Covert

Friday, 26 May


Hi everybody,

Here's a piece of good news from Japan to share for a change....

Last night, the NHK public television network here in Japan aired an
original documentary on homelearning in the United States. It was covered
completely from the angle of the homelearners themselves, with no other
dissenting skeptics. On a scale of 1 to 10, overall I'd personally give
the documentary an 8 on the positive side.

The 45-minute program, which ran from 10:00 p.m., was titled "I'm Not
Going to School Anymore: America's Rapidly Rising Homeschoolers" (rough
translation). The documentary basically profiled the lives of three
homelearning youths (their names initialized here out of respect for
privacy):

-- "S," age 8, of New York state, whose mother took her out of school and
began homelearning with her after the girl started showing signs of
stress and lack of confidence. This was due to S's cramming for the
standardized state test that is required for second graders of primary
school. S has two younger siblings, with Mother raising them and doing
most of the homelearning activities. Father works outside the home, and
is a bit cautious about the family's homelearning endeavor, but supports
it nonetheless.

-- "J," age 12, also of New York, who has been homelearning several years
under his parents' guidance and says he has grown closer to his mother
because of it. J, of middle-school age, belongs to the same homelearning
support network as S, above. J's dream is to study astrophysics someday.
After homelearning for several years, he is now contemplating whether or
not he should enter public school in the near future (three of his seven
homelearning friends have already done so). Mother is a bit wary of this,
but will respect and support J's decision either way.

-- "C," age 18, a former homelearner and now a student at the Naval
Academy in Maryland. His dream is to become a pilot someday. He is facing
a bit of a challenge in having to live such a regimented military life,
since his years of learning at home were a lot less unstructured. But he
nevertheless appreciates his homelearning years, and he stands out as a
positive role model for his peers and staff at the academy.

The documentary showed impressive scenes of homelearning meetings,
support group functions, parents and children learning together in the
home, as well as children teaching each other in support group activities.

There were a few other "experts" also featured, but their presence only
served to strengthen the underlying "homelearning is good" premise of the
documentary.

One such expert was a child psychologist, who has done studies comparing
the social behavior of schooled children vs. homelearning children. He
showed and compared his videotaped research sessions, in which two
separate groups of children -- schooled and homelearners -- were put into
a room with toys and things to do. In both groups, the children were
meeting each other for the first time.

The videotapes showed us that in the schooled children's session, the
kids quickly segregated themselves by gender, ignoring each other's
subgroups and never once looking up at the lone boy who was too shy to
approach the subgroups. Then the psychologist showed a tape of the
homelearning children's session: The boys and girls all soon worked
together on something in the center of the room, and when one shy boy
approached them, they warmly invited him into their group. The doctor's
assertion: Homelearning children on the whole react much more naturally
and openly to "socialization" than schooled children.

Then there was The Educrat -- an employee of the New York education board
who is in charge of making sure that all homelearners in the state take
the required standardized tests and file regular reports on the progress
of their children. Interviewed at his cramped office, walls lined with
file cabinets, Mr. Sam O. (New Yorkers will instantly know who this is!)
unwittingly gave the most memorable quote of the whole program: "Progress
is so important for us -- so that I know the kid isn't watching TV or
eating lollipops all day." It's a good thing this show was aired on
Japanese TV and not in the US; this guy would surely never be able to
live down all the "sucker patrol" jokes that would haunt him for the rest
of his days.

But that was a bad as it got in this documentary. This guy represented
Big Brother harassing innocent people, and he turned out to be such a
bureaucratic clown on camera that he only made the homelearners in the
show look that much better.

Political activities were featured as well. The controversial Home School
Legal Defense Association was shown at work, both at its offices and in
the halls of the US Congress. In the latter, HSLDA-member families broke
up into groups and went to visit politicians face to face, pressing them
for more freedoms for homelearning families. The camera caught one such
politician, Mark Foley of Florida, being confronted in his congressional
office by a group of these HSLDA adults and children who had come to
petition his support for home education. He was put on the spot, and came
across as recognizing the power of homelearners and acknowledging their
cause.

The NHK documentary ended on an upbeat note, with encouraging words from
the mother of 8-year-old S, on why homelearning is so important to people
like them: "I look to my children, too, to give *me* direction. It's not
me just giving *them* direction. [I'm] hoping that that will help them in
the long run. And I'm hoping that that will also help them feel that they
are confident in decisions that they make, in the directions that they're
going -- and knowing that I trust their decisions and that I trust their
help, their intelligence, their creativity...."

All in all, not a bad program. This I say, despite the reservations I
have about the military and HSLDA portrayed as leading the way for
homelearners Stateside.

But the most important thing to remember here is that the homelearning
movement in Japan is still in its infancy, and for many Japanese viewers
nationwide, this NHK program may be the first time they've ever heard of
learning at home as an alternative to school. Hopefully, this program
will help them explore that alternative more in the future.

Though Japanese homelearners don't have the strength in numbers (yet) of
our counterparts in other countries, there is one advantage over the US
or other countries that we do have: a news media in Japan that is not
openly hostile to homelearning. In fact, at this early stage, the
Japanese media seem to be giving a surprisingly fair shake in exploring
homelearning and alternative schools as viable educational choices. This
NHK documentary is proof of that.

There are many theories about why such neutral-to-positive coverage of
homelearning is appearing in Japan right now, and all the theories
probably have some merit. But I think the best answer is close to home:
Lots of reporters and editors in the Japanese mass media have children,
and they seem to be desperately searching for answers for their own
families where school is concerned. If this personal searching in the
Japanese mass media helps advance the cause of homelearning in Japan and
brings the positive message of alternative education to a much wider
audience, then long may this coverage continue.

Things may change as time goes on and alternative education in Japan
actually begins to threaten the foundations of the country's
education/industrial complex (as it most certainly will). But for now, at
least, we have a lot to be thankful for where Japanese media coverage of
homelearning is concerned.

Now, if we could only get them to point their TV cameras more at
homelearning families right here IN Japan....!

Brian Covert
(KnoK NEWS)
in Osaka, Japan