Evergreen Freedom Foundation contacted the WHO board asking to interview “a homeschooler.” Nobody else on the board wanted to go, so Matt and I took Alex. They also asked for a learning disabled homeschooler, but we never found one. EFF ended up interviewing all three of us; my husband, my son, and me. We knew it was for “a documentary” and it was supposed to highlight ALL the effective ways to educate.
Now that I’ve seen the video, I’m a bit disappointed. They didn’t include homeschooling in the main documentary (only alternative education through public schools.) The snippet we put on the website was actually taken from the “bonus features”.
I gave the movie to Matt and Alex for Christmas, and we watched the whole thing, waiting to see ourselves. We were so disappointed to be just part of the bonus reel, LOL! But we are listed on the credits.
In the main documentary, they highlight the alternative-education girl who won the geography bee. Turns out her mother was my roommate in college! She was in a study group with Matt – she’s an engineer! I hadn’t seen her since college, and then one day I was at a homeschool swing dance event, and she walked in. We started talking about what we were up to – surprised to see we were both homeschooling. That’s when she told me she was in this documentary, and I told her I was in the SAME documentary! It was amazing!
I think that Evergreen Freedom Foundation may be trying to promote alternative education. Unfortunately, it may be at the expense of independent homeschooling. EFF just believes alt-ed is a great way to go with public education dollars. That’s one of the reasons why I came down so hard on that in Olympia, when I spoke to the legislators. Evergreen Freedom Foundation was there, and they had just spoken on alternative education, and their movie Flunked.
Anyway, it’s an Evergreen Freedom Foundation documentary to encourage alternative education approaches, including vouchers. It was filmed about 2 years ago. I thought it would include more homeschooling, but homeschooling was pretty much just a “P.S.” to the movie.
And now you know…”the rest of the story.”
In case you haven’t seen it, here is the clip of our homeschooling interview. We spoke for about an hour but were edited to a few minutes.
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Christianbook.com Curriculum Page
J W says:
Is there a difference between learning disabled and learning challenged? I refer to one of my children as challenged because I refuse to accept that she’s disabled as long as she’s making progress, which, thanks be to God (and He gets all the credit) she is!
January 20th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Lee says:
God doesn’t make mistakes. I don’t know that I put much stock in labels, no matter what a child is like. That’s why homeschooling works – less reason for a label. I hope I didn’t say anything in the video that caused offense. I always worry about that when I am recorded.
Blessings,
Lee
January 20th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
J W says:
I didn’t find anything in the video offensive
I’m betting the producers decided to focus on improving public education once they gathered all their material. Sorry you got left out 
Anyhow, I was just wondering if I was correct in assuming that “learning disabled” refers to those cases that are so severe that there’s basically no hope. Kids who appreciate love and sunshine, and who commprehend little or nothing else. Know what I mean? And you know what, now that I think about it, I think I’d still keep such a child home because they are so vulnerable!
January 21st, 2009 at 9:36 am
Lee says:
Joelle,
My eldest child was label when he was in public school. He was in a “special” class that needed “special help.” They were careful to label the gifted education class the same way they labeled remedial classes. The whole class felt peculiar because of they way they were so carefully NOT labeled as gifted.
Labels stink
They can be helpful for parents to know if their child has special learning styles or needs or whatever, but labeling in general…. It’s like comparing. Someone always gets hurt.
Blessings,
Lee
January 21st, 2009 at 9:43 am
J W says:
Yeah, labels are limited. The only ones I’ve found helpful are those related to learning style. It never occurred to me that there are people who simply cannot learn the way I do! I used to yell at my kinesthetic husband for being “blind!” You can tell I’m visually oriented. I’m so glad I learned those differences before I had kids!
It’s also helpful to know if someone is creatively inclined or logically inclined. A creatively inclined child might not be able to immediately spit out the “correct” answer to a question that was written by an obviously logically inclined textbook author. Knowing that there is a different thought process at work helps a lot, so you don’t just make a big red check mark and neglect true learning. Instead, you can guide your creatively inclined child through the “alien” thought processes of the logically inclined textbook author, and your child learns how to navigate someone else’s communication style! And quite often, your little creative child comes up with a unique insight on the topic! Cool, huh?
January 21st, 2009 at 6:16 pm