Thread by @V_Sojo

When I say that #homeschooling will eventually embed caste-system, am I not seeing the 100000s of kids who get bullied in schools in the name of disabilities and abilities and either need traditional schools to be inclusive or need homeschooling?

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As someone who had faced bullying in school (both from teachers & peers!), I can assure you I see them first when I disagree with our current enthusiasm around making homeschooling mainstream and pitching it as a better option than schools.

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Research has already established that the best approaches to schooling are the ones that encourage healthy parent-school partnerships around the life of a child trying to learn.

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The problem with #homeschooling is that it completely discard the school from the partnership, often disrespectfully. Parents do not need to put in even half the effort we want them to put in #homeschooling to partner with schools.

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The point is Indian schools have come a long way from when I was a student. It is not fair to blame our current schooling system based on the stereotypes we have developed based our own schooling experiences.

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About children with disabilities: I know many schools that allow one parent or a support teacher to be present during lessons along with the child to help.

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About children who are bullied: I know many schools that put their teachers through professional development interventions to equip them to deal with routine bullying.

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Over the past 14 years I may have sat through the lessons of more than 40000 teachers in India to notice that there are 1000s of kind teachers who go out of their way to support children with disabilities and who are bullied.

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It is sad that on one hand we say all education systems are a work in progress and still promote the white supremist Christian idea of homeschooling as a counter to bad schools in India.

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It is also sad that we feel it is ok for us to #homeschool children as casteists instead of working on removing bullying and class-discrimination in schools. Homeschool and inclusion are like water and oil!

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Indian schools are rising from their bleak past of educational abuse and doing their best to help our children learn. Let us support them to continue to work on themselves instead of pushing to bring stone age #homeschooling back.

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How do we know homeschooling will embed caste and discourage inclusion?

We just need to study the history of homeschooling in USA and the impact of homeschooling on the American Culture around white supremacy and then look at the social fabric of India.

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If you go in search of the origin of Trumpism in USA and why America turned anti-choice and finally banned abortion recently, you will find traces of #homeschooling in them!

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No, let us not promote homeschooling large or small scale. For the sake of democratic accountability, constitutional morality & social inclusion, let us not encourage parents to keep children at home. Else pro-parent-choice will turn India more anti-choice.

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The preamble of Indian constitution puts justice before liberty for a reason. RTE talks about compulsory formal schooling for a reason too. Let us not leave it to parental choice.

#Homeschooling may sound romantic. In reality, it is a wolf in sheep's clothing!

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Is it undemocratic not to allow parent's to decide how to educate their children? Does not Parental Choice matter?

Well, read this #thread to know who constructed the idea of parental choice.

https://twitter.com/V_Sojo/status/1558713889910534144

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