Showing posts with label educational freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label educational freedom. Show all posts

Monday, August 31, 2015

Occupy Peace: No Foreign Entanglements!



Gerald Celente is a one-man army of common sense.

I, for one, am tired of war. We were fighting in Korea when I was a child. My older brother was serving in the Army at the time. We were fighting in Vietnam when I was a teenager. Two of my older brothers were serving in the Army and Navy at the time. After high school I joined the Army and worked in military hospitals where servicemen returned from war with unspeakable injuries. While I was in college our Marines were being blown up in foreign countries. When my son was an infant we went to war in Iraq. Here in America we have a civil war between the races, the sexes and the haves and the have-nots, thanks to the Divider-in-Chief in the White House and a corrupt Congress.

It's time for some peace and quiet. It's time to put America first and repair within. We need to raise informed children who know world history and the truth behind war. War is not about freedom and democracy. War is about power and money. We need to step away from public schooling and learn the truth. We need to step away from mass media and learn the truth. We need to step away from our own notion of freedom and learn what our Founding Fathers knew about liberty.

No more foreign entanglements!

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Friday, September 19, 2014

Conquering the campus

It's funny how most public schools refer to themselves as a 'campus' these days. Our old two room schoolhouse was just that -- the schoolhouse. The upstairs was the Grange Hall, complete with a stage for variety shows, and the basement held a kitchen with a counter for serving and long tables set end to end. Outside we had a set of swings, teeter-totters and a metal merry-go-round the tallest girl in the school would push for the rest of us.

There was a tiny patch of grass, located between the driveway to our schoolhouse and the main road, we used for a ball field and another grassy area behind the building which seemed to remain wet much of the year. There was a dirt path circling the two story building and we spent many hours, during recesses, just walking round and round while chatting with our friends.

Today, however, things are different. It seems public schools are competing to be the biggest and the best. Oh, you have the massive, sprawling flat roof buildings with their central air and heat, but at least we could open the many windows to let in fresh air. Outside of these modern day gargantuan box schools you see acres and acres of fields, one for each sport. There are several parking lots--one for the students, one for staff, one for visitors and one for the fleet of school buses and other school owned vehicles.

Public schools today refer to themselves as a 'campus', not unlike a college or university. Seems rather self-important, don't you think?

Bigger isn't necessarily better though, not by any stretch of the imagination. Bigger, in this case, means more centralized control and that means control over everything including the money, the children, the parents and the taxpayers, in order to keep these behemoths in power. Public schools today are not unlike the modern prison system.

Sure, public schools look impressive but over the years they've become oppressive hell-holes for the American families who get sucked into their vortex under the threat of fines or jail time if their child is deemed truant. Once a child is forced into such an environment what else is there to do but conquer the campus. Make the most of a bad situation, if you will.

Some parents feel they have no other choice but to give over their child to certified strangers. Maybe some want to toughen their child for what life may throw at them, so they will steel themselves for the process and gut it out. Instead of a child learning how to function successfully within his or her family and the real world, the child must learn to master the artificial and arbitrary world of the public school. He or she must conquer the campus. They will do this by becoming the best at jumping through hoops, telling those in charge of this system what they want to hear, and winning meaningless awards to boost their self-esteem. At the end of this dubious marathon of testing, grading and attendance taking, each child will dress in indistinguishable uniform colors (which prevents them from standing out among the horde) and is handed a small inscribed keepsake not worth the paper it's printed on.

Some children and their parents are happy to reach for the proverbial school carrots, such as prom, theater, sports, concerts, class trips and key clubs, while serving their truancy sentence. If they can conquer the campus, life under this false imprisonment is much more tolerable than the freedom they fear as independent, free-thinking families they have the power to be.

Each fall I witness a plethora of 'back to school' photos online of frightened, bewildered and sad little children whose parents are just as scared of the unknown but are determined to conquer the campus at the expense of their child's sanity. Yes, sometimes you see the heartless, self-centered parent singing and dancing as the long yellow bus drives away with their precious cargo, but those selfish parents have no interest in conquering anything. The only freedom they concern themselves with is their own. Those 'back to school' photos should all be captioned 'conquering the campus' photos because in them are little warriors being sent off to do battle against the freedom takers we call administrators, legislators and unionized school teachers.

