I observed the following twitter conversation today (I am paraphrasing as I remember it):
Comment 1: (From adult male) I coach a bunch of homeschooled students. They are a very distinctive bunch.
Comment 2: (same person) It’s interesting that the girls have the same distinctive speech pattern as the boys.
Comment 3: (From teenage girl) I’ve only met one homeschooled person whose personality did not scream HOMESCHOOL but his parents ran a COOP so it was like a school.
Needless to say, I was perturbed.
To the first person, I wanted to scream “What? Do you mean proper English?!!!” That is the only distinctive speech pattern that I have ever heard amongst the hundreds of homeschooling kids that I have met.
To the second person, I wanted to say “You should get out more.”
Since I am neither following or being followed by either of these people, I really didn’t see the point of commenting.
Anyway, I really do not understand why so many people like to discuss the lack of normalcy among homeschoolers. I don’t really see why it matters. Are they really that worried about the “poor homeschoolers”, or do they just need someone to mock?
Regardless, in the 8 years that I have homeschooled my kids, I have yet to see anything distinctive about homeschoolers that set them apart from other kids. When our families congregate, my kids don’t stick out like a sore thumb. When in groups outside of the homeschooling community, no one knows my kids are homeschooled unless my kids reveal it. When my kids get together with a large group of homeschoolers the only real difference I see is kindness and inclusiveness as in they seldom ostracize anyone from the group, even if they have obvious differences from autism, to color, to shyness. They go out of their way to include others.
Personally, I don’t know where these people are looking to find oddities among homeschoolers. Could there prejudices against homeschoolers be so strong that they are looking for these signs? Could they live in an area where they is a very large community of very religious homeschoolers? Either of these could be true.
But, I do know that where I live in a suburb of a major US city, homeschooled kids look just like every other kids that I meet.
Have you noticed differences and similarities between homeschoolers and traditionally schooled kids? I would love to hear about your experiences.
~If you liked this you should also read my blogs at the home blog, the parents blog, and the frugal blog. You can read my recent posts here.
Also read:
My homeschooled son is socially awkward
http://homeschooling.families.com/blog/socialization-of-homeschoolers-in-the-upper-grades
* Have you seen the homeschooling curriculum glossary?
*Have a question about homeschooling? Just ask.