An Open Letter to Lisa Luper-author of 'Open Letter to Lazy Homeschoolers.'

Photo by a lazy homeschooler

You have enjoyed the freedom to homeschool that previous generations have worked so hard to earn and have forgotten the price they have paid for your freedom. 

With freedom comes responsibility. 

We were expected to outshine our public-schooled peers, and we did. 

All this said with that pious, 'purer than thou,' accusatory, judgemental attitude ("we are superior") masquerading as concern. Oh soooo concerned is Lisa Luper, the conscientious and well-schooled author of An Open Letter to Lazy Homeschoolers. She is so worried that homeschooling will get a bad reputation because of those lazy-ass, no good, homeschooling parents. You know the kind she's talking about. Go on Lisa -you can say it: Unschoolers.

She's so anxious about what the neighbours will say. She's afraid people might paint all homeschoolers with the same scruffy brush. So like a prim and proper schoolmarm,  Lisa Luper casts about, wagging her finger at what she doesn't understand; that terrifying but awesome and invigorating thing called freedom. That which nurtures intrinsic motivation and delight.

A lazy homeschooler having too much fun

What we see here is a failure to understand that true learning can only come from the learner. I guess Lisa Luper, authenticity in learning has never been your goal.

How do you know what those who "worked so hard" so that we could home educate our kids today would have wanted for us?

Maybe they had a grander vision than your narrow, self-conscious, and fearful position on education. Maybe they dreamed that future generations would push against those boundaries, ever more strongly and more forcefully than their own times would have allowed them to.

Maybe they would have hoped that their actions would inspire future home educators to tread where they could not; go beyond the confines of learning and education as an exercise in completing curriculum.
Maybe their dream for us was that one day, all children would be valued as they are, and their interests - no matter what they be - accorded respect.

They might have longed for the days when the importance of some topic, French or Math, would be just as important and valuable to society as knowing how to Grow and Can Vegetables- everything being equally as fascinating and intriguing as any other area of human endeavour.

They might have wished for freedom in learning.

Your misguided platitudes, your simple take on the subject of home education are outdated.
Lisa, my hope for you is that one day, you'll come to see the ignorance and paucity of your thoughts.

You might also like:
http://radiofreeschool.blogspot.ca/2011/09/idle-unschooling.html