A Whole NEW Kind of Stupid

Okay. So it's taken me the half a day to pry myself off the ceiling so that I could write this. But I'm ready now. I think.

This afternoon, having made a turkey and avocado sandwich for lunch (in my own kitchen) to take back to the office - down the hall (I know, I'm gloating) I sat down at my desk and decided to check my emails while I ate. Yahoo had a news feed that caught my eye. Something about "no-schoolers". I clicked. I died.

It was a report that evidently aired on Good Morning America today about a small but growing number of families who opt out of any kind of "formal" education at all. These are "parents" (and I use that term loosely) who let their children "find their passion" by allowing them to do - and I mean this is a very literal sense - whatever they want. There are no textbooks. No grades. No classes. No rules. No discipline. The children are allowed to do whatever they please. Period.

You know what? I'm still not ready to be calm. I'll have to come back to this.

(Three hours later.)

Back again, a couple of hours later and still reeling from from the subject at hand. I watched the video reel of two seemingly normal looking people, sitting at their kitchen table with Juju Chang (her mouth open with disbelief) as they talked of how their children followed their passions wherever they might find them. Among the hiding places: the television and video games. They admitted that their children had no knowledge of algebra but were quick to defend. "If they decide they want to know about algebra, they will find it". Juju asked the parents (a better word may be "breeders") if the fact that their daughter stays up all night long isn't counter-productive. "No" says mom. "Because she manages to get done whatever it is she wants to get done".

As the interview continues, we find our two unschooled (for the past 6 years!) kids following their passion for hitting each other with cardboard swords in the front yard. And I was struck by what a meaningful learning experience that had to have been. The boy was 13 and hadn't been in a real school since first grade. His sister had no idea what grade she would be in currently (it turns out she would be a junior in high school). Evidently there are no college aspirations as they themselves admit they are unprepared for college not having any experience with textbooks. But - we're assured by the I-don't-know-what-grade-I'm-in teenaged daughter - if they wanted to go to college they would just a get textbook and "learn it".

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Later, Juju asks the children if they feel they have missed anything by not going to school. The boy reponds "Not really. They were teaching things I really wasn't interested in there." "At seven?" Juju responds incredulously.

Another family was also interviewed for this story. Their children (who looked to be somewhere between 4 and 7) had "no boundaries". They were free to make every single one of their own decisions. "There is no hierarchy in our home", mom gushed. "Which means no boundaries, nor rules, no punishments." She spews on: "My children choose whatever they want to do. They go and get what they choose to eat at breakfast (donut) and hygiene was the last of the things we let go of" she remarks as she walked into a child's bedroom asking "are you going to brush your teeth today?"

So there are only two explanations for this phenomenon. 1) Aliens have landed and are taking over the minds of otherwise normal people, or 2) Morons had babies and realized "Oh. No one told me I was supposed to take care of them". And science tells me that the later is the more likely scenario - in which case, we are talking sheer negligence and child abuse. Except that it is perfectly legal, at least in Massachusetts (and a few other states I might add, that have NO educational requirements for home schooling). And the only good thing about the interview is that there will be such a backlash from the airing of it that these children will likely be taken from their homes and given a chance in life.

Meanwhile, said parents (or possibly aliens) claim that aside from no education, their children are very mainstream. (Which may sadly be true.) Had I been interviewing I do not believe I could have refrained from slapping their stupid faces. Oh! For the days of tar and feathering.

Final words came from the kids. "We may not know everything other kids know but we know stuff they don't know."

Of course they do. They know what it's like to live in the same home as their parents and not be loved by them.