Otterblog

I have one of those Close to Home cartoon of the day calendars. Last week, they had a three-panel gag. First panel shows a front door of a house. Second panel shows a kid running out of the house with his arms in the air. Last panel shows him trudging back inside. The caption was something like “Last day at home school.” A few days later, they had another home-school cartoon, this one with an “awards” ceremony and the same kid winning all the awards…

So what is it about home schools that inspires such satire and ridicule and media attention? We’ve had three or four stories in the past week, a few centered on Josiah Wright, a home-schooled student from Ashe County, who went to the national spelling bee. And with that story was a larger piece on why home-schooled kids do so well in bees. Then Saturday, we had a piece about a woman from Surry County, who is “retiring” from home school now that her kids have graduated.

It’s hard to say whether journalists pay too much attention to home-schooled students. The evidence is always anecdotal. From personal experience, I think that they may good stories for a couple of reasons. First, the kids are unfailingly polite. They’re good interviews. The parents tend to be advocates and used to fighting the system and navigating the world out there. Finally, we like subjects with strong convictions, who are living outside the conventions and who challenge the status quo. It’s hard to imagine going to school in your living room. The danger I think in some of the coverage is that home school is presented as an option for everybody. It clearly isn’t.  My guess is that if everybody went to school at home, our coverage would quickly change.

New face: I don’t do a whole lot of personnel stuff in OTTERBLOG, but some hires are more important than others. Our new photo editor, Walt Unks, started yesterday. He replaced Charlie Buchanan, who retired. Walt comes from the Herald-Sun in Durham. He’s a great shooter, looks a bit like Ron Howard in Happy Days, and we expect good things from his work with our staff.