Education vs. School – Why We Are Homeschooling Our Children

Screen Shot 2014-11-20 at 3.33.14 PMSit down, listen, and shut up. The universal lesson in any classroom you have ever stepped foot in.

Bringing my brain back to a state of usefulness after 12 years of being pounded with information that the central planners wanted me to learn was no easy task. Much of it was meaningless information that I only learned for the day of the test, and this life experience has prompted us to decide not to institutionalize our children.

After recently starting my son in a homeschool program, my wife and I soon realized just how much time is wasted going to school. My wife, who was previously an elementary school teacher for 7 years, used to tell me the horror stories about the “one size fits all” educational curriculum America’s kids are taught. About how the teachers essentially have to teach according to the test, regardless of its application in real life.

Over the past month, my wife has been able to accomplish in 30 minutes what typically takes 6 hours of kindergarten class. I have to imagine a lot of the time our children spend at school is filled with useless instruction, basically just killing time.

Just as a child picks up the ability to crawl, walk, and speak without any formal education, children have the ability to learn quickly as well.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no education expert. I don’t have a degree. The truth is I despised school and hated that everyone in my life thought that in order to be successful you had to get good grades. I loved education as a child, but it had nothing to do with school. My passion as a child was entrepreneurship and learning about money. So for myself, school was a 7-hour period that stopped me from learning.

This is true not just for me, but many other children who don’t embrace academics. My goal as a young father is to free my children from school so that they can learn more freely.

By offering up a freedom of education here at the house, using real life experiences, travel and the Internet, I feel that my children will have a significant advantage in life.

Honestly, I can’t believe that we have been convinced to happily send our toddlers to a government institution at such a young and impressionable age. Today this is normal, but I see this as anything but natural.

Recently, a documentary called Black Fish caused a lot of people to be upset with Sea World for separating young Orcas from their mothers. Yet in the U.S., we have made it the law that our young children be separated from their parents for 6 to 8 hours per day, keeping in mind a child is probably only awake for 14 hours a day.

How did we come to a state where over 50% of our child’s youth, Monday through Friday, is spent at a government facility with an adult you don’t know on a personal level? One who believes that they have the right to discipline your child, speak with authority, and teach plenty of unsupervised propaganda.

It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned the teachers are, it’s similar to the police. Most are good people, but it doesn’t excuse them from being agents of the system – enforcers of the state’s will on our lives.

While everyone should take their own circumstances into account when making such an important decision, after careful consideration, our decision is to homeschool.

– Daniel Ameduri, aka The Dissident Dad

For more info see this author’s bio

9 thoughts on “Education vs. School – Why We Are Homeschooling Our Children”

  1. Daniel,
    Welcome to Texas, the state with the largest number of home schoolers in the US, the epicenter and originator of the home school movement. We started home schooling 3 years ago and our children are thriving. They are academically sound. They read several levels higher than their age, excel in math, logic, memorization skills, public speaking and communications skills. They are free to explore subjects to the point of mastery at their age appropriate levels. They have discovered that education, learning and school are one and the same and essential throughout all of our lives. There are so many resources available in the Austin and surrounding areas with co-ops, clubs, organizations and groups. All of the state, federal and private museums and educational institutions offer home school curriculum and educational tools for free and sponsor home school special events. My children have the flexibility to pursue their dreams, hobbies and interests without having to conform to predetermined one size fits all mentality. Many people comment on how well mannered, well spoken, mature and intelligent our kids seem to be. Many comment that they are able to communicate effectively, are respectful and independent thinkers. They are only 8 and 10. My children are active in the community as junior fire fighters for a volunteer fire department, martial artists (red and blue belts in two disciplines), sing in a choir, love art, volunteering at a soup kitchen , providing children of prisoners Christmas every year earning the money through entrepreneurial activities, etc. Do not listen to those who will tell you that they will miss out on the social aspects of what school provides. That is a silly notion without evidence. On the contrary home schoolers are less likely to become drug abusers, criminals, gang members, become teen parents and are more likely to become dependable productive members of society and entrepreneurs.

    If you ever need anything or help, please feel free to contact me. We live in the hill country of Texas.