Although we still pay taxes that support these mega-schools and the pensions of those who run them, some of us feel it is a small ransom for the success and well-being of our children. While millions of other parents and their children continue to conquer the campus, we homeschoolers are out there conquering the real world or, at the very least, giving it our best shot. We don't fear the freedom we've discovered, we embrace it. That freedom leads to success and peace of mind.

It's time to stop trying to conquer the campus and start tackling your fears. Fight the battle you were meant to fight--the safe keeping of your family. Liberate yourself, your family and your home, then work to vanquish those who wish to conquer you and your child!

 

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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

So, you're thinking about wimping out of homeschooling

So, you're thinking about wimping out of homeschooling and sending your child back to the hell hole we call public school. That's okay. It's okay because it takes a special kind of parent to homeschool their child. It takes a parent with guts and fortitude to stand up to the pressures of their peers, their financial situation, or even our modern day culture. A culture that creates dependence, ineptitude and self-centered mall rats.

Homeschooling is best left to the parent who is willing to fight for their constitutional and God-given right to educate their own child as they see fit, without the interference of government or societal pressures. A parent willing to lay down their life for their child in order to shield them from the fits and frenzy of modern day public schooling; an archaic, union controlled system with its decadent agenda and thuggish, whack-job administrators.

Back on our old farm, when a horse went lame it became useless. Well, lame politicians, lame public schools and lame parenting are pretty much the same thing. Useless! Combine all three and you get a mixture so toxic to children, it amazes me how some youngsters ever make it out of their public school experience alive! Why do we keep feeding the public school monster our children and our money? It's not like it's going to get better, and I certainly don't understand the emotional attachment some people have with it.

Take a look around you and see how many young people are barely intact when they leave the public school system. If they appear to have their wits at all, they quickly become indentured servants to the credit card companies, the banks, their college loans, or to the major corporations they work for. Does any of this make sense to you? It sounds insane to me.

So, you're thinking about wimping out of homeschooling, are you? Why? Can't hack the hours and responsibility of raising your own child? Need a break? Being pressured by your child to send them to public school? A child has no clue what public schooling is really all about and cannot comprehend the ramifications if they up and decide they don't want to be there after all. If you think deciding to homeschool opens a whole new can of worms, just imagine the kerfuffled slime fest if you enroll in public schooling and then change your mind. That action will place you squarely at the top of the school's 'difficult parent' list and all authoritative eyes will be on you.

Get it through your vacuous noggin right now, you won't and can't 'fix' the public school to suit the needs of your child. It doesn't work that way. The public schools have an agenda and it doesn't include your desires, your values, or what's best for your child. The public schools do what is best for the public schools and its union-backed employees.

So, you're thinking about wimping out of homeschooling because you're tired, you feel inadequate, you're broke, or you miss your own independence. Well, too bad. You have a child now who is depending on you for everything, including their physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Suck it up!

We're all tired, feeling inadequate, broke, and missing our independence, but this is why God designed families around a two parent, one-man-one-woman system. Sure, systems fail. It's hard work putting that system in place before having children, and it's even harder work making sure that system doesn't break down once children arrive on the scene. Far too many people are listening and taking their cues from our culture that's run by reprobates and tyrants. Go and build (or rebuild) your own system that will strengthen your family and your ability to parent, even if that includes getting grandparents involved.

Did you spend the first 22 years of your life being indoctrinated into dependency by your own schooling experience? Great! It probably means you are a knockout at sports, prom and can put a condom on a cucumber blindfolded, but can you raise a child? Well, guess what? Mother nature is on your side. You'll soon learn the meaning of life once the responsibility of raising a child literally and figuratively lands in your lap.

Luckily, for you, children are born learners and nature provided you with instincts. Don't sit there and tell me you can't homeschool your child. How difficult is it to read to a young child, or sing to a young child, or to talk to a young child and tell them about the world? What sort of degree does it take to show a young child how to dress themselves or sit at the dinner table and use utensils? Children are self-learners. Homeschooling is a continuation of all this right on up into the teen years. By then, children can be self-taught if you provide the resources, general direction and cheering section. Homeschooling is a lifestyle that will run a natural course over time, if you don't allow horrible outside influences to interfere. Step up, but don't give up. You can do this!

Homeschooling is a journey, not a destination. You need to stick with it and let it unfold. You need to develop a backbone to fortify you against doubt, feelings of inadequacy and the cretin down the street who keeps getting all lathered up about socialization. You need to listen to your heart and follow your instincts, as only a parent can.

