Why We're Cutting School

1.) I think sitting quietly in a chair for 7 hours a day doing what the teacher says supresses a true love of learning. ( My kids discovered this way before I did.)

2.) Kids can not be useful people while housed in a school all day. They need to know that they have a function at home and in the community.

3.) Giftedness is a disability in public schools. If you can read the word "revolution" without a pause in the first grade, why spend the next three years studying phonics, and spelling "house", "dog", "watch" etc.?

4.) Intense interests can not be encouraged in a school setting. If Sally spends all day practicing piano scales in her mind, how is she going to get her book report done? If she puts aside her fixations to finish her homework, will she realize her dream to be a great musician? Why is a child's interest less important than a school's reading program?

5.) Besides the three "R's", (which my kids got a good start on before they even entered a classroom), what useful knowledge is taught only in school that has a major positive impact on a person's life? How much can be gained by teaching those things out of the classroom in the real world?

6.)Because I think that the whole notion that "life is tough" and children need to learn it early is a bunch of bull. Call me radical, but I think life is fun. I think you grow up and pick a good career and make money so you can have a good time with it. What adult does work for no discernable reward? Even charitable work is done for a sense of well-being, and adults pick which charitable activity to pursue based upon the joy it gives us personally. Who said life had to be tough? Who said you can't decide for yourself where you want to be? My children probably won't be a coal miners. My children will get to decide how much stress and hard work they want to deal with in order to achieve their goals.
Besides, school never teaches you to deal with real stresses outside of the classroom. There are a bunch of tough lessons in life that are unavoidable, but we don't run away, our survival depends on being able to deal with these difficulties. I accept these tough parts of life because I love them and without them I wouldn't be happy. School doesn't teach you to deal with a marriage, a mortgage, two bright and challenging children. School doesn't teach you how to get along with extended family, or even your immediate family. Schools disattach children from all of those vital things. Any wonder why people spend so many post-college years trying to "find" themselves?

7.) Because I think that school is the worst place to learn "social skills" As an adult, if I find myself in a situation where I'm in a gated environment surrounded by people of my exact age, who spend all their "free" time forming groups based race, class, and looks, spreading rumors, and excluding people who don't speak the lingo, I RUN THE OTHER WAY! That's pretty much the reason I moved last year. My neighborhood was too much like high-school. I saw one mother sit by while her daughter whispered to her friend while pointing at my child. It was acceptable to this attractive former third grade teacher, for this kind of painful social experience to occur. Whose self-esteem benefits here?

8.) Because there is no understanding of true diversity of thinking in the classroom. Learning about diversity in a school setting requires labeling people by superficial appearances. The pretty girl spends her life defining herself by her prettiness, and her superiority, and ends up hanging on to this false self into adulthood. The "nerd" developes a kind of "them" and "me" attitude, becoming a cynic and stunting personal inner growth. The effeminate boy is labeled "gay", suddenly his sexuality is in question before he is even mature enough to fully aware of the concept. Where's the choice there? I never attended a school where black and white kids mingled effortlessly. It seemed like smart kids were tracked together. Black kids were in another "track". Poor kids were in the vocational school. I saw these kinds of segregation clearly from the time I entered middle school. Administrators put kids on these paths, while all of the time preaching to equality, tolerance, and understanding to the kids. I had no idea what all of these children's inner thoughts were. Who they were as people. Just the label they wore that helped them survive the machine.

9.) Because when my gifted daughter enters a classroom, she suddenly becomes a child with Asperger's syndrome. When my bright and happy little boy sits in class, he becomes so unable to concentrate I was beginning to see that ADD diagnosis on the horizon. How come they did so well at home? Because hovering over worksheets under fluorescent lights, with a teacher droning on and on, and playing shut up and listen or else, is no way to learn about the world.

10.) Because I am an oppositional pain in the rear who hates paperwork and IEP meetings. Gets frustrated by psychologists that don't get it and administrators with their agendas. Who doesn't want to give over her kids to anybody else, because no expert has ever convinced me that they have some magic formula that is better than mine will make my children thrive and achieve and be happy.