    Reply
  2. I guess you want negative replies rather than positive ones from people who have chosen the same lifestyle…..or you may want replies that tear down the educational system rather than ignore it while providing their own solution. This is why I do not reply to stories or articles anymore. Why did you not approve of my reply?

    Reply
    • Just so you are aware, the first time anyone comments, I have to approve it. After that, you can comment at will without having to wait for approval. I greatly appreciate your comment and hope you continue to read and contribute.

    • Sorry Michael…So many in our community spend their time spewing negative commentary rather than walking away and creating their own solutions. I have experienced this in the alternative media for the past ten years. If our movement is to gain momentum and we are to turn this society around, we must provide answers and not spend our energies placing blame and following the same path of the MSM. I read the Liberty Blitzkreig everyday. Your site is wonderful and refreshing as you point out the injustices of our day and offer hope and alternatives to this nightmare we now call reality.

  3. You’re right, it takes far less time to homeschool your kids; my kids do in 3 hours what would take all day if they had to go to a government run school. Unlike you, I am a product of the government schools–even before the feds got involved–and I would never put my kids through that experience. I excelled at academics and I went on to get two degrees afterward, but it was in spite of, not because of, my public education.

    Reply
    • Hope and pray it works out that way. My first family had first-cabin treatment in the school system. Nannies, private schools, the whole nine yards. They did not learn discipline. Failing that, they also did not learn the self respect that comes with discipline.

      The anchor of my second family is now three. I’m teaching him as he is ready, confident that I am up to the task, and that the experts in the field (John Gatto, John Holt, Joanne Calderwood and others) are right in their assessment.

      What he gets will be the essentials: readin’, writin’ and ‘righmetic. Three languages because we live overseas. What he will not get is equally important: the brainwashing with statist propaganda.

  4. Home schooling CAN be better,

    … but of course it depends WHAT you teach. If you just “skip the BS” that noone needs to learn/know for make a living, or if you teach a “different” way of life.
    Or in other words: Do you do the same “brainwashing” to train your children how to be a “nice, obeying, law-following consumer” who obeys the law, or do you tell them “the truth” about this sick, unjust and lifethreatening system ?
    Because if you do the first mentioned, then … you just chose another way to condition them to fit into the existing system and noone wins.

    For example: I learned yesterday (after 45 yrs of life) that capitalism and slavery like we know it actually started about 500 years ago in europe and england, and can be found in history under the name “Allmende Theft”.

    Unfortunately there is even no wikipedia entry for it, but it is mentioned within the article about “Commons”.

    In short, about 500 yrs. ago the “masters” started to take the allmende/commons from “the people”/us, by starting to gate the woods, fields and so on. before that, everything you saw was common, it belonged to all people, and everyone was free to use it !

    After the gating (i would call it robbery) of the commons, the people who were living from it (fields, woods, water etc.) couldn’t access it anymore, and the ones who tried it were mostly killed.

    Of course people tried to fight it, but as the new “owner” were the people in power, they had already little armies and the law and the church behind them, so the fight was lost.

    It also appears that in england the story of Robin Hood was told,… taking back the stolen goods and giving them back to the people. (Today they shurely would label him terrorist).

    So,.. that was the beginning of the capitalism in some way, as the people now were forced to work for the rich landowners to have a living.

    The church supported this by “rewriting” the holy book so the people were told that from now on you will get to heaven only when you work. (You remember the rich cardinal in the Robin Hood movies, right ?).

    And since then nothing changed.

    Remember,… to change the system, you have to teach the truth ! Otherwise it doesn’t matter ! And its really time for a change !!!

    My “dream” would bebased on the fact that the world belongs truly to EVERYONE,… so instead of a few people living in “paradise”, everyone would have the same and fair share of the commons, like water, land, oil, gold and everything that exists… I remember an article I read many years ago, where someone actually calculated the share of the people, so all grounds, goods and so on divided by the mumber of people in this world, (everything : 7 billion) and it still was a massive number, with which everyone could have a good life… the size of the ground you can use for example was (if I remember correctly) somewhere like a good part of Texas…for everyone !!! Should be enough to have a fair life, don’t you think ?

    😉

    Reply

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