Pro Homeschooling Documentary, Not so Pro Christian?
If you are a long time reader of Communication FUNdamentals, you will recall that about a year ago our family had agreed to be filmed for a documentary that a USC grad student was doing on homeschooling for a local cable TV and internet show. I have to admit being a bit nervous about whether or not a positive image of my family and homeschooling in general would survive the cutting room floor.
Since we are members of HSLDA, I called and spoke with Michael Smith to ask his advice. He shared a story with me about how his words had been twisted in an interview by the editing process but that, in his opinion, any publicity for homeschooling is good publicity. He advised us to pray on it and, if we felt lead to, consent to the interview. We discussed it and prayed over it as a family and decided to allow the camera to film "A day in the life of the Tabares homeschooling family."
It was an exciting day where we met the producer who was also to be our cameraman. She was a very nice young woman who asked us a great deal of questions, filmed each family member's answer and even went with us to two different outside events. She filmed my daughter going to her not-so-local public school for her AP classes in the morning. She even went with us to film both of the kids at karate class where my daughter was one of the black belt instructors.
We felt she was, as they say on Fox News, fair and balanced. She asked a good number of open ended questions as well as questions that might reveal any difficulties about homeschooling. Overall, we felt it a good experience for the family.
Just the other day, we finally received a link to the online video segment of the show. It is actually a very positive piece on homeschooling and I pray that theme reaches many, but we were a bit disappointed with the way our Christian family was portrayed in contrast to the other family that was interviewed. I'll give you the link so you can judge for yourself.
First we noticed some obvious errors-one was a major typo at the end where they reported that my daughter is now attending "Vanterbilt" University. That should be spelled Vanderbilt. Sorry all you Commodores! The other was when the narrator reported the public high school where my daughter was taking a few AP classes was in Hesperia. I wish it had been in Hesperia! It certainly would have been a much faster commute and a lot easier on the old wallet as gas was at it's all time HIGH then! ROFL Granite Hills High School is in Apple Valley.
The disappointment, though, is due to the way in which they seemed to have made a conscious decision to leave on the cutting room floor all of the footage that shows our family as active in the "real world" outside of our family. The producer told us she was interviewing a few families to compare them, but the way it was edited leaves the impression that a Christian homeschooling family is lonely and secluded from the rest of the world. I guess it goes back to the age old question of socialization as if it may not be a problem in secular families, but may still be for Christian homeschoolers.
For example, in contrast to the active, bustling and colorful environment of the other family, they showed my daughter sharing about her frustration with her public school classmates for interrupting class to ask irrelevant questions. They never showed her teaching karate class where she was one of the black belt instructors for two years. They never mentioned that she was in a performance choir that traveled and did concerts. They never mentioned the schedule she kept with her friends or the times she was able to raise money to fly to Texas and D.C. to attend various leadership conferences and other events with young people from all over the nation.
They showed my son playing a game of pool by himself as he talks about a problem he had with a neighbor boy. They never showed the footage of him at karate or talked about all the other activities he was involved in that year. They also had no way of knowing that this neighbor boy was a problem for many of the families in the neighborhood.
My daughter was upset for my son because they updated each of the homeschooled children at the end but never included my son.
Am I sorry we did the interview? No! I think it was a good experience for the kids. I also think it will help homeschooling. It's actually a very pro homeschooling piece. But you judge for yourself . Here is the direct link to the homeschooling segment of this show.
Please share what you think about it. Do you think it helps homeschooling? Do you feel they were at all biased against Christian homeschoolers? Did it just come off this way? Or are we being a bit sensitive?
What say you?
8 comments
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Thanks everyone for the support and kind words. We did pray on it before agreeing but knew there was always a chance that what survived the cutting room floor might not be as complementary as we had hoped. I think overall they did a good job.
We were filmed when we lived in California. A few months ago we moved to Arizona so my son no longer has a problem with that neighbor boy. Although I do pray for the remaining neighbors as this boy is a problem for them. He is young and I pray he will change his ways before he gets into some real mischief.
JoJo
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JoJo,
I agree that the piece was overall very positive towards homeschooling. And I loved the fact that you talked about not only our Father and the importance of Him being in our schooling, but how public schools would have most likely required medication for your son. Chris and Little Critter are much alike! Our public school told us when we were talking about registering him, that he’d have to be medicated! I don’t think so!!!! We stopped the registration process that very moment. And while we sometimes have some frustrations with his problems with focusing, I wouldn’t trade these times of learning with him for anything on this planet!!!! I thought both you and dh and both kids came across as wonderful examples of why we homeschool. I’m proud of all 4 of you! Thank you for being brave enough to be filmed and put online to show the world what a joy it is to homeschool. And Chris, don’t worry about that neighborhood boy, Sweetie. He’ll either change his attitude and become a good friend, or you’ll find a better friend. You’re an awesome young man and I have no doubts you’ll have plenty of friends. JoJo, you’ve done a great job with both the kids. Hold your head up, sweet friend. Papa is proud of you too! Shalom, Joie -
[…] you catch our family’s homeschool segment on USC’s Impact yet? We felt the editing was done with at least a slight agenda. Much of the postives our […]