Are You One of the Good Homeschoolers?

The other day I was talking to a woman I vaguely know and have vaguely known for years.  ;)
When I mentioned that we homeschool she held her hands apart saying, indicating her left hand, Are you one of the good homeschoolers or, indicating her right hand, one of the bad homeschoolers?

When I asked her to clarify what she meant by good and bad she had a difficult time doing so, but from her blustering I think she was referring to radical unschooling (the bad kind of homeschooling, in her mind) versus school-at-home (the good one).

I placed a hand on each of hers and brought them together saying We are somewhere in the middle, as are most homeschool families.

She had more questions but kept repeating, But I'm sure you are one of the good ones.

John making a magic wand on the new lathe!

 

LOL - I'm pretty sure she wouldn't think so if she saw our homeschool day because we don't do anything at all that resembles school-at-home.

I'm not at all sure what I actually told her about homeschooling, but by the time our conversation ended she was a homeschool supporter... for some people. 

Well, that's something, anyway.

To be fair, she had many stories about the successes that her children had in school, some things that just don't happen in homeschool communities without alot of organization like marching band, state soccer wins, and student government. She is very proud of the accomplishments that her children have had in school and I understand that!

I'm used to people having uninformed ideas about homeschool and it really doesn't generally bother me. The fun thing about this conversation was that other people joined in who know my kids and contributed so many nice comments about my kids as people and about our family experiences to the conversation. But it was still kind of weird that her understanding of homeschool was so black and white.

Because we are somewhere there in the grey.