Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing / Homeschooling

[David Mandel (dlmandel]

I've been a little surprised by the small flurry of inquiries/enthusiasm
about home schooling in cohousing. So here's a friendly provocation that
will probably evoke further debate.

Out here, anyway, the stereotype of home schoolers are religious
right-wingers who want to keep their kids away from nefarious liberal plots
like multiculturalism and sex education.

I'm sure there are exceptions to the stereotype, yet it rings true to me in
another way, pushing the same bias button I have against private schools in
general. Good quality education is something society owes all it children.
Only a broad-based public school system can do this. If those with money
for private schools and/or time to teach their own kids pull out of the
public school system it contributes to the further undermining of it
constituency of support.

To pull the topic back to cohousing: For the most part, the movement talks
about creating communities not to be insular but as parts of larger towns,
or urban neighborhoods. I think it will be the loss of the messages
cohousing purports to have for society if it comes to be seen as merely
elitist and separatist. I'd rather put my energy into improving my kids'
and the city's public schools (and I try to do my part) than put it into
pulling them out and "educating" them in isolation.

David Mandel, Sacramento