Just a quick note here to alert readers to the new website for ICHER, the International Center for Home Education Research. It is a brand new organization several homeschool researchers from around the world have been working on for some time now. The website has a lot of very helpful information, including up-to-date summaries of homeschooling regulations in the United States and many other countries and the most comprehensive bibliography of homeschool research available anywhere, all for free.
It also has a blog. I’m the moderator of the blog. As you’ll see, the tone on the ICHER blog is a bit less personal than the one I’ve cultivated here. But the content is very similar. In fact I’m beginning the ICHER blog by re-publishing in edited form the most important blog posts on homeschool research I’ve done over the years. I’m starting back in 2008 and working toward the present, so if you’re relatively new to this blog you might enjoy reading the posts on ICHER to see what you missed. If you’ve been with me since 2008 you might enjoy, as I have, revisiting some of these earlier posts to refresh yourself on the content.
I plan in the future to continue both this blog and the ICHER blog. On weeks where I do a review of a serious piece of homeschooling research I’ll likely only briefly mention it here and provide a link to the ICHER blog post. But when I want to review less scholarly things like children’s books, movies, memoirs, and the like, I’ll continue to write them up here. I might also on occasion make more personal comments on research here that I wouldn’t make on the more professional blog at ICHER. Anyway, I encourage anyone who’s enjoyed my posts on this blog to check out the resources available on the new ICHER website, to like the organization on Facebook if you feel so inclined, and to follow it on Twitter at ICHER@ICHERtweet. Thanks!
Freedom In Education Takes Another Step
The international overview of home education seems to have been lacking up to now. Perhaps there is this overview — in academic writings — but not in the popular domain.
The founding of ICHER (International Center for Home Education Research) is not only timely but urgent. There are growing and contending claims on just who or what is responsible for education — the state, the parent, the teacher union, the church, etc.
At the recent AERO (Alternative Education Resource Organization) Conference in Portland, August 1-5, 2012, we briefly discussed the paradox of so-called free democratic nations as Sweden and Germany outlawing home education. This has gone so far as to cause some home educating families to emigrate and seek refugee status in other countries.
Looking forward to the website and the blog to provide a greater perspective for us all — grandparents, parents, politicians, policy-makers, researchers, educators, philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, media, etc., etc. (Who have I missed?)