A friend recently shared a photo with me in an email that caught my attention and prompted me to ponder, once again, the matter of education. In the picture, a child is asking her mother:

“Why do I have to go to school?”

To which the mother replies:

“So you can be molded into a state approved homogeneous drone that cannot think outside of the prescribed consensus. You will learn to repeat information instead of how to think for yourself so that you don’t become a threat to the status quo. When you graduate you will get a job and pay your taxes in order to perpetuate the corporate system of indentured servitude.”

Now, I’m not promoting the idea of there being some grand conspiracy here, nor am I indicating disdain for education in general. However, as someone who is inclined to question the accepted norms, I do see a lot of truth behind this satire. The mother’s statement speaks to me of the danger, and indeed, the folly, of a society placing education into the hands of government to have the power to mandate, regulate, and own and operate the infrastructure for the dispensing of this precious commodity.

In a free country, parents would choose the when, where, whether and how of the educating of their own children, not have it mandated by a government that chooses the curriculum and sets the standards. Likewise, in a free country, those individuals, to whom God has given the gift of being educators, would be free to educate with all of their intellect, ability and God-given gifting according to their own conscience, unfettered by an education bureaucracy telling them how to teach. In a truly free country, the education of children would be determined exclusively by parents and those educators whose assistance parents might choose to employ. Continue reading “Set Education Free” →