The Best Learning Environment

Where would you suppose is the best environment for a child to learn?

To some, it’s the public school– they can afford to have the best equipment, they have accredited teachers, and they push a lot of children through that seem to turn out all right.

Then there’s those that would say it’s the private/religious school– just look at their test scores, the fact that they can walk in neat lines, are well dressed, and get accepted to big name universities.

Beginning in my generation, there’s the option of homeschooling– there’s a variety of curriculum, you can do it via Internet or Satellite, field trips can be lots of fun, and they usually win those crazy geography/spelling bees.

No where on this list do you find “the forest,” and yet that is just where police found this man and his 12-year-old daughter. Mindclearer brings us the relevant snippets. Now granted, not every parent is going to be able to do for their child what this man did, but when the police found this girl she was well spoken beyond her years, clean, healthy, free of any signs of physical or sexual abuse, and had no cavities. When tested, the girl was found to have the equivalent of a 12th grade education, though she would be in the 7th grade.

The original article said they had to move to a trailer, though it doesn’t mention what schooling the girl is in now. One wonders how a person with a higher education level would fit in– perhaps the “experts” would say that she is not socialized enough since she couldn’t talk down to the kids her age’s level. They did say that the state is looking into getting her a college scholarship.

I was thinking along these lines just yesterday– not the go-into-the-woods and build-a-lean-to approach, but the concept of how the next generation’s leaders may be homeschooled children because of their education and that they think outside the box. There are a lot of cookie-cutter children out there, and with the advent of homeschooling, that isn’t something that has to be. Virtuous Blonde thought that if it got to be that way the state would just regulate it to death, but I think– by the rate that it’s growing– it would be hard to do!

There is coming a time where more and more parents are going to be wondering why Johnny and Susie aren’t as smart as their homeschooled next door neighbors, and they are going to really start complaining about the public school system. When that happens, watch out.