Thursday, January 24, 2008

My heart pains for the poor parents

A Google Alert provided a link to 13-year-old's mom sues school over his suicide. In short a young boy struggled with public school. The mother, Heidi Mikell , homeschooled him for a year and a half. He seemed to be doing better and wanted to go back to public school, so the mother relented. He returned in seventh grade, but fairly quickly felt like the teachers didn't want him there. It isn't clear why from the article.

His obituary (second one down) implies that his parents may have been divorced or seprated.

A sad, sad conclusion to a short life.


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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, public school, public education, education

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I honestly think that using his death to propegate homeschooling is very heartless. His death should be thought of as more than fodder to make a point.

- Patrick

Henry Cate said...

My intention in mentioning was not to push homeschooling.

This was news that was homeschooling related.

I thought some readers might like to read it.

Alastriona, The Cats and Dogs said...

Henry thank you for posting this. Many people (homeschoolers) are made to feel as if they should put their children in public school. It is important that every one realize that sometimes public schools DO NOT have our children's best interest at heart.

I was verbally abused by a 4th grade teacher. If my music teacher had not walked in during the middle of one of her tirades and rescued me from the class I too may have committed suicide as the
4th grade teacher made me feel worthless, stupid and powerless.

Anonymous said...

Henry, in response to what the anonymous commentator said, you're not using this child's death to "propegate" [sic] homeschooling any more than a blog on Heath Ledger's death is used to propagate being a celebrity. Extremists might like to argue, "Well, see what happens when you go to public school!" but I don't think that was your point either.

As homeschoolers, we've all heard the oft-repeated statement, "But what about socialization?" implying that public school is the only place where one can truly learn to fit in to society.

I question the value of fitting in in the first place, but that's a whole different issue. The fact remains that for some individual kids and some individual schools, school is a place where the cost of "fitting in" is often far too high for some people to bear, and for that, I thank God that homeschool is an option -- I wish it had been for me when I was in school. This is not a universal indictment of ALL schools, but it is an indictment of some at some times.

Thank you for your post.

Anonymous said...

Henry, I'd like to disagree with the anonymous commentator. Your post did not propagate homeschool any more than one about Heath Ledger's death propagated being a celebrity.

The fact remains that for many people, the cost of "fitting in" at school is simply too high, and for those people, homeschooling can be a godsend -- I certainly wish homeschooling had been legal when I was attending school.

Thank you for your thoughtful post.