Michael Salmonowicz & Democracy

While researching homeschool news for my Examiner articles, I came across a recent article on True/Slant, The Report Card. Instantly, my defense went up when I saw the claim "home schooling may harm our democracy." This is actually an age-old argument, though Salmonowicz himself admits to knowing little about homeschooling. He offers an allegory of "Sally", a college student who came to him, wanting to drop a class because she thought the instructor graded her based on her religious beliefs and conservative views. He looked over the instructor's comments, and realized the student had supported her argument only with facts from the Bible, which were unacceptable to the instructor. He advised the student to be thankful for the effort the teacher put into the comments, and to keep working on her argument skills.

Salmonowicz's argument is that a viewpoint such as Sally's, one that will give up when challenged and refuse to try to argue her point and hear what her opponents say, may be harmful to our democracy. He's afraid homeschoolers will be sheltered, never having any confrontation, and never learning how to develop strong arguments, and therefore be unable to contribute positively to our society and democracy.

Of course I believe the facts of the Bible far surpass anything of this world, but I realize students need to offer 'accepted' authoritative evidence to support their claims, which means finding peer reviewed sources--and I was homeschooled. I can offer a similar analogy that questions the future of democracy and the ability to argue credibly:

As a first year composition instructor, I had several students who offered their siblings/relatives as support for their arguments. They had been through it, and so that was proof. These were not homeschooled students; they were students from several different high schools and GED holders. I once had a student who argued that the Holocaust never happened--that it was a scheme devised by the government. That student offered absolutely no support--not even a reference page. Obviously, going by personal experience, public education may harm our democracy as well.

As an instructor, I took on the responsibility of informing the students what are acceptable sources and what is considered peer reviewed. We made lists on the board, in the online classroom portion, and on handouts. Then, we practiced finding them. Oddly, those students who had been homeschooled were the students who had the most authoritative evidence.

Salmonowicz does say homeschooling should remain our right, unlike Germany where it is illegal, but he continues to question the idea of homeschooling.