First, I would break down "an education" a bit. The whole concept of
"education" as something apart from living and learning bugs me anyway.
I assume you are talking about things like reading, writing, math, etc.
The more important things (i.e. not the things mentioned above) can and
should be learned from ethically sound and reasonably intelligent
parents, whether they can spell "arachnid" or not.
As for "academic" stuff, or anything else the parents don't know, but
that the children should learn, a trade (moolah in exchange for instruction) is fine
and dandy by me. Actually, in these modern times, it is quite easy for
people to, in effect, teach things they don't know. Things like computer
programs, the Phonics Game, the zillions of math puzzles, etc., make
learning at home very effective, even if no one in the home knows the
stuff. As for learning about more specialized stuff, the internet kicks
some serious butt for research about virtually anything (especially if you
are doing research on "HOT WILD SEX"). It is now a lot more valuable to
know how to find the truth, than to know a lot of little pieces of the truth.
AltaVista rules. Good old-fashioned encyclopedias do, too (I mean the
really old ones that are made of paper, not the plastic silver discs).
For some specialties, however, the best arrangement (in my arrogant
opinion) is called "apprenticeship," where someone learns something by
helping someone do something who already knows how: bicycle repair,
computer programming, music production, hired assassin (just kidding).
This works for 5-year-old students and 80-year-old students alike -- and
often makes money for the apprentice in the meantime -- and that way
they learn from someone who knows something, not something from some
theorizing beanhead professor who couldn't get a job in the real world.
(Incidentally, child labor laws and the minimum wage often screw this
arrangement up.)
I have a couple major beefs with the accepted formal "education" system
(and I mean the whole concept, not whoever is screwing it up at the
moment):
(If anyone is offended by these . . .tough poop.)
1) Parents should be raising their children. Handing off your kid to
someone else for eight hours a day is not parenting. Eight hours a day,
five days a week, a few hundred days a year, twelve years or so is a lot
of time. That much lack of exposure of a kid to his parents bites. The
time that is left is usually pretty damn noneducational and
nonstimulating, i.e. everyone eats, collapses, watches TV, goes to bed.
Kids learn by example, from the day they are born until at least the
teenage years (and often until they die). I intend to be that example
to my daughter, not trust that some school will provide such an
example. (Radical, I know.)
2) The curriculum and clone quality of the formal "education" system is
about the worst arrangement I can think of for learning. For 30
minutes, you will sit in your chair and hear about geography, whether
you give a care about it or not. For the next 30 minutes, you will stop
learning about geography, even if you started actually getting
interested in it. You will then sit in your chair and hear about math,
whether you give a care about it or not. Do that a bunch more times
with a bunch more subjects, and you will have had the most inefficient
exposure to raw truth imaginable. The clone mentality bites. If a kid
is interested in something, let him learn about it! There's this sort
of religious underlying assumption that all kids must know a list of
things by a certain age. Know how to add by age ____. Spell "cat" by
age ____ (and I'm pretty sure the ___ is lower than Onry's age
Since I ragged on Onry just then, I'll use him as an example, and give
him a fat head. His spelling wasn't exactly superb a while back
(although I bet it's above average by a good bit now). What did it
matter? Yeah, there are times it would look better if he didn't use
"your" instead of "you're," like on a resumé ("I think your going too
bee glad you highered me" . . .aak). How does that inconvenience compare
with the benefit to him of his "research" into what he was interested
in? Not even close. I've seen enough anal-retentive, mindless,
communist-and-don't-even-know-it, anti-human, anti-mind, crowd-following
spelling masters to say that they aren't shit compared to Onry. If Onry
never gets "your"/"you're" right, how much does it really matter?
Now expand that to all grade-school subjects. If someone learns to
think, which happens most often when that person is allowed to pursue
what interests him, the ability to spell, or add, or conjugate a verb,
or find the volume of a cylinder, is not that important. That being
said, someone's interests usually give them some degree of competency in
these areas anyway.
I'm not saying parents shouldn't try to spark interest in things, but
dragging some kid through 200 hours of listening to something he
couldn't care less about does no good, not even in that subject. I
remember jack squat about history from school. I didn't care about it
then. I sat through plenty of it, and forgot it all by the time I
handed in the test that I spewed it back on. Recently I've started to
care about it, and I've accidentally (without any real intentional
research) learned more about it in a few months than I ever learned in
school. The assumption that everyone should know the same stuff SUCKS.
Not only that, but the methods used to try to make this happen don't
work.
"I know lots about _________, and I learned it all outside of school."
Fill in the blank. I can think of a few for myself. Now try this:
"I know lots about _________, and I learned it all at school."
Um... drawing a blank here. How about you?
In general, formal "education" does not:
1) Teach anyone to think.
2) Teach anyone much that they remember a month later.
3) Give a good example of how human beings should behave.
Instead (again, in general), it does teach:
1) You should sit still and wait for the "authority" figure to
enlighten you. (aak)
2) You should learn the things that the "authority" thinks you should
know. (Aak)
3) You should not talk to anyone without permission from the
"authority." (Aak!)
4) If accused of doing something wrong, you must prove your innocence.
(AAK)
5) If one person does something wrong, it is okay for all to be
punished. (AAK!)
6) You have nothing that is not subject to a search by "authority."
(AAK!!)
7) "Authority" will determine every detail of what you will do, and
when. (AAAK!!!!)
The list goes on, but I better stop before I get the urge to go blow up
the nearest "government" school.
Anyway, to answer the question (if I can remember it after all that
ranting), paying someone to help instruct your kids in a way you feel
you can't is fine and dandy by me. A kid learning something from
someone other than his parents is not somehow evil, but a lot of the
things that often go with it are. If a kid wants to know something,
it's tough to keep him from knowing it. If he doesn't want to know
something, it's tough to make him learn it. Once an interest is sparked
in something, the dog will pretty much walk itself (you just make sure
it doesn't wander into the road, or poop on someone else's living room
rug).
--Larken Rose, author of
Taxable Income