Thursday, June 15, 2006

Home, public, and self education

Gray North speaks on homeschooling and self education.

This article is an interesting comment about homeschooling and self-education. North starts by saying that he has known for twenty years that homeschooling, and private schools, are superior to the public school systems in terms of education. However, there are still flaws in how homeschoolers "do school". In essence, his criticism is that homeschoolers have focused too much on protection and environment than developing a comprehensive cognitive skill set ready for intellectual confrontation.

I love this quote:

We need a hard core of graduates who are prepared to challenge the statist presuppositions of this era and the one to come. We need college students who can think for themselves, research for themselves, and develop comprehensive alternatives. Such students should not be asked to feast on the dumbed-down pabulum of the committee-screened high school textbook.

Amen, Gary. Too bad this is not what is happening. Homeschooling, in a way, is a victim of its own success. People are entering the homeschooling movement who do not identify with the original core values of the older homeschoolers, nor do they have the courage and tenacity to go against the coming tide of state absolutism. The private schools bailed on this one years ago, and if homeschooling does not recapture it we will probably be doomed to failure.