"You think school is a reflection of the real world?", well, a very distorted view of the real world, I give her that much. Where else do you have an atmosphere where every emotion is amplified, where the raging hormones of teenagers will dictate the hierarchy of popularity and social acceptability in said school. Adults control school administration, children control the social strata in a school. What's the saying?, place a child with thirty fools and you'll soon have thirty one fools.

As a teacher you would like to be accorded the respect that your position entitles you to, as many have found out, respect cannot be demanded, rather, it has to be cajoled out of students, you have to hit the campaign trail to up your "likeability" rating so you can have a better rapport with your students. Gone are the days of unquestioning obedience and ernest study, because the students know that their falling grades reflect poorly on the teachers performance not their own - still wondering how someone can get through 12 grades and not know how to read?

Numerous school shootings that have occurred around the country is the other argument I raise, the response is, "That couldn't happen here, the odds are too great". As far as I'm concerned the "odds" are not a consideration, it happened more than once and even one time is too many. The safety of my son is paramount, so survival shouldn't be part of the curriculum.

Homeschooled children interact with children of similar age, older sibilings/cousins, adults and are exposed to a wide range of maturity and as they say the early years in a child's life are the formative ones, where they soak up everything like a sponge, why would you want to stunt their emotional growth? Studies have shown these children are more self confident, mature and better able to adjust to unfamiliar situations (sounds like real life to me). Whereas if they were only with children their own age emotional growth would stagnate and be at the whim or, more accurately, mercy of adolescent vagaries.

"Thank goodness it's the start of the school year, I needed a break from the kids", I ask them if they're glad to have their state approved babysitter back - I get alot of odd looks when I ask that question. They ask, "What babysitter", I say, "You know the one you pay school taxes for, the one that watches your kids 6 1/2 to 7 hours a day, the one that feeds them and plays with them - dodgeball remember?". "You know the place where we picked up all of our bad habits and, where soon, your kids will be picking up those same habits".

That was the argument that finally cracked the fragile shell of fantasy land; I could make all kinds of arguements for homeschooling and against public schools and be met with a brick wall of denial, but, mentioning the memories of public school and letting those unbidden images come to mind was enough to get grudging acknowledgement that I could possibly, maybe, have a point - I bet that must have hurt to say.

A well adjusted, self-confident child or a child adjusted by peer pressure and popularity, the former you'll have complete control over the latter left up to fate. I don't like leaving things up to fate - of course, I am the naive one.