DEAR ABBY: I recently submitted a letter to USA Weekend in response to a poll on home-schooling. The editor printed only the last sentence of my letter. It read, "No person learns social skills by staying at home."
Abby, home-schooling was not a good experience for me. I had an isolated, abusive and lonely childhood. A local woman, on reading the sentence the editor published, went into a tizzy. "Home-schooled children are not isolated," she declared to our local newspaper. She insisted that her children were not isolated, and to hear her tell it, they were little wonders due to being educated at home.
Had the editor published my entire letter, she would have realized that I was speaking only about myself. However, she gave me food for thought. It dawned on me that when we hear praise for home-schooling, it always comes from the parents.
Abby, how about giving the children a chance to express their feelings about home-schooling? -- OPAL IN OREGON
DEAR OPAL: You asked for it, you got it. Students of home-schooling, may I hear from you?