Holly Shaltz

While I appreciate the distinction folks are making between
'homeschooler and Christian' and 'Christian homeschooler' and I'm VERY
aware of the political antics of HSLDA and their ilk and don't like
where it's tending, I still feel the statement made, quotation marks or
not, is borderline.

I've known intolerant Christians, but one of my long-time favorite
people considered herself a Christian Homeschooler (no quotes), was a
member of HSLDA, didn't believe me when I told her their alerts were
hogwash (I said it nicely :), and definitely did school at home. But
she was also one of the most tolerant 'fundamentalist' Christians I've
ever known. I asked her about that--although my own beliefs were not as
well-developed then as now, it was clear they were tending away from
Christianity more and more--how was it she didn't feel threatened,
didn't feel she had to convert me?

Her answer was it was up to the Holy Spirit to convert me, not her :)

Painting any group of people with the same brush does a disservice to
all of us, not just the group. This woman meets all the criteria of
being a "Christian Homeschooler" and would have identified herself as
such--she even stopped homeschooling a couple years later just because
her husband wanted her to <sigh> But intolerance and racism and wacky
non-beliefs about world history isn't a requirement to be a Christian
homeschooler.

Let's turn the table. What about the term "radical unschooler"? I
personally don't like it. My views and values are, for the most part,
very counter-culture (a term I like much better :) But they don't make
me radical--at least, not in the sense in which I use that word, of
wanting to overturn all of the 'establishment'. I was shocked when I
joined an 'unschooling' list that insisted that anyone who unschooled in
the way GWS (may it rest in peace--I wish they had done ANYTHING other
than throw in the towel) advocated was 'radical' unschooling.

Maybe it's just I don't have a great take on the word 'radical'. Maybe
it's just the way I don't care for labels of any kind, anywhere. But I
would no more call a group of people radical unschoolers than I would
call a group fundamentalist Christian or a group Christian
homeschoolers.

Labels are a lot of what we leave school to escape. They may be a
shorthand way to talk--as in grouping kids who don't learn well in
classroom situations as ADHD--but they make a new reality every time
they're used. Just as most of the women on this list would probably
prefer that either female pronouns be used in non-specific writing, or
that constructions like his/her be used, because we KNOW that using male
pronouns almost exclusively creates a worldview which maintains the
importance of the male over the female.

Is it the same? I think so. Labels are made to pigeon-hole people, to
avoid our having to see the individuality that lies beneath the facade.
First we pigeon-hole, then we dehumanize, then we deprive rights,
then.....well, how did the Nazis end up able to slaughter so many
people?

Fundamentalist Christian homeschoolers are people, too, working within
their own sets of values and worldviews. If we label and avoid, we
contribute to the adversarial relationship that exists. The greater the
divide, the more the folk that really ascribe to the stereotype will be
threatened and feel the need to control us 'radical unschoolers'. Is
this the road we want to take?

I personally prefer to bring people together rather than divide or
maintain divisions. Maybe it's a legacy of the years of military
living, in which folks of all different beliefs, income levels,
educational backgrouns, races, religions, even countries of origin
manage to work together, respecting each other. I dunno, but it's
important to me to not label others. "It's the beginning of a very
slippery slope."

Holly