Dear Miss Jacqueline Espinosa,

Though your article is both eloquent and precise, it only shows one side of the story. Unfortunately you did not take the time out to ask a student who has been homeschooled. Saying that home schooling offers “special needs services, (but if) a student (does) not fit neatly into the system (they) can fall through the cracks” according to your source, this is one source that associates homeschooling with special needs children or social inadequate children. Not all homeschool children are like that and that is an unfair generalization. If that sentence was completely true then homeschooling would provide a perfect opportunity for parents to step up and help their children in life.

Public school is a great way for kids to become adults but not everything about the public school system is so valid. California school systems are not always so beneficial especially with the way education is being taught. I think students have an equal chance of learning with someone who has their high school diploma just as much with someone who has their teaching credential which depends entirely on the person. Some people are just born teachers, example is my mother.

My mother has a high school diploma and attended business college during the seventies. She never received a teaching credential but was striving for an environment and to develop our learning as children. She has made me the woman I am today because of the educational and social skills she taught me growing up. I am about to be a college graduate and I was homeschooled from kindergarten to eighth grade. I entered a normal high school and made the transition smoothly. Not all homeschooled children are taught that way until college. My mother knew that she wanted us to have an established education and a wonderful relationship between my three older siblings, myself, and my parents. As I was growing up I was involved in church, sports, and other social activities to develop my social skills.

Attending public school does not insure you to have the best education or that you will develop “normally.” My family, my cousin’s family, and a few other friends were homeschooled and we all are in college or already graduated with jobs. My three older siblings are all college graduates with their BAs and two eldest have their masters in rhetoric and composition and the other in history. The two eldest are married and have wonderful children. The sibling closest to myself has received his BA in children’s literature.

Homeschooling should not determine your identity and if you want to see the harm in this way of education look at the many students who went through public school and still have learning disabilities because no one took the time out to actually help them despite the provisions  “organizations such as band and sports teams, which teach a student the ability to learn teamwork and how to get along with their peers” is not addressing the subject of actually learning in a classroom setting. Learning and developing socially are two different things. So to say that homeschooling is not the same as school, cannot be a generalization or a valid statement unless you have considered the other side. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Anna H.

CSUN STUDENT

Deaf Studies Major