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Homeschooling is not without shortcomings

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The Northview
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By
Brenda Winter, columnist

Our homeschool, 1994-2012, was not without its shortcomings. 
We had a school shooting the day a rabid raccoon climbed a tree outside our son’s bedroom during math class. 
Blam.
We had a stabbing the day one student became so blazing furious with her brother that she plunged the tip of her pencil into his arm.
Strife among the staff (Mom), the administration (Dad), and the student body (the children) was not uncommon.
There were protests. “Why can’t we be like everybody else? Everybody else gets to. Why can’t we?” 
There were standardized testing disasters. “Two? Two!?! How can anyone get two right out of 100 on a spelling test? You almost need to know how to spell the words to be that consistently wrong.”
There was the science experiment gone awry when the brother attempted to send the sister downstream in an old bathtub.
Hypothesis: a bathtub with a sister in it acts like a boat.
Conclusion: It does not.
The husbandry program became a forensics program as the chickens were killed one by one. 
“Looks like a mink got this one. Notice how the body appears unharmed? The mink sucks the blood but does not consume the chicken.” 
Other possible causes of chicken death included dogs, foxes, heat and of course – crossing the road.
The student body nearly died as one the day I rolled the family van driving to homeschool bowling. I was literally in the process of explaining to the students the dangers of driving on icy roads when the van began to sway. They thought it was a demonstration.
And then the students grew up. “The reader girl” became an engineer who manages 64 men in a manufacturing plant.
“The salesman” grew up to be a salesman who uses much of his salesmanship to convince six- and three-year-old daughters that it is almost bedtime. He also sells real estate.
“The homebody” became a world traveler who’s lived in London, Beijing and Bangkok. Right now she’s teaching English to students in Ho Chi Min City, Viet Nam.  
Each of our students overcame the adversities inflicted upon them by the educational system in which they were raised. 
Your kid will, too.

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