Vision for the Next Generation

Picture from here

You can find the original article on page 16 of the CHEC Update, Volume 3, 2014, Issue 90.

The vision of homeschooling can often be encapsulated by saying that homeschool parents are training up the next generation of leaders.  What constitutes a leader?  What is the composition of leadership?  Edwin H. Friedman, a leadership educator, once said that, “Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future.”  While drones are created in the public schools to serve blindly their master, (in this case, the state), homeschoolers have the unique opportunity to create the next generation of leaders by molding them and creating a vision for the future, then achieving it.

I was homeschooled from the end of first grade on.  For as long as most of us can remember, I have had a vested interest in politics.  Beginning in 1998, I spent countless hours on campaigns, Capitol internships, debate (both participation and coaching) and other activities to further this end.  During high school, my parents constructed a program focused on my political interest.  Since high school, I’ve worked on more than a few campaigns, including to elect reform-minded candidates to school boards across Colorado—boards that are friendly to homeschoolers and are looking to break the mold of public schooling.

Recently, I took things a step further and started a 501(c)3 organization called the Colorado Institute of Advanced Governance to create and train a new generation of political leaders with a solid foundation in limited government principles and the skills necessary to advance that in the political arena.  Very little of this could have been accomplished if my parents had not shaped for me a vision for the future, and then helped me to achieve it, adding to it my own vision along the way.  Leadership starts at home.  That is where leaders are formed.

Another example of this is perhaps better said by former British Prime Minister James Callaghan: “A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.”  Every day, homeschoolers run against the accepted experts’ advice to teach their children in their homes.  This requires bravery, lots of prayer, but most importantly, it requires leadership.  And that all starts in the home.

This reminds me of a bungle in California with the appellate court’s anti-homeschooling ruling in 2008.  I think Ruben Navarrette, a staff writer for the San Diego Union-Tribune, in his March 20, 2008 article “California court overreached on homeschooling case”, summarizes this nicely. 

“Th[is is] the part that deserves criticism.  The court overreached and turned a child-welfare case into an assault on homeschooling.  How do you go from one to the other?  This was a good moment for judicial restraint.  At the very least, this decision should be limited to the unique circumstances of the Long family, and not stand as a precedent that leads other families who homeschool to worry that they too could be ordered to stop teaching their kids.  The part worth celebrating is that the ruling is so over the top and contrary to common sense that it has put the issue of homeschooling front and center and has motivated the defenders of the practice to set their sights on California.  Homeschool advocates vow to help the Longs appeal the ruling.  And they have a heavyweight in their corner.  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately denounced the appeals court ruling and promised to change state law to guarantee that parents have the right to teach their children at home.  Parents should decide what is best for their children, he said, and "not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education.”  The governor is quite correct, and I'm glad to see him in this fight.  Homeschooling isn't perfect.  But look around.  Neither is the public school system, which needs all the reform it can get.  That's why we can't stop looking for viable alternatives that augment traditional teaching - and, just as importantly, challenge traditional thinking.” (emphasis added) 

Vision is the end to this means.  To be able to train up leaders, however, we must first protect the fundamental right to homeschool.  We must always continue to be vigilant in our efforts to promote parental choice and for that to include the uninhibited right to homeschool.  Without this, we lose one of the greatest opportunities to influence the world with our faith and our values because we lose the capacity to easily sculpt new leaders.  As I said before, it all starts in the home.  Cast this vision for your family, for your children, and engage yourself in protecting your rights.  You must do this today, because as we can see in California, the threat is real, here and now.  You can have a huge effect on this world, both your immediate environment and inevitably the rest of the world, if you do.

This article was updated from its original publication from the Support Group Leaders Memo of August 2008.

#schoolchoiceworks: My School Choice Story

National School Choice Week is coming up at the end of January 2014.  In anticipation of that, I thought it might be interesting to write up my own story, and hear about yours.

If you know me, chances are you've heard me talk about my education--it was a significant part of what made me who I am today, and influenced me for the better.

I went to a Lutheran preschool, a private kindergarten, public school for most of first grade, and was homeschooled until I graduated high school.

I suppose you could call me "gifted" or "advanced" (for example, after the first few weeks in first grade, they wanted to move me to the fourth grade), but I think that was more because of what was cultivated in me from an early age than any particular special ability of my own.  I think we would see a significant increase in "gifted" students if they, too, had the opportunities and parental involvement I had from a young age.

I had already been reading long before first grade and taught myself cursive while my peers were learning print--again, this is less a reflection on any particular advanced ability and more a reflection of very important traits my parents (particularly my mother) taught me from early on: to be a self-starter; to be self-sufficient, and most importantly, to have a passion for learning.  That is key: the passion for learning.  It is something that is still all-consuming today.

Because of my "advanced" level, I was asked to do my school work behind the teacher's desk, and (because I have an innate, and often obnoxious, need to be first at everything) I would help the rest of the class with their work after I finished my own.  Already, I had been taught to self-direct my learning to a large degree at six years old (even before that).  My mother's philosophy of education was already prevalent: allow kids to think, teach them to question, and teach them to communicate.

My mother learned of homeschooling at some point in the year or so prior to my removal from public school (as I recall), and the final straw was a gym teacher who liked to yell profanities at the first graders and prevent us from taking water breaks--I should mention I lived in Arizona at the time, and gym was almost always out of doors.  My mom pulled me out of school a few weeks before the end of the school year and the rest, as they say, was history.

Homeschooling not only afforded me a quality education that met my needs--it removed a large part of my competitive nature since I had no one with which to compete (I still have it, although significantly tempered from what I remember) and gave me the chance to focus on passions such as politics, Ancient Greece, nuclear science, and British Literature--it gave me significant opportunities I would never have gotten in any other scholastic setting, such as the ability to spend one day a week at the Colorado State Capitol as an intern during my four high school years.

Right after high school, I spent time as the Executive Director of the Colorado HEARTH Fund, helping to support candidates for state legislative seats who believed in choice in education, and to involve homeschoolers in particular in the political process.  

But for all my love of homeschooling, and for all the wonderful things I know it afforded me, I believe very strongly that school choice is vital: there are certainly a number of individuals who either should not be homeschool parents or who would not benefit from that environment as children.  I believe all children should have the opportunity I had: the best education possible for me.  I have continued to fight for that, from candidates I support to bills I testify on, and writing about it now.

The result's of Colorado's 2013 election were promising--strong school choice and pro-reform candidates elected across the board, from the liberal bastion of Denver Public Schools to the largest school district in Colorado (Jefferson County Public Schools)--an area that rejected a similar slate only two years prior.  The foothold in Douglas County School District remained intact: a 7-0 reform board who kicked out the teacher's union, created a voucher program, and brought in an excellent new superintendent.  This was the story in district after district across the state, just a year after Obama took our 9 electoral votes.  The same state that ushered in Democrat majorities voted down a $1 billion tax increase nearly 2-1.  There is a lesson to be learned from this:

School choice is not a partisan issue, and people know that just throwing more money at the problem is not the right solution!

Every parent wants what is best for their child.  It is my job--your job--our job to ensure that opportunity is there.  I have an eight month old son.  I want for him to have the same chance I did, to get the best education possible for him.  That's my reason to fight for school choice--because it works, because I am the product of it, and because I want it to continue to work for my son and for all children.  What's your reason?