E-mail to a Friend

This is an excerpt from an e-mail I sent to a friend who is also just starting down the homeschooling path (I changed it a little to fit the blog). It turned out to be a sort of soliloquy on what I think about schools and how I came to "unschooling":

"I think I was so overjoyed to find unschooling because when I was in school I thought it was unbelievably pointless and stupid (and in my case, my early experiences were pretty bad), and here was another way that no one had told me about. I too got through school OK (a bit of rebellion in high school - no wonder) but I went to work as soon as I could so I could do something "meaningful". I took my college courses at night while I worked full time. It was better when it was my choice to go and I wasn't forced, though to be honest I only did it because I was pushed by my boss at my first real job. It didn't have anything to do with my job or how well I did it, of course, he just wanted me to have that stamp.

I believe with all my heart I would not be as fearful or conforming today if my schooling had not programmed me that way. I have always told people, "I love to learn, I just hated school".

I am a little sad that it took me until I was in my forties to even understand what had been "done to me" and I am determined to give my kids every option, not just the ones some faceless government educator thinks are options. That includes college or not at their discretion. Meaningful work is what everyone wants, and our education system pounds that idea right out of you.

But I don't really blame the system, I blame us (society) because we fully believe (I did too!) that other people know better what our kids need than we do. How could that possibly be? I also don't necessarily think it's some evil plot to make us all zombies (some people do think that). I think we have created a fleet of robots for a couple of hundred years and now the robots can't think of another way to do things.

I will say I told Daniel flat out I thought homework was stupid and he had to do it just so they would get off his back. But I too remember the fights he and I would have about it and how ridiculous it is that families are forced to spend their time fighting with their kids about something so pointless! What does it teach them? And when I think of the tears getting Ryan (and Daniel sometimes too in the early days) to go to school I could die. But I have to forgive myself, I didn't know better.

I have a friend that medicated her kid (he's 9) to get through the Florida FCATS. I was not as appalled as you might think. There is so much pressure and they were threatening to hold him back. He was a basket case when tested. She had him declared ADHD (recommended, of course, by his teacher) so at least he now gets more time for tests and stuff. And she took him off his medicine once the FCAT push was over. Look what we are driven to!

My little homeschool group is all pretty much unschoolers. Most have little kids though, so they are as new at it as I am. We have a new member that pulled her son out at second grade (he's like 11 now) so it's really good to talk to her.

One of the "problems" with creating a movement away from traditional school is that we (homeschoolers) all think different things (like the religious thing you mentioned). And so we're all in our hidey holes doing our thing by ourselves. But that's sort of the beauty of it too.

What kills me is the people that could absolutely homeschool (one parent is at home) but say they couldn't possibly. They are brainwashed (that might be too strong a word) as I was until only 6 months ago that we can't "teach" our kids (basically all we have to do is back off our kids - they're pretty darn smart). They only say they can't (as I did) because the thought of tormenting their kids like they do at school is unthinkable to us. But ironically we don't have the same view when we send them to school to be tormented. Maybe it's because we can blame someone else if it turns out badly. I plant little seeds (to anyone I talk to about education) when I can because I know for me it only took one essay on the web for me to awaken to other possibilities.

Anyway, I guess we have to be patient - the swine flu or the out of the box thinking of the new women leaders (;>) will rescue us and allow us to be more flexible in how we work and live and maybe that will help us come out of our "educated" haze and make more informed decisions. School could (should?) exist but it should be optional in my view. And college and post graduate school is valuable for technical teaching for doctors and lawyers and engineers and maybe even meteorologists (:>). But most of the "schooling" that leads up to that is pretty close to a waste of time. I may have to wait until my next incarnation to see any change come about in any real way."

Here is a link to a great YouTube "TED" video by Ken Robinson about how schools kill creativity. It's a little long but so worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&feature=related