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In reply to the discussion: D’Oh! 1 in 4 Americans don’t know Earth circles Sun. [View all]Psephos
(8,032 posts)And there's no question that there are some ignorant people in the home school movement.
Just as there are (do I have to say this?) in the public education movement.
I have always thought that school begins in the home. For a million years, humans were raised by a mixed-age group of related kin in a tribal setting. Shuffling kids en masse into buildings to sit on their asses quietly for six hours a day while surrounded and deeply influenced by same-age peers is...well, let's just say that it's fucking *unnatural* and for many children, cruel.
I don't see much in the industrial age to refute the idea that we are better served by time-tested ways of bonding to each other, eating, living in balance with our environment, exercising, and living out our life cycle in accord with what has been written in our genes, instead of what has been written in a policy manual or law book by someone we've never met, and has no biologic stake in outcomes.
It takes a lot of balls to say there is a privileged class of smart people (who by coincidence have exactly the same opinions as us!) who can and should tell parents how to raise and educate their own children. Yet that's what I hear too often.
More industrial-age fail, imo.
If universal public school sorted by age cohort is a robustly good idea, then it should be able to withstand a bit of free-thinking inquiry. Which is where I'm at these days...because it doesn't take a lot of observation to see that current schools are screwing a lot of kids over.