Thursday, October 16, 2008

homeschooling

the thing is, why do all articles about homeschooling have to focus on either extremely wealthy white new yorkers or christian fundamentalists? the more time i spend inside public schools and studying the policy debates and curriculum debates that orbit around public schooling, the more i long for an alternative that might let ALL young people (not just the fantastically rich ones) develop their capacities as creative and curious humans. (as opposed to as future cogs-in-the-machine.) homeschooling offers so many totally fundamentally DIFFERENT ideas about what education could be, that in theory i think it could be useful as a counterpoint to the standard elements of the current conversation about public schooling-- except that its so completely privatized and not-publicly minded, that its insights are barely transferable. alas.

which brings me to this: there's one of the latter kind of article --the kind that focuses on wealthy new yorkers-- in the New York Times today. its problematic. but like many problematic things, its also thought-provoking. so i'm going to link to it, here.

remind me that soon i have to ask my friend, killer sideburns, to tell me more about her experience with the un-schooling movement.

today's NYT article provoked me to remember (as if i was having trouble remembering; actually, i'm not--i'm having trouble forgetting) just how fervently i wish we would just throw over the whole system and start again-- with art at the center of our educational efforts.

and while we're on THAT subject, here's another site about arts education that caught my eye recently: its called Art Education 2.0.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

hey dr m I just read this and hah! we should talk I have lots to say, too much for blog comments. xoxo k sideburnz

Maya W said...

Hello maate great blog post