Intolerant of intolerance
This interesting title is all I could thinkof after reading Dana discuss an article on homeschoolers in Palm Beach Post. The post is about a mother in West Palm Beach who discovered that there were several books in the libraries of the local high schools that she finds objectional. Books on topics that she finds frightening I would actually encourage my children to read. To each their own, right? Apparently not.
This is why there is home schooling. Home schooling is a wonderful form of school choice. It allows parents lots of elbow room to create parallel universes, worlds of their own making inside the comfort of their own homes, where there never shall cross a fragment from the outside world that hasn’t been purified through the crucible of their own narrow beliefs.
It’s a safety net for the intolerant.
I could go into the rant of painting all homeschoolers with such a broad brush. We all know that not all homeschoolers fit into this neat little package that is so often displayed as being “what homeschoolers are”. I could also get into the hypocrosy of someone talking about books that “open up minds, present ideas, and create, rather than stifle, discussion” following up by closing his own mind about an entire group based on an assumption. But no, what bothers me the most is intoleracne towards homeschoolers while simultaneously calling homeschoolers intolerant. This certainly isn’t the first time this has put put out there, and I’m sure it won’t be the last either.
July 19th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Good point! I was just posting yesterday about how many people are intolerant of children… and I’m not talking misbehaving children, I mean about the toddler that got kicked off a plane for saying “bye bye plane” over and over.
I went into a mini rant, but in the end it’s not worth it like you said. You got your point across though without losing your head, and that IS wonderful.
Great post!
July 19th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Isn’t is scary how ignorant some people are, that they think they can place whole groups of people into categories simply by labeling??? Stay at home mom, work at home mom, homeschooling family, soccer moms, etc. It’s very convenient when we think we can put people into groups, yet each person is different and will do the same thing differently from his/her neighbor. I was thinking about all of my “labels” the other morning when I met a new mom at our church, she absolutely insisted on finding out all of my categories (SAHM, homeschooling mother of 3, quilter, knitter, yes I like to make my own cookies from scratch, etc.) before telling me anything about herself. I try very hard not to categorize people but it is very hard and I still find myself doing it.
July 19th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
It’s horrible how some people are about things. It’s really unnecassary. But I guess people will be people.
August 21st, 2007 at 6:19 am
[...] post Intolerant of Intolerance has been in the top 10 list ever since I wrote it. It’s a short post talking about how some [...]