My dermatologist was asking about my kids. That's always awkward because their life, what I have to say about their life, is good. And saying these good things feels, to some listeners, like an indictment. What's worse, after all these years of homeschooling and running into listener's sense of indictment and defensiveness so very often, I don't fully say the good things. I leave them unsaid. Until I get nervous or distracted and forget myself. Then the full good sometimes tumbles out, unchecked.

She asked what was new with the kids and I searched my brain frantically for newness. (I'm always very nervous in her office.) Graduating is new! That's what came up so that's what came out. Which I instantly regretted. I told her my son is about to graduate. "Isn't he 16?" Yes, he is 16. "Well! How nice!" (Subtext: harumph) "And your daughter...is she on track to also graduate at age 16?" Sure, she is. Its no big deal, you know. This is normal for homeschoolers... They have so much more...time...you know? "Oh, yes, of course." (Subtext: harumph)

I really don't want my dermatologist distracting herself with elementary educational theory. Just focus on the moles please, Ma'am. No one wants someone feeling competitive standing over them with a scalpel. And anyway, there is no competition from me. I'm not competing. I'm reporting from the field. As I left her office I said, "Its not special, and the kids aren't special. Homeschoolers just have a lot of time. Its not that my kids are super smart, or anything of the sort." She said, "Oh yeah yeah, I know, all that wasted time at school doing silly things." We smiled at each other. Thank God that's over for another six months.

But the truth is, everything else I didn't say. Homeschooled kids are generally ready for college at 16 because they haven't suffered, because they haven't studied all the extraneous nonsensical bullshit required of schooled kids, because of their lack of experience with the multiple choice worksheets of arbitrary authority, because their world has a simple sane kind of order to it in which they encounter and absorb reality unfettered by extraneous nonsensical bullshit. Its not at all that my son or daughter have carefully and swiftly worked their way through 80 credit hours of facts and rote and tests and slog, two years faster than schooled kids. Nothing could be further from the truth. Though that's what folks like my dermatologist assume and I will never challenge that assumption, face to face. Its not my job to fix assumptions. The truth about what homeschoolers aren't doing is a scandal, the largest part of which, is how well the whole thing works.

I experience a similar truthy dissonance when folks start talking about their kids getting into university. Its is great to get accepted into a university. As completely as I oppose elementary school, I'm for college level study. Everyone should go. Its hugely beneficial to study at a higher level. Most definitely. So I'm glad for folks getting accepted, delighted to hear about their journey, fully supportive to see them proceed. But everyone can go. Or, nearly everyone. There is nothing magical about formal acceptance and the traditional four year format of leaving home at age 18 to live in a dorm and etc. That is just one way among many. (An expensive way.) On the diploma side of the journey, the beginning will have made little difference. If everyone can go...

If everyone can go to college, most everyone, and if the way you get there hardly matters, and if disregarding the first 13 years of traditional academic preparation apparently has no affect on one's ability while there, our society is functioning under some profound misconceptions. I feel the dissonance, is all I'm saying. I feel it frequently. Its an odd feeling, not at all like winning something or being better than anyone so much as feeling astounded at how hard everyone is working toward that which arises naturally.