Imagination is the key to successful homeschooling. Imagine the possibilities of living at a slower, more meaningful pace that revolves around a family-centered life, not a school-centered life. A life that provides more time for in depth learning, family bonding and unbridled creativity.  Use your imagination to create learning opportunities or a family business that will support you and your children. Your only limit is the boundary of your imagination.

Homeschoolers sometimes plod along. Sometimes we bounce along or plow through life. The beauty is, we control the speed at which we go. It's the built-in freedom homeschooling provides that keeps us on this path to a better life. If, for no other reason to keep homeschooling, FREEDOM should be at the top of your list. With freedom you have the world working with you, not against you. Hang in there!

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Thursday, September 26, 2013

Meet another homeschool mom and see how she does it

Homeschool Mom - News and Weather For The Quad Cities -

There are lots and lots more homeschoolers today. When we began our homeschooling journey over 28 years ago, homeschoolers were few and far between. Many were homeschooling 'under the radar' but some of us were willing to plow the way for future generations by being vocal and highly visible.

Interviews, such as this, are great to see how other homeschooling moms approach education and child rearing. They can be inspirational and informative, as well as encouraging. Not all mom's will have a college degree in teaching but don't let that stop you from providing your child with the best learning environment you can muster. In fact, I've discovered over the years some of the best homeschooling parents are drop-outs. They don't bring to their homeschool all the educational theory and baggage some parents with degrees have.

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'We have the power to take your kids away' - The Local

'We have the power to take your kids away' - The Local

Homeschooling in Germany is making small steps but, nonetheless, steps. There is no going back once a homeschooler experiences the freedom that comes with self-education. The problem with Germany is it not only requires compulsory attendance, it requires compulsory education, meaning the government wants to control what you think. How anyone in authority can believe they can control what a person thinks is beyond me, but they sure do try.

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Let's not overlook the big picture

As always, when I read an article about unschooling, it's more interesting to read the raw comments that follow. Take for instance Libby Anne's little ditty about her unschooling concerns. Her evangelical turned atheist view of the world intrigues me. Apparently she was homeschooled in a strict Evangelical Christian home and has now forsaken that upbringing to become a feminist/atheist/progressive homeschooling mom.

What's important here is not Libby's opinion or the comments. What's important is the bigger picture of how parents are approaching homeschooling, unschooling and education in general. For decades and generation after generation, many parents have instructed their children in the only fashion they know how. They were schooled so they think they need to school their children by providing huge amounts of structure, including text books, schedules, assessments, team sports, educationese and gobs of busywork.

The bigger picture is how long will it take for parents and our culture to stop mimicking the public schools and start building a society of truly educated people. The past 20 to 30 years of homeschooling cannot compete with a public school system that has been in place since 1635 and is still going strong. Granted, the public schools of today are money sucking, debased hell holes and parents are taking their children out of them in droves, but they still reign supreme in the minds of politicians and those who have a stake in them.

It will take time for homeschooling to find its stride. Sure, we'd all like to close down the public schools, send everyone home and give everyone their money back, then reopen them as free and independent learning centers minus political and union influence. Meanwhile, in my humble opinion, any form of homeschooling or unschooling is valid, providing we are doing the best we can with what little education we received at the hands of government schools.

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Saturday, March 2, 2013

Military school districts will feel impact of budget ax

Budget cuts to hit military school districts

Maybe it's time military members and their dependents formed homeschooling co-ops and say to hell with the federal government.

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When education is all retch and no vomit

"What would you like to do if money were no object?"



Something to ponder.

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Another mom sees the light

'Homeschooling Misconceptions' by Paula Drennan, a lovely article from a mom who has discovered what homeschooling is really about. She took charge of her child's education two years ago and talks about how her own preconceived notions about homeschooling have changed. 

Thanks for sharing, Paula, and kudos to you!

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Unschooler hacks his way through education

Meet Dale Stephens, the unschooler who is hacking his way through education and loving it. He began unschooling at the end of fifth grade, has traveled the world and written a book (Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will), and he's only 21.

"My mom and dad have always been my biggest supporters. I think they both had parents who said no to them a lot. It surprises me how many parents just don't believe in their children."

Kudos to Dale. This is a great example of what can happen when schooling gets out of the way of education!