Reply #19: Forget homeschooling laws.

[lostnfound]

Make schools less like a prison and people won't want to escape. There's far too much testing..teachers know it, parents know it..and yet it goes on.
Many kids feel like caged chickens for 12 years. Most kids become less responsible, not more responsible, after 12 years of being told what to do and what to pay attention for 7 hours a day (plus homework, which infringes even more on their time to think original thoughts). Real education does not resemble force-feeding.
Kids should perhaps get 4 hours a day of "schooling" -- structured classroom time -- and the rest of their day should provide them opportunities to learn. Resting in a quiet room or writing in a diary or otherwise being "un-scrutinized" should be their birthright as free beings. Perhaps limit their group social interaction time in the afternoons to an hour, to make sure it doesn't become all about fitting in with their peers, but let them go read quietly or choose to learn woodworking or garden or do yoga according to their own interests and mood of the day. That's MY ideal..unfortunately, the American ideal of stuffing every child's head full of facts to the exclusion of any quiet time or independent time is so ingrained in our culture that in most cities, it's impossible to find even a private school that offers that.

How's that working out for us, anyway -- our fellow Americans are so interested in facts and learning that it boggles the mind, doesn't it? Just look at Faux.

A society of children, looking for others to tell them what to do and what to think.

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."- Plutarch