Reason To Homeschool #3
Placing a Child in a Classroom Usurps the Role Of the Parent
A vandal broke into a school recently and broke several things in a classroom. The teacher based in that classroom was interviewed by a member of the media. During her short interview, she touched an issue that is universal to education models based outside the home. She said that she was distraught after finding the vandalism because the room “is my kids’ home, or their home-away-from-home.” She spoke more truth than she probably intended. She calls her students her kids. She identifies her classroom as her kids’ home. In practice, class-based schooling replaces the home and its members with its own model. The teacher is the parent or authority figure, the class members the siblings, the lunchroom the kitchen, and so on. This has far-reaching implications.
The first day of school for most young children is usually exciting and also a little scary. Questions abound. Will they still have the same friends? Will they get to sit next to them? Will the teacher like them? That last question is perhaps one of the most significant. Students will bond each year with their teacher to some extent, sometimes forming a lifetime bond. Whether or not this is appropriate is not so significant until you contemplate whose bond is this replacing. The parent is no longer the person with whom the child spends time. Instead, the child spends most of their time with a teacher, someone the parents know little about. Has the teacher come from a balanced, healthy environment? Do they have similar beliefs and lifestyles? Even in an interview, parents always have the chance of being duped by a teacher, who knows what the parents want to hear. I'm not saying that all teachers have a rotten worldview or that they all intend to pass on a view to the student that's inconsistent with their parents. But the odds of 13 teachers all matching the same worldview and intent are far too remote to even consider.
This brings up another problem. With 13 years education, the child bonds with each teacher for the school year and then separates from the teacher at year end. While this may be acceptable as the child gets older, young children experience an expected yet sometimes traumatic loss, particularly in the first few years. Over time, however, the child learns to anticipate these losses and prepares for them. Why should they face that loss? Only in the most dysfunctional environment does a worker find themselves working under a new boss every year. What purpose does it serve by forming bonds and then institutionally breaking them each year? It’s not natural to do this. How does that trauma help the child? It is a wound, not a blessing. Even if the specialization of grades were a fact, do we exchange primary doctors in the same way? Not usually, and not if the goal is giving the best care.
Children were designed to bond with their parents as a natural pattern. Indeed, at age 5, they are not usually standing at the door begging to be set free from their parental bonds. Fewer still are ready at age 4, an age that falls under the brackets of universal pre-school, a promise made by liberal congressmen and women. Their goal seems to be to get teachers with the children as early as possible. The question must be asked: Why?
More reading on bonding with parents:
1 comment:
What a great post!
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