“Non scholae, sed vitae discimus”
We do not learn for the school, but for life.
My husband, Handy J, is an elementary school teacher in a great public school district where the parents take an active role and most teachers are invested and continue their professional development.
My husband is a great teacher, not just by my account, but by tons of kids, their parents, and his coworkers. He’s passionate about teaching and kids, tries to instill the importance of lifelong learning and to learn not for school but for themselves. He challenges them to think critically, explore their creativity, and that it is okay to be or do something different. But even with the best of teachers, those students are still stuck inside the box. The box of their classroom, school, and of the school district/ government that determines what is important for them to learn and how to learn it. And even with the best teachers, there is no getting around the fact that it is generally a 30 plus to 1 ratio. And even with the best of teachers, I think you catch my drift…
John Taylor Gatto from his book Dumbing Us Down on national curriculum: “such curriculum produces physical, moral, and intellectual paralysis, and no curriculum content will be sufficient to reverse its hideous effects.”
These are just a few reasons why we have decided that homeschooling would be a wiser option for our family, at least up until Jr. High, or until Little Miss A expresses an interest in trying compulsory schooling.
Another striking quote from Gatto talks about the overall mental structure of schools: “school, as it was built, is an essential support system for a model of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows as it ascends to a terminal of control.”
I’m excited for the opportunity to help our little ones learn in an open and nurturing environment where curiosity will be cultivated and not bound to the walls of a classroom nor confined to the performance of a standardized test. It will be a place of reflection, introspection, and most of all learning in an individualistic democratic way where subjects will have no boundaries and connections can be made in real and enriching ways.
So here is my shout out to any and all those that homeschool or will be…what resources would you recommend: books, materials, etc., etc. Our research phase has now started!