For the Love of Learning

Remember your first day of school?  Laying out your clothes before you went to bed?  Waking up early for a special breakfast, then boarding the school bus all decked out in a new backpack full of paper and newly sharpened pencils?  Remember the anticipation and the promise that that day held?  A new year meant a new beginning, a world of possibility, and nine glorious months of transformative brain power at work to make you a lean, mean intelligent machine.  Whatever happened to looking forward to going school?

For my kids (myself included), what happened was "school."  Instead of an institution that promotes creativity and fosters imagination, my children sit in rows and learn how to be the best darn test takers the world has ever known.  They answer A, B, C, or D to a variety of questions designed to assess what has been drilled into their brains all year.  A few weeks later, we receive a report that hopefully proclaims our children "meet expectations."  How my heart swells when it declares that they've "exceeded" them!  But where did my children go?  They are but hollow shells of those starry eyed beings who got on the bus that first day of school. If only they had space to create, time to dream, and opportunity to discover this big, wide, amazing planet, I can only imagine what progress might be realized.

With nearly three dozen students in some classes and teachers facing mandates to teach a standardized curriculum, no wonder we've created a society of robots programmed to receive, repeat, and regurgitate an onslaught of ever-challenging information. 

Discipline, I like.
Structure, I embrace.
Training, I adore.

The public school, though necessary and arguably beneficial, can only serve the masses.  And yet deep down we all know that every human child is a wellspring of opportunity--a brilliant little soul who is and who is yet to be only once in the whole history of the world.  Like a blank canvas, they embody beauty, the quintessential masterpiece of creation.  Art lives in the wandering.  Creativity reigns in the freedom. 

And so I think I've decided to home school my kids next year.  And it's not because I want to insulate them from the world.  On the contrary,  I want to show them the world!  I want to open up their future by reclaiming their present.  I want to help them discover their unique gifts and abilities.  Oh, we'll read and we'll write and we'll do math problems out the wazoo.  We'll explore challenges from every angle, develop creative solutions, and above all else keep learning.  Every teacher I've ever met is all about the learning!

As for expectations?  Well, in taking this first step, in saying the words, "home school" out loud, I'm doing something I, for one, NEVER expected....Teachers of the world, I commend you.  Your job is big, but mine is bigger.  You taught them to read.  You taught them to write.  Now, let's teach them to think.