Monday, May 02, 2005

Creating a new conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom can be fickle. Something is "conventional wisdom" until it is shown to be inaccurate and a new conventional wisdom takes its place. The world is full of examples of assumptions people have made that have turned out to be wrong. Perhaps the most famous is that the Earth is flat.
Outdated conventional wisdom also affects the home-school community. Despite decades of proven success and rapidly expanding numbers, many people maintain an outdated view of home-schooling. In other words, they still hold the conventional view that home-school families isolate themselves and do not wish to interact with society. People who hold this view also tend to make the seemingly logical leap that home-schoolers must be poorly socialized.