Homeschooling and the Art of Language - How the Effects of Homeschooling Are Frequently Overlooked

The journalist and the homeschooler

Some years ago, while searching news sites on the internet for appropriate current material to share with my group of homeschoolers, I discovered an article in a Pakistani newspaper by the renowned journalist, Robert Fisk, and was both stunned and elated to find myself reading material of a literary quality that merited one or more rereadings and prompted me to make a note of his name and subsequently to follow his reports whenever I could find them. I was later to discover that Dr. Fisk is in fact the recipient of more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent.He gave a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley on September 25, 2008, which was presented in its entirety online, and I eagerly shared excerpts of this with my homeschooling students, for I have frequently found that children tend to be much more easily inspired by the spoken than the written word.

Delightful throughout, Dr. Fisk's address presents some well-conceived insights into the state of modern journalism, and attributes falling circulation to the absence of literary value and style in the writing of many American journalists.Significantly for my homeschooling purposes, the grammar, choice of words, use of metaphor, the language devices he employs in this unscripted speech, serve as a perfect example of spoken formal English - that which is tested for in college entrance exams and demanded of college students - here presented in an accessible, conversational and improvisatory setting.

The renowned journalist fails to take homeschooling into account

Fisk presents and illustrates beautifully his point that American journalism is so often lacking in literary value by contrasting newspaper fare with a remarkable example of personal correspondence, a letter from an American serviceman stationed in Iraq, but does in the process commit one grave journalistic error.This is a common error though, and all too frequently made by those unfamiliar with, or dismissive of the profound role that homeschooling can play in one's education.In quoting a superbly worded letter from an unnamed officer in Iraq to his father at home -- which then elicited a well-deserved ovation from the audience -- and focusing on the fact that his prose was on a level not to be found in the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, nor The Orange County Register, Fisk does fail to provide his awestruck listeners with the most crucial piece of the puzzle.

Fisk quotes from this remarkable letter as its author explains the problems encountered trying to encourage self-governance in Ramadi, Iraq:

...The instinct to impose order and command the requisite discipline in the Iraqi leadership must be quelled in order to allow sovereign stewardship to develop at its native pace and in a native form. I fight myself to remain insignificant in the process. I haven't the nature for passive observation. I share the American fascination with action and it has consistently betrayed us in our foreign policy. Our continued involvement will continue the state of dependency and our eventual departure will leave nothing but cosmetic structure here. Iraq will return to what it is. Our common sense is not common to this people and that understanding must be given proper respect. I do my best but I twitch with an urge for the folly of intrusion.

The mystery revealed

And who would not applaud! The writer of this poignant passage does wield his words with a proficiency and grace which Fisk likens to that of Joseph Conrad and in which any true fan of English writing would exult.

A little Internet research revealed this eloquent unnamed Marine to be one Major Benjamin Busch, and, whereas Fisk is certainly accurate in reporting that Major Busch is not schooled in journalism and is most certainly correct in his assertion that Busch writes far better than do most journalists, this search revealed that he had omitted one highly relevant and significant fact.The seemingly anomalous literary mastery demonstrated by Busch becomes far less baffling when one learns that he is indeed a college graduate, but that is purely incidental. More significantly, his father, Frederick Busch, the one to whom the letter was written, was a prolific author, the recipient of a raft of literary awards, and professor emeritus of literature at Colgate University.

Fisk may be pardoned, as unschooling flies under the radar

This uncharacteristic omission by Fisk is really perhaps quite excusable in that the homeschooling factor is not included in, nor regarded as a legitimate entry on one's resume, particularly if it is informal and merely supplementary to one's official schooling. He may not have thought to research Busch's parentage and background, and may have felt that there was no reason to assume it to be relevant. It is not really Fisk's reporting that is at fault as much as the egregious and erroneous but widely propagated assumption that skills, particularly language skills, can only be acquired in a formal educational environment.

The extent to which Major Busch was influenced by his father is quite evident, not just in his writing, but more clearly and inescapably in the presence of a parental relationship that would occasion the writing of such a considered and well-crafted letter. Indeed, this is not a father to whom a son would send the colloquial, malformed, disconnected ramblings so characteristic of informal American conversational language usage. These words, penned so elegantly for the elder Busch, reflect a standard of verbal communication common to father and son, a beauty of expression which is perhaps far better assimilated through the nurture of unschooling than through any number of formal lecture classes and seminars.Major Busch's sentences were finely and intricately sculpted for a reader whom he knew to be worthy and appreciative of them.

In the absence of a parent of Professor Busch's exalted literary stature or one possessing Dr. Fisk's brilliant narrative and oratory style, where can the homeschool family go to study and acquire more sophisticated language skills? This is a question we strive to address our homeschooling classes and books.