Plans

I just registered to attend the Minnesota Homeschoolers' Alliance annual conference in New Brighton on Saturday, September 25th.  For readers who don't know me, I should point out that
1. I was not homeschooled; I was a (mostly) successful graduate of entirely mainstream public school
2. I have no children of my own, nor any specific plans to obtain them in the near future, because
3. I am not married, nor in a relationship likely to lead to marriage (okay, let's be honest: or any kind of relationship at all).

All of this might lead you to wonder why I would attend a conference on homeschooling.  As someone entering the teaching profession, I have come to dislike many of the precepts that public schools, and public school teaching, entail.  The emphasis on testing, especially, has (or originally had) a noble goal of making schools and teachers accountable for student learning, but this goal has been buried beneath a lot of finger-pointing ("Poor student performance is the teachers' fault!" "It's the parents' fault!" "It's the government's fault!") and the asinine and short-sighted idea of attaining "proficiency".

Anyway, specifics aside, the system is broken.  I do not want to be a part of a broken system; I'd be happy to try to help fix it, but I think it is difficult to get into a public teaching position without at least pretending to support the system, and then once in, it is tempting to support the status quo that pays one's salary.  I have been looking into alternatives to public school teaching, including charter schools, private schools (although these have their own issues), TRiO programs, and, yes, homeschooling.

I don't know how I could be of use to the homeschooling community, but I'd like to offer my services.  I would also like to see if anyone has done any thinking/writing/experimenting with incorporating homeschool learning and teaching styles into conventional classrooms.  That would be my ideal task; the students who most need our help are those whose family situations do not allow the possibility of homeschooling.  Those are the students I want to help become lovers of learning.

So, if anyone reading this will also be at MHA, leave a note and maybe we'll meet up.  If you're not going, but have some advice or insight on the whole "public schooling in the form of or modeled after homeschooling" idea, I'd love to hear it.