No Need To School

For a couple of days now I have been trying to come up with a post to express my frustration with other homeschooling parents that I've come into contact with in my community. Why? Over the years every parent I've talked to assumes that we keep our kids out of public school based on Christian values. In other words, they think that we think there needs to be more Christianity taught in our schools. That's not the case. And here is where I think my frustration is coming from: I don't think children need to be schooled (Daniel Quinn convinced me of this back in the late nineties), but I never say it. That would be blasphemy. And I think it would open up can of worms that I don't want opened.

"I'm not in the least favor of home schooling, Julie. It's not merely linguistic whimsy that connects the schooling of children with the schooling of fish. Schooling of any kind is unnecessary and counterproductive in human children. Children no more need schooling at age five or six or seven or eight than they need it age two or three, when they effortlessly perform prodigies of learning. In recent years parents have seen the futility of sending their children to regular schools, and the schools have replied by saying, 'Well, all right, we'll permit you to keep your children at home, but of course you understand that your children still must be schooled, you can't just trust them to learn what they need to learn. We'll check up on you to make sure you're not just letting them learn what they need to learn but are learning what our state legislators and curriculum writers think they should learn.' At age five or six home schooling might be a lesser evil than regular schooling, but after that it's hardly even a lesser evil. Children don't need schooling. They need access to what they want to learn--and that means they need access to the world outside the home."-- Daniel Quinn, Pg.166, My Ishmael