Sit down, listen, and shut up. The universal lesson in any classroom you have ever stepped foot in.
Brining my brain back to a state of usefulness after 12 years of being pounded with information that the central planners wanted me to learn was no easy task. Much of it was meaningless information that I only learned for the day of the test, and this life experience has prompted us to decide not to institutionalize our children.
After recently starting my son in a homeschool program, my wife and I soon realized just how much time is wasted going to school. My wife, who was previously an elementary school teacher for 7 years, used to tell me the horror stories about the “one size fits all” educational curriculum America’s kids are taught. About how the teachers essentially have to teach according to the test, regardless of its application in real life.
Over the past month, my wife has been able to accomplish in 30 minutes what typically takes 6 hours of kindergarten class. I have to imagine a lot of the time our children spend at school is filled with useless instruction, basically just killing time.
Just as a child picks up the ability to crawl, walk, and speak without any formal education, children have the ability to learn quickly as well.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no education expert. I don’t have a degree. The truth is I despised school and hated that everyone in my life thought that in order to be successful you had to get good grades. I loved education as a child, but it had nothing to do with school. My passion as a child was entrepreneurship and learning about money. So for myself, school was a 7-hour period that stopped me from learning.
This is true not just for me, but many other children who don’t embrace academics. My goal as a young father is to free my children from school so that they can learn more freely.
By offering up a freedom of education here at the house, using real life experiences, travel and the Internet, I feel that my children will have a significant advantage in life.
Honestly, I can’t believe that we have been convinced to happily send our toddlers to a government institution at such a young and impressionable age. Today this is normal, but I see this as anything but natural.
Recently, a documentary called Black Fish caused a lot of people to be upset with Sea World for separating young Orcas from their mothers. Yet in the U.S., we have made it the law that our young children be separated from their parents for 6 to 8 hours per day, keeping in mind a child is probably only awake for 14 hours a day.
How did we come to a state where over 50% of our child’s youth, Monday through Friday, is spent at a government facility with an adult you don’t know on a personal level? One who believes that they have the right to discipline your child, speak with authority, and teach plenty of unsupervised propaganda.
It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned the teachers are, it’s similar to the police. Most are good people, but it doesn’t excuse them from being agents of the system – enforcers of the state’s will on our lives.
While everyone should take their own circumstances into account when making such an important decision, after careful consideration, our decision is to homeschool.
– Daniel Ameduri, aka The Dissident Dad
For more info see this author’s bio.
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Very interesting post. Thank you for your insight.
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