We are a family who homeschools our children and there are many people in this world who don't understand what we are doing. Today I'm going to explain the importance of our mission and how someday our children will be the next visionaries in a whole new world of thought.
Socializing and Unschooling
Often times when we tell strangers our children are homeschooled we are asked why our kids are not able to be social with other children. It's almost as if we keep our kids under the stairs like Harry Potter and never allow them to play with mainstream children. However this is absolutely not the case and basically an absurd way of thinking about homeschooling.
Since we started homeschooling our two sons, which was well before the age of five and kindergarten criteria, we have socialized our children. Across the entire world in every city and small town there are homeschool groups and we have joined some of them in our local area. When we lived outside of Boston, our kids took part in various groups that included other children just like our kids. Years later we moved to Florida and found similar groups where our kids could interact with others. No, they are not stuck in a classroom with thirty other children sitting at a desk for over six hours a day. Our socialization techniques with our kids are quite different from this method. Our two sons attend museums, nature walks, gardening classes, and many more activities than the desk and chalkboard application. Still to this day no matter how much you explain this to strangers they still can't grasp that our kids play with other children.
Alongside this, we are often asked if we follow a curriculum. Another stipulation brought on by society's demands of what the majority thinks is right. Our sons are unschooled which is taboo even in mainstream homeschool circles. We let them learn when they want to learn, and education has worked best for us in this manner. When my son wants to read or learn to write, he has told us this when he was ready. Over time our son has learned to write and read at his own pace and does significantly better than most children, I've observed who are schooled traditionally. Another great aspect of unschooling is what our son enjoys and what he excels at is what we like to concentrate on, and this pays off exponentially. Our son is fantastic with computers and could someday be a programmer which is a well-paying job within society. He’s also great at talking and being a kind spirit to others in need and someday this may lead to an occupation in therapy. He gets the basics of math and reading on his own terms and has learned quite a bit because he wants to learn. You can't stress that sentence enough in this world because people who want to be educated on their own terms typically learn very well.
“Education is a system of imposed ignorance.” ― Noam Chomsky
We Don't Want The Village Teaching Our Children
One of the biggest reasons why we homeschool our children is because we don't want the village teaching our children things like nationalism, patriotism, that war is good, or words written in textbooks are facts. In fact, we teach our children to question these beliefs on a regular basis and let them know there are two sides to every story. In a lot of schools, the pressure to be the best in sports, academics, and popularity is on the forefront of many kids lives. This puts an enormous amount of stress on children who are trying to be kids. Kindergartners now are given vast amounts of homework and studies where they have no time to just be a kid. Then when children become restless and unable to stay in their seats for a six hour day they are labeled with attention deficit disorder and children as young as five are told they need medication.
My children will never be burdened with the stress of having to stay seated for hours and hours. They will never be told they have a disorder when in fact they are just kids being kids. Our sons will never take medication that sedates them so much so they can fall in line, never question and maintain the herd mentality. This is the village that will never teach our children and it's a shame parents fall victim to this type of system. Life is too short to appease the expectations of what society believes is the norm so we teach individualism at its core.
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”— Ayn Rand
Children Who Learn To Question Will Be Society’s Movers & Shakers
Indoctrination is horrible and is one of the root causes of poor economics, wars, and political tyranny. Often in the traditional school setting children are taught that the economic systems of today are sound and participating in it helps the world prosper. However, the world's money game is based on debt, and promissory notes that continue to inflate our purchasing power and nonparticipation can actually create a better tomorrow. Through counter economics, people can learn to trade alternative currencies such as Bitcoin or practice the art of barter and trade. These systems bolster prosperity within the global level and the local level and keeps money out of the hands of third party pillagers.
Questioning war is also not really taught in public schools. Children are taught to stand behind soldiers who reside and fight for their countries goals. Kids have no idea how these things are funded and are told many different reasons to why these wars take place. It's not very common for a teacher in the public setting to teach kids to question this behavior. Instead, they bolster it through indoctrination of patriotism and nationalism which is just as disgusting as racism, but somehow it slips through the cracks. Kids are often taught the “my country is better than yours” mentality for twelve years or more and end up teaching others this failed philosophy.
Another part of the nation states education is children are taught they must participate in the act of voting for leaders. They are never taught that maybe this practice is also a failure and continues to bolster tyranny. This can be seen with the thousands of Bernie Sanders supporters when he lost the nomination, and now many of them believe they have to choose Hillary Clinton because having Trump for a president will just be horrible. Even if Hillary doesn't meet the Sanders supporters criteria, they then believe they still must participate by choosing a third party candidate such as Jill Stein. No one is ever taught in school that completely opting out of this mentality of having to vote will destroy the current corrupt political system. If no one participates no one wins, and that's a vote people can count on.
My kids are homeschooled and ultimately unschooled and we don't care about the expectations of society. We only care about our sons individualism and their desire to learn what they want when they want. Our boys know how to question the wrongs within society and also learn to do what they love. They will continue to prosper and someday they can be whatever they want even if they did not attend a traditional school. The future depends on growing kids with strong desires to be individuals and these types of children will be leaders as opposed to rulers.
Disclaimer: I attended the public school system and at a certain age began to question on my own. Children who attend public school are able to break the mold if they desire and motivate themselves to become leaders as opposed to joining the ruling class. This path our family has chosen is what we feel is best for our family.