more good homeschooling stuff
By alice | November 30, 2006
Good to see the esteemed Doc Searls writing about homeschooling today (via Jackie Danicki). I guess it’s going to be a long long time till people lose their fear and suspicion of homeschooling, stop repeating the same old objections that have been proven false for so many years, and just take on board the reality that- yes!- it works.
If you don’t want to do it yourself, then just don’t- that doesn’t mean you have to go around criticising those who do by repeating the same tired arguments we’ve been addressing for twenty years as if they were brand new (or by making ones up that make no sense but sound like they might, or that you have no intention of applying to other forms of education). Criticism based on ignorance is the very definition of prejudice, and now we are so conscious of the need to respect differences, it really is about time that homeschoolers didn’t have to put up with what basically boils down to anti-homeschooling bigotry in the press and elsewhere. All I ask is that people who think it is their business to judge other families read their literature and gather their information first. Sadly, this rarely happens.
However, the amount of time, effort and energy, not to mention money, that is currently being wasted by institutionalised schooling is so unimaginably vast and out of proportion considering its actual achievements, that it is not surprising people would rather stay in denial and spend their time nit-picking, rather than getting a grip on, the evidence. We are living in an economic “bubble” whereby parents must earn lots more money, to pay taxes for schools, so their children have “free” childcare, so the parents can go out and earn extra money. It’s ridiculous.
Kids are learning machines. It’s almost impossible to stop them learning! One good way is to stick them in a classroom with nothing to do except listen to a very dull teacher, though. What schools do is mostly waste resources on correcting their own failings. One day, the internet will transform them. I wish it would hurry up though.
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