Smart homeschooleds = unrealistic?

TIME.com's review of "RV" hits a sour note at the end, where they say "the movie cheats a little" by depicting home-schooled children as smarter (or at least better educated) than standard-school fare.  I know it's the basic stereotype, that children who are homeschooled learn nothing except that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it, people who dance are possessed by the devil, and math is an invention of east cost libruls.  But does Time really have to display its (regular-school-provided) ignorance so openly?  Anyone with a bit of research, or with experience with homeschooled children who have outstripped their homeschool's knowledge and are sent to a standard high school and then far outperform their fellow students, could easily have set Time straight.  That homeschooled children are, in fact, capable of interacting with other people -- especially with adults, since the small class sizes tend to allow for more personal attention -- and have not spent their entire life without leaving the sanctified confines of their house, seems also to have escaped their notice.  Suppose the reporters didn't know anyone like that, though.

Comments

[PG]

I take your larger point, but think you might be misreading the TIME review. "[RV] is also a nicely dishonorable addition to the small but often hilarious tradition of comedies in which the bourgeoisie get their comeuppance while navigating large vehicles along narrow and twisted roads." The reviewer wants the movie to drive home the point that yuppies prize markers of education and such too much, to the detriment of their ability to cope with stuff like chemical toilets.

The Robin Williams family, the Munros, assumes itself to be superior to the Gornickes due to such markers. Therefore, "the movie cheats a little with the Gornickes. They turn out to be better educated than they appear to be. They have chosen their bus, and their home-schooled children are both smarter and less anxious than the Munro kids. On the other hand, if we are truly an open society, we have to be open to learn to reserve judgment, to entertain the possibility that things (and people) are not necessarily what they seem at first glance to be."