Thanks to many homeschooling blogs and my own homeschooling email loop, I've felt very aware of any press concerning homeschooling. Sadly, most news coverage has been negative. That's a shame, but consistent with how reporters work. After all, for every positive public school article, I can find at least ten negative articles without trying. Why is that?
Simply put, good news is boring. In our news world of sound bite sensationalism, reporters latch onto controversy to sell papers and increase readership. Because home educators are usually not in the public eye, reporting tends to be limited to the times when things go wrong. Horribly wrong. Those negative articles become examples for public school advocates the same way homeschoolers use negative press about public education to further our cause. Before you know it, there is mudslinging right and left and everyone is scanning the paper for articles that support their cause. Who wins in this case? The news media, of course!
While it is important to keep track of the negative press produced by mainstream media, it is my hope that bloggers who home educate will eventually generate some positive press about what we do. We are such an educationally diverse group, and through reporting our creativity in teaching our own, I believe we help our homeschooling community to be better appreciated and respected.
1 comment:
Excellent post!!
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