What does it mean to get an education?

 

What does it mean to get an education, and does it require sitting in a classroom? I didn’t attend a traditional public school past the 5th grade. Despite the negative perception many have about home-educated individuals, I’m not sheltered and unable to function in society. In fact, I’ve worked professionally in educational assessment supervising projects for the last 11 years. So, how did someone who stopped going to school at 10 years old graduate from college and end up with a job in the academic testing field? I believe in learning and how it benefits children, but public schools are not always a perfect fit for everyone. Some kids will do well, and some won’t. I recognize that parents and families need educational options.

So why was I homeschooled? My world revolved around competitive figure skating. Every day I would spend an average of 2–5 hours on the ice. And like many lower income kids, I needed to get a job to help my family, and so I could afford expensive ice time and ice skates. My mom, as a former English teacher, knew from her own experience that public schools would not accommodate my passion or our family’s needs. Since schools need to follow a schedule, they can’t provide any accommodations for those situations. There are those who will argue young people shouldn’t work, and they should only focus on academics. But they actually gain important life lessons and experiences not taught in a classroom. I needed to calculate payments and change amounts in my head, and understand how to diffuse and respond to both social and emergency situations. Overall, between what I studied in my home educational curriculum and what I learned while working, I ended up being more prepared for the real world than most of my peers.

And I’m not worst for wear from the experience. I enjoyed earning a paycheck because it opened up a lot more opportunities for me to improve my life. During this time, I also volunteered for various organizations. When I was high school-aged, I saved up for my first car. I worked at a city library and as a sales clerk at a local museum facility. And I still did normal and fun teen activities. I went to dances and proms with friends. On weekends, we watched movies, pretended to play pool, stayed out too late, and had parties. When the day arrived to decide about college, I prepared for and took the ACT and SAT exams and sent out my admissions applications. I crossed my fingers for acceptance and a full tuition scholarship. I graduated in the Spring of 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

We are all familiar with the stereotypical and predefined hierarchical system that exists inside school buildings. It’s so prevalent that many TV shows and movies replicate it to create drama for their characters. This drama in real life is often more cruel than those fictional portrayals and seems to worsen throughout the middle and high school years. Popularity and status, no matter the cost, no matter if it destroys the self-esteem of someone else, and causes physical or emotional damage, remain dominate. While in hallways, or on buses or walking home, both boys and girls find themselves the targets of bullies, harassed, teased, taunted or assaulted. And worst yet, these terrible experiences now can be photographed and recorded on phones and shared with other people. Sometimes these disgusting and even violent attacks are live streamed to Facebook or tikTok for complete strangers to watch and comment on.

When I was a little girl in public school, the worst thing I endured was a bratty kid who called me “curly buck-teeth.” Honestly, who wants children to hear negative comments about themselves in a place they are forced to go? The entire system tends to foster alienation, abuse, anger, and frustration. They don’t have to go through this to live a successful life. And the old mantra that “Well, I survived, so my child can too,” is outdated and outright cruel.

I’ve read plenty of news story in which parents state how helpless they feel, how they begged their school administration and staff to step in to protect their child. Parents often ask schools for help and come away frustrated, disillusioned, and disappointed by their inaction. Why are parents convinced that they must accept their child being humiliated and berated every day he or she enters a school building? Social convention convinces everyone they have no other choice, and attending a school will be the best for their child’s future and education. This is not the truth, though. I hope more families will realize home education provides options for better academic and creative freedom, but also allows students to escape the horrible social suffering they may encounter.

During the pandemic, families had to create a classroom like environment at home for months. Many parents took to social media to complain about how much time and involvement this required from them. They would bemoan the lack of instruction or socialization their kid received through the remote systems put in place. But let’s be clear, schools weren’t created to provide social skills to children, and we did not intend them to be the sole resource of learning opportunities.

In the United States, the first public school opened in Lexington, Massachusetts in 1839. Though some funded and free schools existed in the 1780s, the majority were located in Northeastern communities. This concept didn’t gain traction until the 1830s. Soon mandatory attendance requirements spread, and by 1918, all American children had to attend at least elementary school. My grandfather, who became a vice president for Ford Motor Companies in Michigan, only did so with a 7th grade education. For his generation, you could get a higher paying position with minimal time spent sitting at a classroom desk in front of a teacher.

