Monday, January 12, 2009

Tim Tebow was Homeschooled

If you watched the BCS Championship game last week between the Florida Gators and the Oklahoma Sooners, you've probably heard this story before. But I felt it important to mention here, because I'm hoping that the Tim Tebow story is a wake up call to all those school districts who have the authority to allow or disallow homeschooled kids to participate in extra-curricular activities in their schools. Lucky for Tim, (and the Gators) the state of Florida passed a law allowing homeschooled kids to participate in school sports. To my knowledge, in my state it is up to each district. I'm hoping that Tim's story, and many others sure to pop up between now and when my children are in high school, will influence the leaders in my district should my children want to participate in a group sport one day.
You can read more about Tim here.
I'm really not sure why a school district would want to hold back a child who wants to participate in school sports. The fact is that everyone pays taxes to the schools, and just because our children don't attend does not mean that the school is missing out on anything. Yes, I understand that each school gets so much money per student per year. And if my children are not counted toward that number they get no money for them. And? What does that have to do with school sports? Absolutely nothing. Telling homeschooled students "no" is basically a way of trying to force them to attend school, even though standardized tests tell us over and over again that it's not the best thing for the student. It will be interesting to see what happens as time goes on. To all those states and districts that allow and encourage homeschooled students to participate in school sports, bravo to you! The funny thing about homeschooled students is that they have HOURS to perfect their sport because they don't have to sit in school all day. And that is reason #1 for homeschooled students to get a chance to play sports with their peers.


1 comment:

Tara said...

I'm a huge Tim fan! He's an amazing role model in so many different ways!