Hail Proscrustes?

On Homeschooling, "Unschooling", the Religious Right, and the Profoundly Gifted

Because apparently I don’t come up with ideas, I respond to them….

As somebody who volunteered with my ex-wife to work with homeschooled/ ”unschooled” Profoundly Gifted children who didn’t fit in our “One Size Fits All” Public Education System? And who is an end result of what happens when you try to force a Gifted child through the Procrustean Bed of American Public Education?

“Hmm—A Bit TOO Long to Fit…. Guess We’ll Have to Chop Some Off!”

I’m on the horns of a dilemma here:

• On the one hand, I sure don’t want KKKhrister Right bigots getting money that should go to educating the vast, non-Religious White Right majority of citizens and residents!

• On the other? I know how many parents of Gifted children rely on vouchers to allow them to teach those kids without imposing an order that’s actively detrimental to them and to the students around them.

For myself, I got put in Learning Disabilities classes because the U.S. Army Dependent Schools I went to most of the time I was growing up didn’t know WTF else to do with me. While I enjoyed the classes themselves, it meant I got bullied, a lot, growing up—something that what passes for “education” to the U.S. Military appears to actively encourage! There wasn’t any alternative for the child of an Army Sergeant in a foreign country, especially not at that point in history!

As for the Christianists? I know they see public education as “social indoctrination”, and you know what? They’re 100% Correct! It is “indoctrinating” children—in learning to play well with others, in learning how to listen (even if you don’t agree with) opinions not your own, in learning how to respect that people who look different than you are people the same as you….

“Frightenin’, Ain’t It?”

So? What’s the answer here? Do we cut gifted children off at the kneecaps because the U.S. Public Education System has little ability, and less interest, in dealing with them, and would prefer to pump them full of Ritalin in the name of “order”? Or do we let a bunch of Religious Right fruitcakes who think overpopulating the Earth will help them in their “Final Battle” against Everybody Not Them get their way? I don’t know—but I tend to err on the side of the gifted kids, because I once was one.