By Brooke Thompson
Often when the topic of homeschooling comes up, skeptic rolls their eyes as if they know more than the practitioners. A recent experience I had with the “mainstream” media in our state reinforced this ill-informed reaction.
I was contacted October 29th by Sean Scott, a young journalist representing The Maine Monitor. He was interested in writing a piece on the growth of home education in Maine. As a longtime homeschooler of twenty years, I am an enthusiastic advocate on the subject. We scheduled an online meeting a few weeks later and had a lively, 45 minute discussion on the ins and outs of present day homeschooling.
When Scott’s article, “Homeschooling is growing in Maine. Here’s what that looks like,” was published last week, you can imagine my surprise that the picture painted was quite foreign to me.
Homeschooling IS growing. Not just in Maine but all throughout the country. In our home state, with public school test scores at an all time low, is it any wonder parents are considering education alternatives?
Here is what Scott intentionally avoided addressing: Maine’s diverse homeschooling community.
When the December 7th Maine Monitor article focused on conservative Christian
families homeschooling, they silenced an entire community and fed the lie that homeschoolers are all religious.
Believe me, I get it. Twenty five years ago, when one of my collegiate best friends
mentioned they had been homeschooled, my first thought was long jean skirts, braids
down the back and Bibles. Like so many stereotypes, this one is not even close to reality. I giggled out loud and then she set me straight.
Several years later, my husband and I found ourselves questioning our desire to send our kids to public school. Although we both identify as Christian, our faith was not our first, second, third, fourth or fifth reason we chose home education.
The truth is, here in Maine, there are thousands of secular homeschoolers. There are co-ops for faith based learning, co-ops for secular families and co-ops that are faith
neutral.
I co-founded HAVEN homeschool collective six years ago with the intention of building
community in our area through a faith neutral, family centered co-op. We are over 100 families strong with three campuses. Scott conveniently forgot to mention that our
cooperative was non-religious.
In fact, Maine’s secular and faith neutral homeschooling communities’ growth is
outpacing conservative Christian homeschoolers. Three years ago, that point, inspired Becky Grant (MHEA’s President) and I (MHEA’s Vice President) to create the Maine Home Education Alliance. Homeschooling families were thrilled to have a faith neutral
statewide organization representing their needs.
If I had been the author of “Homeschooling is growing in Maine. Here’s what that looks
like.” I would not have failed to mention: Maine’s homeschoolers are extremely diverse, in every way (faith/secular, socioeconomic, educational needs and ideologies), Maine homeschoolers are engaged citizens (we are local business owners, we identify politically with both sides of the aisle and the vast majority of us are property owners), Maine homeschoolers desire to have their voices respected and given the freedom and space to exist.
Rather than paint a narrow view of Maine homeschooling families; let’s do our own
research and be open-minded enough to agree- just as Maine is diverse, so too are it’s homeschooling families.
Brooke Thompson is a founder and the vice-president of the Maine Home Education Alliance.
