Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: home schooling

[Virginia Moreland (vmoreland]

At 09:35 AM 3/6/99 +1300, Tim Behrend wrote:
>At 07:26 AM 3/5/99 -0600, you wrote:
>>We have two adolescents
>>who have been home-schooled - they are terrific and will flourish in our
>>community. Some of our members are also teachers at these schools. 
>
>Will they also flourish in the larger community and society? Maybe I'm
>misreading this, but it seems to hint that preparing children to live in a
>particular neighbourhood is somehow good for them. Is the common distrust
>of government and the tradition of flight from/armed opposition to it in
>the US being tapped here? 

GOOD GRIEF! Where did that come from? These particular kids are just great
people and will flourish anywhere. What I meant is that they seem to be
more comfortable interacting with adults and folks of all ages than some
teens I've known who are glued to their peer group.  Cohousing will just
enrich the spectrum of kids and adults with whom they have daily contact. 
 
Incidentally, home-schooling families are NOT always right-wing
conservative fundamentalists and the like. At least here in the Southeast,
they are often highly educated, progressive, liberal folks who just are not
satisfied with the education they can get for their kids in the public
schools. The same goes for the parents of kids in the independent schools
that I mentioned in my earlier note. 

The overall picture of schooling habits of cohousers would be interesting.
I haven't seen any evidence that societal withdrawel is typical. In areas
where the public schools are sub-standard though, parents will do what they
feel they have to do if they can afford an alternative. As a child of two
public school teachers I used to bemoan this fact, but I have to admit that
if it was my own child I'd do the same.

Cheers - 

Ginny Moreland
East Lake Commons
http://members.aol.com/elakecmmns