From Free Agent Nation...

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I've been recently reading a very interesting book called FREE AGENT NATION by Daniel Pink, detailing the way we have moved from an Organization Man Country (made up largely of factory workers) to a Free Agent nation. The back of the book reads this endorsement from Scott Adams, cartoonist best known for Dilbert, "The defining book on the untethered workforce...It will turn your notion of 'career' upside down. It might even set you free."
I propose that this book's chapter on homeschooling, entitled School's Out: Free Agency and the Future of Education (pp 243 -259) will turn your notion of 'school' upside down...and may even set you free!
Here is a little blip from Pink about the history of education:

"Through most of history, poeple learned from tutors or their close relations. In ninteenth-century America, says education historian David Tyack, "the school was a voluntary and incidental institution." American kids learned the basics from their families -- or from the one-room schoolhouse they'd drop into every now and again. Not until the early twentieth century did public schools as we know them -- large buildings in which students segregated by age learn from government-certified professionals -- become widespread. And not until the 1920s did attending one become compulsory. Think about that last fact a moment. Compared with much of the world, America is a remarkably hands-off land. We don't force people to vote, or to work, or to serve in the military. But we do force young people to go to school for more than a decade. We don't compel parents to love their kids or teach their kids. But we do compel parents to relinquish their kids to this institution for a dozen years, and threaten jail to those who resist.
Compulsory mass schooling is an aberration in history and an aberration in modern society. Yet it was the ideal preparation for the Organization Man ecomomy. It equipped generations of future factory workers and middle managers with the basic skills and knoledge they needed on the job. And the broader lessons were equally as crucial. Kids learned to obey rules, follow orders, and respect authority -- and the penalties that came with refusal.
This was just the sort of training the old economy demanded. Schools had bells; factories had whistles. Schools had report card grades; offices had pay grades. Pleasing your teacher prepared you for pleasing your boss. And in either place, if you acheived a minimal level of performance, you were promoted. Taylorism...didn't spend all its time on the job. It also went to class. In the school, as in the workplace, the reigning theory was One Best Way. Organization Kids learned the same things at the same time in the same manner in the same place. Marshall McLuhan once described schools as "the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing." And schools made factory-style processing practically a religion -- through standardized testing, standardized curricula, and standardized clusters of children (Question: when is the last time you spent all day in a room filled exclusively with peoeple born +/- 6 months of your own birth date?)
....It's hard to imagine that this arrangement can last much longer -- a One Size Fits All education system cranking out workers for a My Size Fits Me economy. Maybe the answer to the riddle i posed at the start of this chapter is that we are succeeding in spite of our education system. But how long can that continue? And imagine how we'd prosper if we began educating our children more like we earn our livings.

Socialization

Found this cute, tongue-in-cheek post on the net, anonymous author. Someday I would love to re-work it, making evangelism the center-subject of the piece. One of the reasons I have fallen in love with homeschooling is the way it has made evangelism more plausible and doable -- we are out in the "real" world with the kids by our side!

“A CONVERSATION IN THE FUTURE…”

Two women meet at a playground, where their children are swinging and playing ball. The women are sitting on a bench watching. Eventually, they begin to talk. ...
W1: Hi. My name is Maggie. My kids are the three in red shirts -- helps me keep track of them.
W2: (Smiles) I'm Terri. Mine are in the pink and yellow shirts. Do you come here a lot?
W1: Usually two or three times a week, after we go to the library.
W2: Wow. Where do you find the time?
W1:: We home school, so we do it during the day most of the time.
W2: Some of my neighbors home school, but I send my kids to public school.
W1:: How do you do it?
W2: It's not easy. I go to all the PTO meetings and work with the kids every day after school and stay real involved.
W1: But what about socialization? Aren't you worried about them being cooped up all day with kids their own ages, never getting the opportunity for natural relationships?
W2: Well, yes. But I work hard to balance that. They have some friends who're home schooled, and we visit their grandparents almost every month.
W1: Sounds like you're a very dedicated mom. But don't you worry about all the opportunities they're missing out on? I mean they're so isolated from real life -- how will they know what the world is like -- what people do to make a living -- how to get along with all different kinds of people?
W2: Oh, we discussed that at PTO, and we started a fund to bring real people into the classrooms. Last month, we had a policeman and a doctor come in to talk to every class. And next month, we're having a woman from Japan and a man from Kenya come to speak.
W1: Oh, we met a man from Japan in the grocery store the other week, and he got to talking about his childhood in Tokyo. My kids were absolutely fascinated. We invited him to dinner and got to meet his wife and their three children.
W2: That's nice. Hmm. Maybe we should plan some Japanese food for the lunchroom on Multicultural Day.
W1: Maybe your Japanese guest could eat with the children.
W2: Oh, no. She's on a very tight schedule. She has two other schools to visit that day. It's a system-wide thing we're doing.
W1: Oh, I'm sorry. Well, maybe you'll meet someone interesting in the grocery store sometime and you'll end up having them over for dinner.
W2: I don't think so. I never talk to people in the store - certainly not people who might not even speak my language. What if that Japanese man hadn't spoken English?
W1: To tell you the truth, I never had time to think about it. Before I even saw him, my six-year-old had asked him what he was going to do with all the oranges he was buying.
W2: Your child talks to strangers?
W1: I was right there with him. He knows that as long as he's with me, he can talk to anyone he wishes.
W2: But you're developing dangerous habits in him. My children never talk to strangers.
W1: Not even when they're with you?
W2: They're never with me, except at home after school. So you see why it's so important for them to understand that talking to strangers is a big no-no.
W1: Yes, I do. But if they were with you, they could get to meet interesting people and still be safe. They'd get a taste of the real world, in real settings. They'd also get a real feel for how to tell when a situation is dangerous or suspicious.
W2: They'll get that in the third and fifth grades in their health courses.
W1: Well, I can tell you're a very caring mom. Let me give you my number -- if you ever want to talk, give me call. It was good to meet you.

Good 'ol Relaxed Mary Hood

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Just read this on Elijah Company's Website:

In her books, Mary describes what she calls “Relaxed Home Schooling.”

To me, the heart of relaxed home schooling is a belief that God’s intended plan for us all was to learn, live, and grow together as families. The key points are as follows:

• You are a family, not a school.

• You are a mom, not a teacher.

• You have individual relationships with your children; not a “relationship” to a class of students.
• You are free to set your own goals, rather than relying on someone else’s ideas of “what you should be doing in such and such grade.”

• You are free to select materials, choose methods, and create experiences whenever you want...at the start of the school year, or in April, or at 3:00 in the morning.

• You are free to think through where you are on the path to your goals in any way that makes sense to you...rather than being stuck in a test, grade, label kind of mindset.

• You are free to get rid of the question, “what curriculum am I using” and replace it with “what is going to work with THIS kid, THIS week, for THIS purpose.”

• You are free to lose all those lesson plans and teacher’s guides, and you don’t even necessarily have to know what you are doing tomorrow when you get up.

www.elijahco.com