I’m not writing a big blog entry today. We’re getting ready to hunker down in winter weather. It was 36 degrees at 7:30 this morning, and the temperature has been steadily dropping all day. The birds are busy raiding the bird feeder to prepare for the sharp drop and influx of winter weather on the way. Meanwhile, Boychild and I are doing our own work for the day.
This is definitely my child, and since we’ve homeschooled for his entire school career, his understanding of what “school” means is a bit different. He wants to be a historian and alternate history writer, so he knows he’s going to have to go to college for that. We’ve got him working on an online program for his classes, and he does pretty well. However, what he wants to do all the time is write his stories and ideas down. I empathize, I truly do, but I also know he has got to be prepared for what College is going to be like.
A lot of people have suggested sending him to a regular school in that case, and I don’t think that’s the answer. Really, regular school and the college experience are miles apart. Additionally, the fact is schools are not actually designed to impart information. You only have to look at the standard curriculum, culled from a giant, for-profit enterprise, which barely touches on the underlying connections that touch every facet of our lives. Most people don’t know and could not tell you how WWI is connected to WWII, and they don’t see the point in understanding it, even though WWII led directly to the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the political issues we have today.
Furthermore, the basic structure of modern schooling is designed to be a holding cell for kids and prepare them to work in an Industrial Age job. In an era where the world has gotten smaller through communications and international connection is a necessity, training kids a la Pavlov to react to a bell to start and end work is actually hindering our ability to perform in a global economy. And so we’ve raised Boychild with the understanding that EVERYTHING is a learning opportunity and that education really has no boundaries.
The struggle is making sure he keeps understanding that education goes beyond timescales and everything has an impact while getting him to figure out how to fit that into schedules and classes. And actual assignments. We’re probably going to have to give him a year or so at community college while he figures this out.
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