Hello, , from NHERI.

I recently gave you some nuggets from Dr. Michael Cole's article entitled, "What's Culture Got to Do With It? Educational Research as a Necessarily Interdisciplinary Enterprise" (endnote 1). As I give you part two on this item, please keep in mind that Dr. Cole is a distinguished professor of communication, psychology, and human development at the University of California, San Diego.

As I summarized before, Dr. Cole listed common features of modern mass schooling. He wrote that among these are the following: "3. Schools are redefined as an instrument of public policy and as preparation for specific forms of economic activity--'manpower development'" (p. 464). There was nothing in the list about schools being decidedly for advancing in a maximum way the good of the individual student or helping him (or her) to develop in order to give glory to God.

Further into the article, the professor really begins to sound like a voice from the modern homeschool movement. In his concluding remarks, Dr. Cole refers to other thinkers

... whose vision provides a handy alternative to that of the Assyrian classroom or the open classroom, because it envisions the disappearance of the aggregated institution called "the school" altogether. In its place would be

a nation of home-based activities organized around small neighborhood learning clubs, linked through high-bandwidth Internet software. "Teachers" would operate as independent consultants, who work from home most of the time, and occasionally meet with ad hoc groups of students at a learning club. (p. 569)

Lectures, what there were of them, would be available online. Project-based learning and multigenerational, overlapping, small communities of learners would converge virtually or face-to-face as conditions required.

This is striking. Has Dr. Cole been studying the modern homeschool movement? (If so, he never mentions it in his article.) Or, does he even know much about it? Is he promoting the philosophy and practices of home-based educators? For something even more incredible, see what the professor writes next.

Such a vision is not likely to be realized in the lifetime of anyone here, if ever. It presupposes not only the material conditions required for its implementation but a sea change in people's ideas of what education is for. The fact is that, despite pronouncements about the advent of an innovation and information economy, great masses of the American public (and I believe the same is true quite generally on the international scene as well) are not anxious to have their children at home all day. They do not want their children wresting authority from them, deciding for themselves what constitutes an interesting problem to work on; and they fear the social chaos that would result from such a change in the cultural foundations of the nation state. (p. 469)

I wonder whether Dr. Cole knows that a sea change has occurred in American culture over the past 30 years. I wonder whether he is aware that at least about two million parents do want their children at home all day, together enjoying life with learning all day.

It appears that the pioneers of the modern homeschool movement were, and current members of the home-education community are, far into living some of the dreams that many (professional) educational scholars and thinkers have had for nearly a half century.

If you are interested in tangibly supporting our work doing research, collecting research, disseminating research, and helping homeschool families around the world, you might visit http://nheri2010.org/ and consider the "donate" button. Or, just click here.

Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.

National Home Education Research Institute

P.S. Please feel free to send us your questions about homeschooling and we will try to answer them in upcoming messages.

NHERI, PO Box 13939, Salem OR 97309, USA