Has anyone here heard of the home ed review?

[ailbhe]

I've written something about it in Who Teaches Whom. I did honestly try to give it my most charitable interpretation but at some point in the next few days I expect I'll post something else too. I do feel that if I want anyone who agrees with the review to listen to me I can't point out its worst and most damaging flaws, which hurts somewhat.

Comments

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I shared your initial discomfort; but then I decided to keep my mouth shut, because I had a very unpleasant experience yesterday of trying to argue against about 5 people who were all parents of very cute young children that the voluntarily childless are a minority group, and there is a valued, fetishized majority voice silencing our point of view. They absolutely refused to see that angle of things (with only one of them prepared to consider it if and only if I could show how I was actively "discriminated" against), basically because it didn't seem to the to be the case. So I hesitate to dismiss Ailbhe's feelings, cause maybe she feels like I do?..

[biascut.livejournal.com]

But I also have a friend who claims that being a parent is being part of a minority group, and uses "bingo card" to talk about that. Feeling pissed off because people are dismissing your feelings and refusing to see something from your point of view is one thing, and of course it's infuriating, but you and rebelraising can't both be right that you belong to a minority group which is being systemicallydiscriminated against, and that this discrimination is something that people should fight against, rather than just silenced because people don't agree with you or don't care about your issues.

I don't know, I'd hesitate to say that empirical evidence is the be-all and end-all of determining who's systemically discriminated against and who isn't, but I do think there has to be something a bit more concrete than just "most people don't seem to agree with me".

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know... Do you have to be discriminated against at all in order to qualify as a minority group with a valid point of view?

What I mean to say is, do I have to be bitter about some of my tax money going on maternity leave or tax credits for parents or whatever (which I'm not, and why should I be? I don't begrudge paying tax that goes towards benefits for disabled people, and I'm not disabled) in order for it to not OK that popular culture dismisses my lifestyle as either misguided, disingenuous or dangerously cracked?

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying the view isn't valid, or that it's not frustrating when people don't listen to you. Both of these things are true. But sometimes people are just disagreeing with you because they disagree. They're not dismissing you as hysterical because they're trying to maintain dominant privilege and silence you, which is what ailbhe's comment above implies to me.

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I know what you're saying, I do.

But I'm still smarting from a bunch of ostensibly intelligent people not so much trying to maintain dominant privilege over me as sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la we can't hear you even say the p word" and then trying to pass it off as a joke.

So I'm inclined to be open minded.

[naath.livejournal.com]

They are both right> they are women, and women whether mothers or not are discriminated against, and their choices about parenting are part of that discrimination. If you have a child, when and how and where and with whom. And if you have a child how you raise that child. I used to think that it was only my choices that were being attacked by people; but a broader world view lets me see that almost all women have their reproductive choices attacked.

I think that women often feel the need to moderate their tone because a woman who is visible/audibly angry is hysterical, or a shrieking harpy, or one of many other nasty misogynist things that people say about women.

Original point> Local radio discussed the report, and seemed to manage to not simply be rude about home schoolers. Reading your Sensible Blog Posts I gain more Facts, and it seems (to me) that they've mixed in some sensible things about resource distribution with a lot of the things that I (stupidly) used to think before I knew anyone who homeschooled, they seem to basically not trust parents to be able to assess their own ability to provide for their children's needs accurately.