At the moment, everyone else here is snuggled in bed. One of the handy features of wordpress is that you can future post something. When this post shows up in the blog, I will be descending to Pearson International Airport in Toronto. I wanted to reserve Sunday for Father’s Day. But, I’ve been thinking about this post since I wrote the last one about That Organization (TO).

The common 2 reasons I’ve seen which might explain the otherwise bewildering things that the organization does are money and a theopolitical agenda. Our society is structured in such a way that money plays a role in most matters. I would not argue that money is not in fact a factor in this situation. But, I do not believe that either of these reasons provide a satisfactory explanation of the behaviour of TO. One of the things I’ve learned is that outward behaviour is often a by-product of something else. And that is what I believe both of these are. When we talk about having a cold, we are generally referring to the symptoms while the real cause is a virus, germ or allergin.

Last fall, when I read the actual wording of the HoDA bill(s) which was introduced into the federal legislative bodies in the US, I saw that it had consistency with legislation which TO had helped pen here. Yes, I left out the N deliberately because when Andrea and I discuss that bill, that’s what I call it. What I would like to do is explain why I call it that. While I’m doing that, I’ll explain my theory of the real motivation which drives the organization.

TO’s webbsite says that its ‘mission is to protect the freedom of all homeschoolers’. That statement, if taken at face value is absolutely false. TO’s public relations person was pressed on the issue of HoDA and said that the legislation was for their membership. Yet, technically, I believe that statement is true and that everyone who works for TO believes that it is true. The technicality that is involved is, ‘what freedom are they trying to protect?’ You see, there is a mountain of difference between having the freedom to make all the choices (including delegating those choices to your child) related to your child’s education and having the freedom to choose to educate your child yourself. But, technically, both can be described as freedom.

In the the other post about TO, I mentioned that our province amended our HS legislation last year. This time last year (prior to the change in legislation) homeschool rumour had it that there was a move afoot to sue the government. It would be a repeat of what had been done in at least 2 other provinces. The result of those lawsuits has been legislation like this. While we’ll never know for certain, I believe that the legislation was changed to prevent the lawsuit. The suit and grounds used in those other provinces can no longer be used as grounds here.

If you took the time to read the legislation above and you are familiar with TO’s membership application form, what you might have noticed is that every homeschooler who keeps within the confines of that legislation would also be eligible for membership in TO. If we added diligent staff at the DOE, every homeschooler might be in a situation where membership in TO would be considered a good investment. In fact you could use the information you provided to the DOE on your application for membership for TO. Unless we were prepared to do a lot of spin doctoring, TO would reject a membership application from our household.

Do you see why I dropped the N? Because HoDA isn’t a non discrimination bill. It’s a discrimination bill. The purpose it would have served, if it had passed, would be to force the state to recognize (and provide preferential treatment to) homeschoolers who were eligible for membership in TO and to reject homeschoolers who were not eligible for membership in TO.

One of the results of the US civil war was the abolition of slavery. Within a generation or 2 segregation was brought into effect in areas where slavery had been abolished. When slavery was initially abolished much of the social structure remained the same because the freed slaves owned nothing. At the heart of that structure was discrimination. Slavery is not possible without discrimination. Segregation became necessary after a period of time because over time the freed slaves accumulated possessions and some degree of wealth. Segregation ensured that the state was obligated to observe the discrimination which had existed in the slaving society thereby ensuring the sociopolitical position of the slavers.

TO has been up against a similar situation for a number of years. Free homeschoolers have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience without TO. To the vast majority of us, TO is no longer relevant, important, or even necessary. I’m sure that TO could alter its direction, survive and perhaps even thrive if the right choices were made. However, any choices that I believe would lead to that success would also require that it walk away from the sociopolitical aspirations it has. I’ll leave it to you to guess what I believe are the chances that those choices will be made.