Are Home Educators All Weirdos And Hippies?

There I was minding my own business watching my eldest son sprinting up and down the field in the rain at his athletics meeting. My younger son was writhing around at my feet in the mud when one of the other bedraggled mothers asked me what we had all been up to this week. I gave her a brief synopsis of our week including our visit to the annual 'Not Back To School' picnic. She perceptibly rolled her eyes and laughed a little and then caught me off guard with the following question,

"Were the other parents all weirdos and hippies then?"

I was flabbergasted by her directness. Is this how home educators are perceived by mainstream society? Gosh. I suppose it is but I feel the need to think about this a little more.

A 'Weirdo' is as defined in the dictionary  'a person defined as being strange or eccentric'.

Okay....and the definition of 'hippie' is 'a person who opposes or rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society'. Something tells me that her choice of vocabulary was not that considered and what she actually wanted to say was 'idiots!' (Utterly stupid or foolish people). We are after all not doing the same thing as everyone else and must therefore have several of our screws wobbling about in our heads impairing our judgement.

At the picnic I was shocked to hear one of the mothers recounting to the group that she had at one time been reported anonymously to the social services because someone thought that she was not providing an education for her children. This was of course an absolute load of nonsense and her children are intelligent, happy and thriving examples of her parenting skills. The word that kept resonating with me as she spoke was 'anonymous'. Anonymous as a synonym for coward in this context I believe. No doubt whoever reported her had been gossiping about how different the family was for not sending their kids to school. Like the child dared to play 'knock a door run' by their peers someone plucked up the 'courage' to contact the social services but was too scared to stand up and say 'it was me!'.

It all boils down to the general pack mentality inherent in our culture. The contentment to be mainstream, an ailment known as 'don't-put-your-hand-up-you-might-get-the-answer-wronginess'. If anyone dares to ripple the pond of mediocracy they are met with criticism and down right rudeness. 

In the days when my eldest was trundling along the accepted path of mainstream education I remember another parent's scolding comment once again taking me off guard. She claimed that another mother was a 'ridiculous hippie who was endangering her children'. Apparently it was a view shared by a large group of the parents at the school as I later found out. Do you know why this woman was seen in this way? What made her the object of such derision? Did she abuse her children perhaps or swear at them at the school gate? No. She took them to school on a bicycle. There you have it. Pack mentality. She was seen as different because she chose to do something a little less mainstream. None of them stopped to think that the supposed danger was in fact more likely to come from the 4x4's blindly veering off the road to park on the pavements each morning because driving a huge, unnecessary lump of mental, sorry metal around the city is seen as normal. 

What gets my goat, what really rattles my cage is the constant moaning by people. Moaning about the education their children receive at school, moan, moan, moan. Yet they never do anything about it. No one questions or demands change they just sit and moan over lattes in the coffee shop and then maybe feel a little better for having vented their grievances in a safe mediocre, homogenised environment. I used to do it but then I realised that accepting the status quo simply because everyone else does was not benefitting my children at all. So we made a change. It can be done. Apparently though as a consequence I must now accept a degree of derision from my fellow mothers who have no guts to do the same. 

In answer to her question then, I suppose I personally am rejecting the convention of mainstream education and I do like to see my children happily dancing in the local fountain eating freshly foraged blackberries. I love my children, I want to spend my time with them and every home educator I have come into contact with so far thinks in the same way. Our children come first and I for one believe that by choosing to educate at home we have empowered our children for the future. They will know that life is what you make it and not what everyone else tells you it should be. If it eases other people's minds to label home educators as weirdos and hippies then I say go ahead. I don't know about you though but I still think it is rather rude.

Prudence Clarke

Additional by Paul Clarke...

If we are seen as eccentric by anyone, I assert that it is a matter of relativity. We have always been creative, educated and held the opinions that we do now. Society has over the last 20 years become more staid and boring around us.

We have not changed but whereas people used to like listening to work by musicians and seeing pieces by artists, now they are content to sit in their bunkers eating pizza or burgers that are exactly the same no matter what city in the world they are bought and watching televised pop star factories churning out the latest talentless drivel for the consumption of the masses.

If religion is the opiate of the masses, modern British tv and music is a lobotomy.

If the fact that we reject poor standards of education and the indoctrination of our children into a religion of an ancient desert god makes us weird, then I am overjoyed to be so because our definitions of what is weird clearly differs. Humans having the contentment of a sheep is weird, acceptance of the standard as all you can ever achieve is weird.

We are giving our children the opportunity to be free thinkers, to be creative and self-driven.

This is how amazing people are made. This is how future leaders are forged.