Before reading this article, please read “How to be Free.”
As we have already learnt, freedom is earned through responsibility. It’s wonderful for parents who educate at home to have the opportunity to ensure they instil such responsibility in their children.
As a teacher I met many parents and had the same conversation over and over:
Me: Your child is fantastic; hard working, helpful, kind, friendly, etc, etc.
Parent: Really? S/he is not like that at home.
A home educating parent gave me some insight on this situation. Perhaps the child is better able to thrive at school than at home. I admit, I was shocked to hear such a statement. Home is home. How can school possibly be better for them? Lots of reasons: at school, the teacher is generally fun, especially in primary schools; at school, the focus is on the children and activities are for them; the teacher is not tired and irritable after a day at work. On top of that, most children have friends at school and often they seek to conform to their friends as well as to please the teacher.
Many lovely, well-behaved children are not like that in their own homes. They show respect to adults in school which does not transfer to their parents. They take responsibility for their work, keeping the classroom tidy and helping their peers and at the same time do not take responsibility for tidying their rooms, helping siblings or doing chores.
When you educate your children yourself, this does not need to happen. Why not? Well it’s not because there’s a rivalry between home and school; the child is choosing school. That’s not what is happening. The big difference, apart from your children seeing you demonstrate taking responsibility for their education, you are giving your child your attention when you are not tired or fed up or irritable. You are inculcating your child with your ideologies and not allowing others to take your place. You are training your child to take responsibility for whatever you deem necessary. In terms of freedom, the most important thing you can do in the twenty first century West is to bring up your child away from the state.