Homeschooling and Harry Potter
I’ve always thought that J. K. Rowling did an excellent job of critiquing the school bureaucracy in the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Her last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, includes a justification for homeschooling. Once Voldemort takes over the Ministry of Magic, he makes some changes in education policy.
“Attendance is now compulsory for every young witch and wizard,” he replied. That was announced yesterday. It’s a change, because it was never obligatory before. Of course, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain has been educated at Hogwarts, but their parents had the right to teach them at home or send them abroad if they preferred. This way, Voldemort will have the whole Wizarding population under his eye from a young age. pg 210
Homeschooling is a sort of canary in the coal mine. When the right to homeschool disappears, we are well on our way to an authoritarian state.
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Excellent post – and very interesting insight.
We have transplanted from Texas to Oklahoma in the past year (another homeschool friendly state). Yet, we continue to hear rumblings of more state supervision and interference. It’s so funny, because it’s not like homeschoolers are causing any problems. I still think it’s just unhappy school administrators who have fewer breathing bodies which are equaling less school funding.