“My 5 year old son keeps asking to do more math, and I have to keep explaining to him that school is over, and it’s summer vacation now!” Sorry, but you’re doing home education wrong. Anytime anyone, of any age, expresses an interest in math, I’m happy to oblige.
Tag: education
Optimistic about the Future of Liberty
This morning, after a little reflection, I’m more optimistic than ever about the future of liberty. There are so many great companies, organizations, and technologies that enable us to throw off the shackles of the state and its allied institutions.
Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple
I’ve been called a crazy optimist, a Pollyanna, a romantic idealist. How can I believe that our system of compulsory schooling is about to collapse? People point out that in many ways the schooling system is stronger now than ever. It occupies more of children’s time, gobbles up more public funds, employs more people, and is more firmly controlled by government – and at ever-higher levels of government – than has ever been true in the past. So why do I believe it’s going to collapse – slowly at first and then more rapidly – over the next ten years or so? Here are four reasons.
Principles Don’t Have Exceptions
Thomas Jefferson, like many libertarians today, understood the basic principles, but created carve-outs in his attempts to impose his view of how the world should work on others. That’s the thing about principles, though; they don’t have exceptions.
The Driving Force behind Civilization’s Emergence
The earliest use of writing was strictly commercial and economic, not political or bureaucratic. It was trade, entrepreneurship, and stewardship of private property, not politics, “public education” or the creation of national mythology that allowed humankind to transition from prehistory to history.
My Mother, on the Chattanooga City Bus
I don’t remember a great deal about this adventure. I was very young. But as I recall, my mother, Ruth Marjorie Ryan Carigan, went up against the back-of-the-bus norm of Chattanooga during World War II. She, a white and very young mother from Boston, rode on the back of the bus, with her two toddlers and the black people of Chattanooga
Change the World for Fun & Profit
Doing things like starting a business or pursuing a career in the arts is usually regarded as selfish and greedy. And even when we do support the people who pursue these things, we’re still hesitant to think of them as revolutionaries and freedom-fighters in the same way that we’d think of politicians and philanthropist.
Kids Learn Naturally: Why Compulsory Schooling is Unneccessary and Even Harmful, A Case Study
Life is learning. Language has a definite purpose for us, and utility. In short, learning the language our mommy and daddy use to communicate has meaning. We need to get that milk! We need our blessed diaper changed! This language stuff gets shit done! Without meaning, “education” is a breathtakingly inane and pathetic waste of an individual’s time.
Supporting Government “Services”
If I am attacking the theft and coercion behind some things, don’t take it as an attack on you for using those things–unless you start being nasty in defense of the status quo and making it about some tangent that buzzes your bonnet.
Immersion is More Powerful Than Money
If you want your kids to have the best chance at success and intelligence, don’t spend money to invest in their education … that is a waste of money. The best shot you have is to surround them with a culture that highly values success and intelligence.