Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 22:37:46 -0500 From: Sandi & Scott Spaeth <vespass-AT-toast.net> Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: The Teenage Liberation Handbook My concept of dropping out includes a group of parents and/or > children choosing to withdraw from the system, and continue on in the > right path. Cooperative homeschooling, community education, whatever > you'd like to call it. > That is exactly what we did. Though the group I started is not based in anarchism, all of us have either opted out or never opted in because for one reason or the other the system did not appeal to us and mostly did not appeal to our children. It is a great thing to get with people who actually LISTENED to their kids, investigated alternatives, and then said NO to the system. For whatever reason, we all did it because we want our kids to LEARN. We want them to experience. We want them to be able to DO and take part in life. > You could argue that such situations won't create academics, and > judging by Summerhill students, you'd probably be right. But no > revolution was ever fought and won from the halls of academia. Instead, > said situations will create free-thinking, self-teaching and > self-regulated people, and, as revolutionary Spain shows, this is > where the revolution starts, with people who know how to question, > think about new concepts, and regulate themselves, all without the > guiding hand of authority. > People are always asking me if I am afraid that my kids will not LEARN. I usually counter by saying that I spent 4 years of my youth locked in classrooms, GIFTED supposedly at that, and learned basically nothing. Most of what I learned I learned outside of the classroom. Just because I showed up to calculus class every day did not mean I learned it. We touch on every subject throughout the day and my 7 year old might not be able to read well yet, but he can tell you the major differences between liquid nitrogen and dry ice. He knows that his skates work better on a smooth surface than a rough surface because of the friction. What he learned in school "he is stupid because he can not read, and failure is BAD". The fact of the matter is that for the most part it is school that kills what is natural to most people! The school system we know in America is less than a century old. It is only the way it is now (IMO) because when the child labor laws came about, they had to do something with these kids until they were of age to work. It kept them off of the streets until they could do something useful with them. Now its all about money (here in St Louis each kid is worth a little under $5000 a year to the school district). Test scores which mean nothing at all. They spend most of the year worrying about these damn standarized tests! They have this cookie cutter idea that all kids should know this by this age or lets label them morons. If a kids is inqusitive and likes to touch and learn by doing, well he MUST be ADD/ADHD. Teachers do not spend 4 years in college to learn to TEACH. They spend 4 years in college to learn to deal within the system, to conform to the rules and regulations of the status quo. They learn how to deal with an oversized class, how to write up lesson plans, and how to make sure they get the test scores the schools need. I spent 12 years in the system, it was something I always dreaded for my kids. Thankfully Missouri is a very 'hands off' state when it comes to homeschooling, so we do not have to answer to anyone about what we do. With that we are very lucky. I know in some states though you have to do tests, submit your curriculum, and have visits from the state or work with a 'real' school. That really is not much different than any other state run method of education. Personally, though we do not always have the best time, even our worst day is still 100000000 times better than them being cooped up in some classroom being told by someone that really doesnt care about them what they should learn and think. If my 7 year old wants to learn about physics at 7, who are they to tell him no? Just my opinions! Sandi --------------------------------------------------------- "I never let schooling interfere with my education." -Mark Twain Piston Ported Vespas: http://www.piston-ported.homepage.com words http://www.geocities.com/vespass/words.html ST Louis Secular Homeschooler's Co-Op http://www.stlsecularhomeschool.org ----------------------------------------------------------
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