On Christmas morning we woke up and headed to the airport to fly to Chicago. Flying on Christmas is fun - everyone is in a good mood! We got in too late to join the Swenton Family Christmas party, so that was a little disappointing. But we still were able to spend a week with Grandma and see the Skafish relatives. 
Don't use too much butter. WHAT! Again I say the more, the better. Especially on vegetables, And especially if it is pasture butter.
Kids need to play sports. Again why? I am all for physical fitness, but really. Four seasons of team sports, practices, games - no time for family vacations, or even family dinners. See this."Purdue has been running it's GERI summer program now for 33 years, and it just keeps getting better and better. Programs like this are so important for kids like yours, given the state of education. Most of these kids are probably straight A students. Some maybe not - they're too bored. Those are my favorites - the ones too smart to conform. They go to school everyday, but are they really getting what they need? Mark Twain said "I never let schooling interfere with my education". Unfortunately, education today is a lot like filling a pail full of water and never using it. Eventually it either gets dumped out or stagnate. At GERI, we make sure it's not stagnate. Our classes give kids hands on opportunities to dive into their subject. There are no grades, because we want to encourage kids to soar, not worry about what kind of grade they will get. We want them to think of a million ways to do something. Benjamin Franklin said "I didn't fail the test, I just found a million ways to do it wrong." We think kids should be allowed to specialize in what they are interested. Whose purpose does the "well-rounded" student serve? If someone is brilliant in math, but still required to take 4 years of English, what purpose does that serve other then taking time away from what that student does best? We think kids should have the opportunity to learn in a way that is encouraging, fun and meaningful."
Me: I really enjoyed your speech.
RM: (huge smile)
Me: I am currently homeschooling two high achieving kids
RM: (frown)
Me: (now hesitant) and was wondering if you have suggestions or resources, especially for high school students that will be applying to college...
RM: Well, you know they still need to take AP classes and all the tests and anyway that's not my area of specialty. Don't you people have all kinds of resources?
(Author's horse - bucking the system!)
Dear Editor,
(The following was read as the valedictorian's speech at Coxsackie-Athens High School in recent weeks, creating quite a stir among administrators, to great applause from students and many of their parents)
There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master: "If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen?" The Master thought about this, then replied, "Ten years . ." (The student then said, "But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast - How long then?" Replied the Master, "Well, twenty years." "But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?" asked the student. "Thirty years," replied the Master. "But, I do not understand," said the disappointed student. "At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?" (Replied the Master, "When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path."
This is the dilemma I've faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.
Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.
I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer - not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition - a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning.
John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, "We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness - curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don't do that." Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.
H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. (Gatto)
To illustrate this idea, doesn't it perturb you to learn about the idea of "critical thinking." Is there really such a thing as "uncritically thinking?" To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?
This was happening to me, and if it wasn't for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.
And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.
We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren't we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.
The saddest part is that the majority of students don't have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can't run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be - but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.
For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, "You have to learn this for the test" is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.
For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.
For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.
So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn't have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.
I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a "see you later" when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let's go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we're smart enough to do so!
Erica Goldson
Athens, NY
Here's her blog - America Via Erica . And, read the comments too!
And, here's an interview - Washington Times Homeschool Community.
G-Force Pizza Party!
Luminary for Grandma Virginia
Professionalized instruction has resulted in a large loss of literacy for both strong and dysfunctional familes. The factory has produced the product we asked for - a student who exists in the system and gets by until released from compulsory education. Between 1640 and 1700 the literacy rate for men was around 90% and for women 62%. In 2007, the adult American population had only a 15% rate of literacy proficiency! (And yet school attendance is greater today then ever before!) It's just not true that more years of compulsory school attendance have translated to a more educated populace. The main culprits reducing literacy and our ability to engage in reasonable discourse include the professionalism of education, federal mandates,
edutainment (making everything fun), and the desertion of memorization skills. In general, parents acknowledge that the modern educational system is in crisis, but few believe their own school has real problems. Many parents dismiss the message because their kids are getting A's, enjoy going to school and are learning basic skills like multiplication. In reality, standards of even basic literacy are too low. Too often an A means the curve was lowered, the student behaved and was pleasant to the teacher.
We need to offer our children a classical education. Memorization, preservation of the past and skills in order to be persuasive in expressing truth, beauty and goodness in the future. Not just entertainment and job-training. Parent-led, goal driven, community education must replace government-led, entertainment-driven, centralized education.
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