{"id":245,"date":"2005-08-05T20:45:24","date_gmt":"2005-08-05T20:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/?p=245"},"modified":"2010-05-08T20:46:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T20:46:38","slug":"dumbing-us-down-locking-children-away-from-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/dumbing-us-down-locking-children-away-from-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Dumbing Us Down: Locking Children Away from the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

“One thing I do know: most of us who\u2019ve had a taste of loving families, even a little taste, want our kids to be part of one. One other thing I know is that eventually you have to come to be part of a place<\/em>\u2014part of its hills and streets and waters and people\u2014or you will live a very sorry life as an exile forever. Discovering meaning for yourself,<\/em> and discovering satisfying purpose<\/em> for yourself, is a big part of what education is. How this can be done by locking children away from the world is beyond me.” (John Taylor Gatto,\u00a0Dumbing Us Down<\/span><\/a>\"\", p.<\/span>68)<\/p>\n

Gatto’s scorn for “locking children away from the world” in institutional school is interesting in light of critics who worry that homeschoolers will never be able to function in the “real world.”\u00a0 What’s “real” about being locked in a cell, uh, classroom with 15-25 agemates 8 hours\u00a0a day, 5 days a week?\u00a0 Do you know a single adult whose “real” life is like that?<\/p>\n

One of my favorite ways for my children to learn how to function in the real world is to have them actually function in the real world.\u00a0 We lived in a three-stoplight town for our first five years of homeschooling, about two blocks away from downtown.\u00a0 We could walk around the Square and visit the library, post office, bank, electric company, and cable company.\u00a0 I used to have my oldest son, about ages 7-9 at the time, go in all those places to pay bills, buy stamps, return books, etc. while I waited in the car or on the sidewalk with his little brothers.\u00a0 What confidence that instilled in him!<\/p>\n

What do you love most about not locking your children away from the real world?<\/p>\n

Mary Jo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“One thing I do know: most of us who\u2019ve had a taste of loving families, even a little taste, want our kids to be part of one. One other thing I know is that eventually you have to come to be part of a place\u2014part of its hills and streets and waters and people\u2014or you … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}