Did You Hear That?

That's the sound of me putting the brakes on my ideas about what it means to be educated and preparing to take this train back to the station.



Reading Dr. Andrew Campbell's excellent book on the heels of, "Climbing Parnassus", has had serious implications for me and for our little school.

If you are a parent these books should be of interest to you even if you don't home school and never have any intention of doing so. I remember back when we were educating our children conventionally I never considered reading books about education. I dropped my kids off at school and picked them up. I looked over the papers that came home and helped them with their homework. I gossiped with other moms about teachers we liked and didn't like. I grumbled about subjects I thought were poorly taught or a waste of time.

What I didn't consider is: what should be taught, how it should be taught and when it should be taught. The most basic elements of education and I didn't even give it a glancing notice. And I wasn't alone. I've seen moms burn teachers in effigy over unfair snack policies or bathroom rules but I've never heard a public school mom complain about the curriculum being used. I can't say that I even knew what curriculum was being used or what was the overall philosophy of education at the level of the teacher, the school, the district or the state.

Looking back I can see how completely crazy and negligent it was to just trust that the school was getting it right. The way we mindlessly hand our children and their education over to the government is an indictment of big government and its effects upon us after generations of submitting to its judgment. We don't even know the questions we should be asking because that knowledge and that curiosity has been bred out of us. Today its education...tomorrow its everything else.

I once considered myself a fairly bright, moderately educated person. Today, I know better. Its a bitter pill to swallow but, as I am being constantly reminded on this new journey, knowing I know nothing puts me in league with Plato in at least one regard. Okay, only that one but still, it is a starting point.