So here’s the deal. My most fervent desire for my children and their future is that they are able to retain a healthy curiosity, a penchant for questioning authority, and the natural ability to be remarkable. I want them to be innovators, to be great thinkers. Therefore, I refuse to put them on the assembly line, which is the government-run education system in America.

Our education system is socialized daycare. My husband and I made incredible changes in our professional and financial lives before our daughter was born so that I was able to stay home and raise her myself rather than send her off to daycare. At a time when it was not popular for families to survive on single incomes we made it happen because we decided early on where our values were. So, we live with one car, we don’t have credit cards, we trimmed off the frivolous and $$ niceties so that we could bring into existence the life we dreamed of for our family. We did not want this precious new life to find itself surrounded by strange caregivers, limited emotional experiences, and stagnant environments. We didn’t want her earliest memories to be of Miss Debbie at Debbie Doo’s Daycare. Based on those principles that were the catalyst for so many changes in our lives, why then would we send her off to daycare under an educational pretext when she turns 5 years old?

As John Gatto points out in his book, “Dumbing Us Down,” our school system is good at one thing: it schools our children. It teaches them to follow orders. It teaches them to be timely. It does not, however, educate them. Enclosing children within a solid structure for 12 years of their lives, limiting their interactions to children of the exact same age, and impressing upon them that the only way they can “learn” anything is by listening to a teacher is absolutely absurd and intellectually heretical. Socrates would be pissed.

Is school really an assembly line? Well lets zoom in:

Young Gwen is sitting her math class working through a problem that she has been struggling with. She has been persisting though, and she feels as though she is making progress. Just as she starts to feel confident in her ability to solve this problem the school bell rings. Does Gwen remain in her seat to finish the problem? Of course not. Gwen has to shuffle out of the room, proceed down the hall and assimilate herself into the next classroom to memorize more useless facts that she’ll forget in less than 10 years. What is Gwen learning? That it never mattered to anyone else if she solved that math problem. Sure, it mattered to her. But what matters to her is not important. What is important is following that assembly line. Move on through. Don’t ask questions. Never seek. Just move on through.

When Gwen is 18 years old she might go to college. I hope she does. She might find herself in some interesting classes where her professors will encourage her to think for herself and solve problems in creative ways. Hopefully it will undo some of the damage that public school inflicted on her well-being for 12 very influential years of her life.

Realistically, Gwen probably won’t go to college. The burning desire to achieve, to create, and to think will have been replaced with pure apathy. She’ll assimilate into the 9-5 workforce that keeps this great consumerist economy rollin’. And our government will love her for it. They’ll show their love by requiring her to fill out W4 forms annually and using her taxes to grant large tax breaks to CEO’s of oil companies. The Federal Reserve will love her because she’ll live a long, unfulfilling life on credit. She’ll live outside her means because that’s what we are all encouraged to do, and she’ll always be in debt to a system that is designed to keep her that way.

For all of these reasons, and so many  more, I choose homeschooling for my children. I value their right to a meaningful, thoughtful existence. I understand the value in being on the fringe. On the educational fringe I can offer unique opportunities for learning for my kids. I can help them learn that the best teacher they will ever find is in fact, themselves. The ability to go out and teach yourself something on your own accord, is in my opinion the most beneficial thing a person could ever learn. In kindergarten my child would be asked to build a bridge with their blocks.  At home I can supply the blocks and then step back; the beauty comes in observing what their own curiosities will direct them build with the blocks. As an unschooling parent I will provide a landscape of potentials and be a nurturing guide.

If you want to know why mainstream is not where you want to be, I’ll tell you why: It’s not progressive, and it’s mediocre. It runs in shallow cycles, regurgitating meaningless and often harmful trends throughout hundreds and thousands of years. If you want an example, check out the girls wearing leg warmers over their jeans as they walk down your street tomorrow morning. It’s the 80’s in 2008. A more harmful trend? Check out this video and then watch and wait for Sarah Palin’s church to repopularize the witch hunts again. Sarah Palin needs protection from witches

Is it kooky to homeschool? According to most people on the assembly line it is. But, you can feel bad for them later. It’s ok to be on the fringe. Once you get used to it you’ll feel quite “normal” there. Living on the fringe requires using concerned analysis in your decision making process for anything that matters from education, spirituality, envinronmental concerns, your profession, your hobbies. It’s about abandoning the main road and creating a new path to the things that matter most to you. Allow yourself to think. It can be frightening, but I think you’ll agree that is the most exhiliarating and freeing experience you can create for yourself.