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This year's convention, the 16th, was vastly different from the first one I attended seven years ago. What once was a cross between a Saturday afternoon at a favorite bookstore and a selection of great Sunday school classes had been transformed into something more akin to Christmas shopping the week of December 25. Two longtime attendees, Marilyn Beltle and Hilde King, commiserated with me about the change. Together we mourned the dwindling number of Mennonite families with gaggles of children trailing behind in their Pennsylvania Dutch attire. We could no longer joke good-naturedly about all those women in denim jumpers since they were far outnumbered by ordinary suburban moms and dads—evidence that homeschooling is developing a more mainstream face.

One refreshing phenomenon at every chap convention is the absence of scantily clad teenage girls. Those browsing the convention floor in packs this year were dressed stylishly and carried themselves with dignity. John Holzmann, publisher of Sonlight Curriculum, says homeschooling produces a different kind of kid: "There is a graciousness, an aplomb, a manner of conducting themselves that is so far beyond their peers." Holzmann says homeschooling gave his son, who struggled with reading into the sixth grade, the self-confidence to become valedictorian of his public high school class.

Some people attend the convention for a dose of exhortation and encouragement from gifted speakers, while others can't wait to get their hands on shiny new books. For rookies, the chap convention's 180 vendors and 70 seminars can induce sensory overload.

The Sonlight Curriculum catalog called out to me from the cacophony the first time I attended chap. Sonlight's literature-rich design and rigorous goal of training ambassadors for Christ appealed to me, but what really hooked me was a little statement in the catalog's list of 32 reasons not to buy from Sonlight Curriculum. Holzmann had included an admonition to those desiring to raise "hermits for Christ" to look elsewhere. With that phrase, Holzmann has framed a growing dissent within the Christian homeschool movement. Since the 1980s, homeschoolers have been widely identified with fundamentalism. But as the movement expanded and those suburban moms kept jumping on the bandwagon, the separatist mindset of some faded into the background.

Andrea Locke, a mother of four in Belmar, New Jersey, is a Sonlight customer. Locke says she admires the concern Holzmann shows for the sensibilities of potential customers, believing his honesty reflects a Romans 14 attitude of looking out for "weaker brothers." At one time she worried that she might lead her children astray if she had the "wrong" kinds of books in her home, but the Lord reassured her, and she resisted the temptation to create a narrow educational world for her children. Locke need not have been concerned, because she has never been uncomfortable with the content of a single Sonlight book.

Seven years ago, textbook publishers A Beka, Bob Jones University Press, and Christian Light drew swarms at their booths. Many wanted the tried and true—what worked for professional teachers in a classroom setting. KONOS, a curriculum centering study units on various godly character traits, was the hip idea that same year. KONOS is typical of homeschool resources in that it was designed by two homeschool moms, Carol Thaxton and Jessica Hulcey, who preferred to integrate learning with real life rather than emulating a traditional classroom.

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September 9 2002, Vol. 46, No. 10