What a wonderful gift to our world she is!

            In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, an author of,  A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman, argued that girls should be educated to strengthen their body, heart and mind.  During her time females were being taught to focus on learning how to be physically attractive to men so that they may be cared for by the men.

Consequently, the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart.  Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.  Infact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

-Mary Wollstonecraft

            Over two hundred years later, Mattel appears to completely lack a good sense and a sense of responsibility toward how some of their best customers are being powerfully mis-educated by them.  You can read about it at:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/10/13/barbies-fat-ankles-latest-flap-racial-body-image-controversies

 

I am interested in your thoughts.  Please leave me a comment.

Education doesn’t make you happy, and nor does freedom.  We don’t become happy just because we’re free, if we are, or because we’ve been educated, if we have, but because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy.  It opens our eyes, our ears… tells us where delights are lurking… convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever… that of the mind… and gives us the assurance, the confidence, to walk the path our mind… our educated mind… offers.

- – Iris Murdoch

 

             “There is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever… that of the mind”… meaning that if we are not educated, academically and other wise, we are not truly free.  So if we want our children to grow up to be truly free human-beings, we must find a way to inspire them to fall in love with the idea of educating their minds.

            How do we inspire our children?  We must be inspiring parents and teachers alike.  We must be in love with what we are teaching because if we do, they will.  We must be in love with learning, for if we do, they will.

          I would like to start this by saying that I do not believe home-schooling is the only way to educate children well or even the best.  I will say that home-schooling worked out very well for my son and me.  But perhaps, the element in our home-schooling that made our educational technology work can be implemented in the more traditional settings to better support the students in their learning environment.

            When the parents who home-school use their creativity as well as their open minds to encourage thoughts that are other than their own, providing diversity of ideas, intellectual and otherwise, it provides a well rounded intellectual experience and can be a wonderful learning environment for the child since, he or she is learning while receiving the unconditional love that parents can so easily provide.

            Home schooled children may avoid the negative influence of misguided teachers who may discourage a child from being someone that is absolutely perfect due to their own lack of understanding or their awareness level.   I have watched instances of brilliant children, who were deeply misunderstood by their teachers, labeled trouble makers and received mistreatment by most of the faculty(negative perspectives being reinforced by one teacher to another).  These children ended up going through an unpleasant and unhappy educational experience, impacting them powerfully. 

            I know that there are many wonderful teachers in the traditonal educational systems and I want to take time to honour them since they are some of the most important people in our world.  The great teachers.  Our culture does not take notice enough of these very special beings even though they powerfully impact the young minds of our future… our future!

             One of the reasons whyI home schooled my son was perhaps due to my exposure to a few bad situations.  Another reason why I kept my son away from the traditional educational environment was that I wanted to preserve and protect my son’s brilliance, his creative instincts and his strong sense of self.  I think if done right, a traditional school environment can do the same thing.