Warning! Strong and Ranty Opinion Ahead!

I absolutely HATE the word "homeschooling". It implies that we sit at the table with the kids' noses in textbooks, parents in front of the chalkboard. Ugh. Bleah. No. My children are not schooled, and education does not happen by sitting within four walls, particularly the same ones all day, every day. If I believed in either of those things, I'd just send my kids to school! I much prefer the term "independently educated".

As for the people who wonder how I can possibly know if my children are learning what they should, well, if you can't tell who is educated and who is not, it probably says a lot more about you than about them. I wonder what "should" means too. I assume they mean what the government has decided they should learn, and when and how. Ah yes. We know how efficient the government is, especially when it comes to agencies and institutions. Hey, you know what would be a great idea? Let's put the government in charge of our kids' learning! Yeah! Jeez Louise. I honestly don't know what a kid of a particular age is governmentally determined to be taught. I know that my kids learn as much as they possibly can. They don't stop, They just keep going. They learn to their potential. You can't do better than that, so why do I need to know what our really crappy local school district thinks? I don't. For the record, I come from a family of public school educators who fully stand by my educating of my children. One was paid a lot of money as a special consultant to completely revamp a district's curriculum based on her observations of how my children learn as opposed to how traditionally schooled children learn. She didn't just revamp it, she threw it out and invented a whole new one.

Public education was concieved as a last resort for people who had no other choice. That's how it was intended to be used. That's fine. I agree that it should be there. I think it's utterly ridiculous that those of us who would actually use it that way are looked at as if we have three heads! Would I send my children to private school if I had the money? Maybe. It depends on the school. Most private schools are simply cushy versions of the public education model. Again, if I wanted my kids to sit in front of a chalkboard within the same building all day every day, I could do it for free in a public school.

I don't teach my kids much at all. They learn a ton. You can't stop a kid from learning. You can hold him back, or crush his love of learning, but you can't stop him. You can encourage and facilitate learning, but you don't cause it. It would almost be hubris to think so. I can only shake my head at the suggestion. For me, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. When a woman in a museum points to your child, and comments to her companion that she can't believe they paid seven bucks apiece for their guided audio tour when they could just follow "that kid" for free because she "knows way more than this crappy museum guide", there's nothing left to say.