publicschool, private school instead of privateschool). How legalistic is that? Frankly, if all I planned to do was to teach reasoning, communication and math in my home, it wouldn’t be worth staying home to do.

If I remember correctly the correct way is home school, but so many of us put them together into one word that it has become an accepted use of the term. I know I’m guilty of it myself. Does the “school” part of the word encourage people to assume children are sitting in little desks all day while mom reads to them from outdated books? Does the “home” part add to the belief that we keep the kids locked up in the house all day? What happens when we put them together?

A similar problem sometimes occurs with unschooling as a learning style. People see the “un” and jump to conclusions about what it means to them. Does that mean those who practice unschooling should use a different, less controversial term, or work to educate others on what unschooling really means. The answer depends on who you ask.

Homeschool, or home school, is such an umbrella term for what we do. That alone can make it difficult to grasp. The family using a stack of workbooks and teacher’s manuals are home schoolers just the same as those letting their kids flitter to the subject and books of their choosing. When the stereotypes only cover one small portion of all the possible styles a great number of families are overlooked. Those who are in the daily grind know how amazingly diverse home schooling can be, but those on the outside seem to be hung up on that one image.

So do you call your child a homeschooler? A home schooler? Are you a home educator, a home schooling parent, just a parent? Does the terms that you use change how others look at you?

homeschool, home school, names, stereotypes