FREEDOM AND EDUCATION

Freedom to learn has been a topic of a long list of critics of education including Froebel, Goodman, Illich, Holt, Friere and others. It has also been the cry of an increasing number of today's activists. My concern here is the gap between the wise men of the past and the activists of today. Although the leave school advocates and activists is rising at a impressive rate with the advent of homeschooling, charterschools, cyberlearning, vouchers, and a conglomerate of other educational modalities, very few, if any, have escaped the syndrome of educate/teach/school. Christian schooling is the whipping boy for a different purpose for brain washing. But nearly all other school refusers are based on the non existent "parental rights" -the right of parents to teach whatever they want to their children. They are almost paranoid in choosing or designing a curriculum for their children to follow. Ofttimes the state demands such a curriculum before they will recognize the right to homeschool.