Beautiful article by a high school student fed up with public schooling’s authoritarian model for education: As students, we are told that we are being made into an “informed citizenry” capable of maintaining a vibrant democracy. Indeed, we are told that we must give up most of our constitutional rights in the name of achieving…
Tag: children
The Way Nature Intended
Children are born whole, kind, loving and assuming the best of intentions from others. It is our cultural controlling of children that creates defensiveness, meanness and assuming the worst intentions in others. It is through this conditioned mindset that negativity in one’s life is created. When a child is respected and living in partnership with…
Re: The Socialization of Children
Writes Justin Bell in response to this post, “I absolutely believe in raising children as small adults. I have some friends who do exactly that and their children are wonderful. However, when I leave the house later today to interact with ‘adults’ I’ll be treating them like overgrown children – because that is how they…
The Socialization of Children
From time to time when asked, I tell someone who doesn’t already know, usually extended family or new acquaintances, that we are keeping our kids home from school. They look puzzled until I use the word “homeschooling”. Like clockwork, sooner or later, they mention the social aspect of schooling and why it’s important that kids…
Re: A Parental Right?
I have to say, I share Idzie D.’s feeling of uneasiness when I hear the term “parental rights”. It’s a great term when considering parental rights relative to the state, but relative to children, we should tread very lightly. My voluntaryist journey only recently lead me to consider more and more the rights of children.…
Re: Born to Explore
Too often we (society) bring kids to places they shouldn’t be brought, and then restrict their curiosity. They learn something with that, something bad, methinks. We made a new rule recently, if we bring our kids somewhere, we’ll let them do as they please, so long as they don’t damage anything, or themselves. If it…
Education in The 21st Century
Originally published in September 2011. A study published in July showed that people have become less likely to remember things that they know are only a click away on the Internet. In other words, our selective memory has expanded to exclude things easily found via a web search. I interpret this revelation as meaning that…
Whose Interest Prevails?
A thought I’ve had recently, “whose interests should prevail, the parent’s or the child’s?” Take a couple without any children. The man wants to go see this movie, the woman wants to go see that movie. Whose interest prevails? Obviously, their interests are deeper than what movie to see. They both want to keep each…
Parenting With Violence
In my estimation, there are two methods that one can take with parenting: you can either violently rule over your children, or you can non-violently mentor them. As the existence of this website indicates, I’ve happily and excitedly chosen the latter. A thought experiment: 1) Your 6-year-old doesn’t want to go to his Primary class…
What Can Voluntaryists Do Now?
Written by Skyler J. Collins. Josh Freeman asks, “What are some actions, or some guidelines, that we can implement NOW in order to live life in accord with our principles? In the journey toward a completely voluntary society, what are the first steps that I, as an individual, can take in order to achieve that…