The main motivating reason for establishing a systematic and formal free educational structure was to have a competent population who could make sound decisions, vote, and help protect democracy. Public schools could provide US citizens with basic knowledge regardless of their social class that would fulfill this aspiration. Of course, equity in the quality of education throughout the country does not exist.

Considered the father of the American Education, Horace Mann wrote that education “is the great equalizer of the conditions of men — the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” He advocated the creation of “common schools”, which he hoped would prevent his country from ending up with a class structure similar to what existed in Europe. He also insisted that this system adhere to sectarian instruction, meaning no religion doctrine would be allowed.

So, at what point did families and America decide that the brick and mortar classroom should teach far beyond the original intention? And when did everyone determine children could only learn social etiquette, engagement, and empathy from a teacher in a classroom? Nothing in the historical findings or intentions of public schools states they would provide for socialization. It’s quite the contrary. The basis for free and equal education for all arose from the desire to maintain the fragile American democracy still in its infancy and allow for all citizens to partake in achieving this goal.

The traditional school environment today educates students to achieve a certain level of knowledge specified by boards and bureaucracies. Nothing in those curriculums aims to educate the individual on moral obligations or responsibilities, such as empathy or concern for peers and for our communities. Nor does any school endow students with any sense of personal values, instead often demoralizing them, stifling creative expression, and the ability to think for themselves gets lost.

Before compulsory schooling, children still learned, they created, they invented and altered our lives for the better. Parents, private tutors, siblings, and extended families were the teachers. Every home was the school; every field, every room, and day brought new lessons. And, from what I can tell, this worked pretty well. History yields many famous home-educated figures: Albert Einstein, President Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, John Quincy Adams, George Washington, Moses, Joan of Arc, Booker T. Washington, C. S. Lewis, Hans Christian Andersen, Leo Tolstoy, Ansel Adams, Florence Nightingale, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie. Do I need to keep going?

I think that the schools of today will, more often than not, stifle generations of future inventors, innovators, and artists from reaching the success they might otherwise have achieved. In today’s society, many successful and philanthropic people attended private, exclusive preparatory schools. Some systems of education work better than others depending on the individual needs of your child or teenagers, or your family. But you should realize that home education can and does foster high-level intellectual and creative development in students.

 Why do parents consider themselves incapable of instructing their own children? When for generations before the institution of formal schooling, they did in fact do that very thing. Why do they not want to at least provide supplemental resources and support, like reading together or teaching right from wrong? Many have stopped wanting to be responsible for the children to whom they have given life, the tender souls they have brought into this world. Mothers and fathers stick a backpack on the child’s back, stuff some food in his or her lunch pail, and say, “Hey, you, stranger; yeah, you in the gigantic building, you will now teach my kid everything that he or she needs to know.”

No one can teach everything that we expect them to do in a classroom with 20–30 students. What exists for us to learn will never fit in the limited selection of books available in many under-funded schools. Deep wells of knowledge exist beyond what they can offer and aren’t that difficult or expensive to access. Public libraries, free events, museums, aquariums, etc. all give us the ability to access information that will expand our minds. Not to mention what can be found online, in documentaries and nature films, conversations, in the experiences of a nation, and in the cultures of the world. Learning builds the foundation for survival and success. Educational moments arise from surprising places, like the color of the flowers in a garden, colors created through evolutionary processes which better attract pollinators, or sources of food, like the carnivorous Venus flytrap.

Knowledge populates the shelves of libraries, Internet websites, kitchens, and stores. For example, shopping trips where you calculate what an item costs using unit pricing, or how much a 20% discount will save you. Almost everything we need to learn to grow into productive, intelligent and kind people can be learned outside the confines of a classroom setting. The one true gift society can give children is not just an education, but to instill a desire to never stop learning, and the choice to do so in the way that works best for them. That will be what protects our country as we go forward and will lead to more positive social engagement with each other.

Home education does demand more work, time and energy. It requires sacrifice and dedication. And for some, I understand it’s not financially or logistically an option. Not all families can home educate, it won’t work for all children. But despite that, I hope more people will realize that learning exists well beyond the classroom.