Homeschooling for freedom

This one is so staggeringly obvious. Whether you are Objectivist, Christian, Pagan, Libertarian, or of any other sincerely held belief - get your kids out of public schools! I know of only one case where a parent should send his kid to a school - if it's a private of your beliefs.

I advise all parents of all beliefs to do this. For I don’t like the idea of Christians having the government teaching their kids that God does not exist. He doesn’t, but that was between the parent and child. Or that the Goddess is or isn't. Etc.

Don’t have time? Oh, come on. These are your kids. If your job is that busy, find another. Or one of you stay at home. I am afraid that in the large scheme of things, you’ll be "John who?" within six months after you retire from your 30 year career. Or your grandsons can tell their grandsons about you. You decide, that’s freedom - but one is more natural, more rational and more rewarding.

What to teach? Reading, writing and arithmetic are the basics. Any kid learns those and he’ll do well - and also will learn much else on his own if he wants to and can. You won’t stop there though. He may read History, Science, Literature, all the basics. Go talk to the Christians, they’re pros at this.

Teach logic and philosophy. My wish is that you at least teach them that initiating force is wrong. Assuming you teach them your own philosophy, make sure that you show them the other beliefs afterward. Show them the arguments for those things - and your arguments against those things.

If your child ever asks you a question, on anything, always stop whatever you are doing and answer. Never, ever, put him off, or leave it to another - or he will find that other, and who knows who that will be.

You should suggest good books with fun stories of your ideas in practice. Reading nothing but Robert Heinlein, L. Neil Smith, and other Libertarian style fiction writers is in itself a psychological persuasion of sorts - to freedom. Always be an example of the truth yourself.

This can be ignored though, can’t it? I’m just being fanatically "anti-government", it’s really okay to send kids to public schools, they can learn the truth at home. Can they? Are you that good at fighting the psychologically persuasive methods employed at our Government Indoctrination Centers?

For the movie "Brave New World" was correct in one thing, "A thousand repetitions make one truth."

Our government knows this, so they like your kids to be in their schools 8 hours a day, 20 days a month, 9 months per year, for 12 years, which equals 17,280 repetitious hours of indoctrination. 1,440 hours per year to instill them with concepts of sharing, giving, mercy, altruism, patriotism, democracy, service to country, the collective unity of the whole, mythology and mysticism, getting along with others, submitting to bells, submitting to authority, submitting to class opinion, not questioning but accepting, not understanding but memorizing…repeated ad nauseum.

Bell rings, move, learn it again. Bell rings, move, learn it again. Bell rings 1,440 times per year, you will move, and learn it again, 1,440 times per year, year after year, for 12 years.

You will do this until you graduate, or as it says in the book, "Brave New World", "Till at last the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides - made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions! Suggestions from the State!"

The superficial "educational" subjects change, each hour and each year, but the two general lessons of "submission to the collective" and "the truths of mysticism", stay the same.

From Kindergarten to twelfth grade, from "Let’s play something we ALL can enjoy" to "Democracy is the greatest concept known to man.", it is all a repetition of the idea of "submission to the collective". From Kindergarten to twelfth grade, from "Let’s play make believe" to "We must respect the beliefs of others", it is all a repetition of the "truths of mysticism".

Wander the halls and count the posters, which if in Germany would be called "Propaganda", but here are called "Character Builders" or "Motivators". Unasked, let alone answered, is, "Building what kind of character?", "Motivating to do what…and for whom?" *

Even those propaganda messages of submission to the collective and the truths of mysticism are a cover for an even deeper message. As Alvin Toffler pointed out, education consists, "of three courses: one in punctuality, one in obedience, and one in rote, repetitive work." The motivation for that is apparently, and there are more sources then Toffler for this, to train children to be good factory and office workers.

It is little remembered now, but it is human nature for us to be what is sometimes known as "burst workers". This is where we do work in very large bursts, taking much time off otherwise for anything else we feel like. I would not necessarily advocate that we go back to the stage of no time pieces, no set appointments, leaving a project half done to go fishing, or other such things. Doing things in order and on time benefits all of us to greater or lesser extents now.

But I do think it’s worth remembering that the Europeans had to be beaten and starved into this type of outlook, that their kids had to be schooled before it was fully accepted, and when the Europeans tried to impose this on other cultures later, they took the resistance of others as "laziness", rather then, "Oh, they react like we do to the unnatural!"

The order and pattern of public schools was not only to force children into accepting factory and office lifestyles, it was to train them out of all the independence and love of liberty that is their birth right. In some cases, such as Prussia, public schools were started for the express purpose of turning independent minded children into obedient adults who would kill and die on command. NOT by having classes on "killing and dieing", but just by using the methods of training to obedience and squashing their spirits.

I need hardly point out that it matters not whether our own public school teachers have such motives. Any motive or intention for good or for bad is entirely irrelevant. The methods in America in the 21rst century are the same as they were in Prussia in the nineteenth, simply more sophisticated and sugar coated.

Yes, your teacher was nice. So what? She herself was indoctrinated. She probably doesn’t do evil deliberately, then again, since some do, why not her? But in any case, she was told a good reason for every single thing that she does - and all those things just happen to add up to bad. As Ayn Rand said, "Don’t bother to examine a folly, ask only what it accomplishes."

Why do you care what the "intentions" of a given teacher are, any more then of a cop or congressman? Maybe the private intentions of a teacher, cop or congressman are good, maybe they are bad, but you are brainwashed, hurt and robbed all the same. Does the knowledge that it’s possible that the brainwasher is ignorant make you feel better?

Read the books John Dewey wrote. He’s the one called "The Father of Modern Education". They aren’t lying when they say that. It’s all written out. Did you know the bell system was to train children to be used to it, so they would respond better to bells when they got factory jobs? That, and more, can be found by any parent concerned enough to read and study about his children’s environment.

Ever seen those old school books in the antique stores? I find it scary that those 19th century ones are choked with Latin, law, gerunds, calculus, Mesopotamian history - and it’s only a 7th grade book! Clearly, a lot of effort has been made to make the majority of us much more ignorant then usual.

If you love the government, then have nothing to do with your kid’s education. If you love your kids, then have nothing to do with the government’s education. Are they already in public schools? Then remove them now. Domani e tropos tardi.

Dean

* Read an essay called, "The Comprachicos", by Ayn Rand, in her book, "The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution"