Two of the biggest lies they tell you in school are: 1) you can't learn without being taught, and 2) you need a high school diploma to get into college.

We worry too much about reading levels, potty training and messy rooms; and perhaps too little about living a happy life with our loved ones in the short time we are given with them.
-- Rebecca Eanes

'We simply cannot understand why children so often don't show up to this place that they hate going to.'

Free play is just as important as math & reading❤️

I've seen a lot of content about 'teaching kids to be curious' and 'helping them be full of wonder'

The thing is you don't have to teach them to be curious

Their natural state is wonder

You just have to stop squashing it

Compulsory schooling is unjust. It is involuntary incarceration. It runs completely counter to the nature of childhood and to children’s real, biological needs to learn through free play and exploration. And it is not necessary for normal development.
--Peter Gray

“The requirement that a child go to school, for about six hours a day, 180 days a year, for about ten years, whether or not he learns anything there, whether or not he already knows it or could learn it faster or better somewhere else, is such a gross violation /1

The available evidence suggests quite strongly that school is bad for children’s mental health. Of course, it’s bad for their physical health, too; nature did not design children to be cooped up all day at a micromanaged, sedentary job.
-- Peter Gray

'Compulsory' means 'forced' and force is violence, and what people call 'education' is violence against kids. To respond to that as if this were something subjective by saying, 'I'm sorry you feel that way', ignores this in your face and very objective truth.

“My mother taught me that reading is a kind of work, & that every paragraph merits exertion, & in this way, I learned how to absorb difficult books. Soon after I went to kindergarten, however, I learned that reading difficult books also brings trouble.”

~ Hope Jahren, _Lab Girl_

'As soon as we associate reading a book with taking a test, we've missed the point.'

'I want children in school to find happiness. Not momentary fireworks, but the saturating joy of purpose and meaning in life. Not someday, but now, as children.'
circleschool.org/blog/2023/04/f…

“'Did I say you could get back up?' said the stern 4th-grade instructor, who told her class there would be plenty of time to barricade themselves behind her desk after she finished assigning their fractions unit homework.' theonion.com/the-sound-of-g…

I can’t fucking believe that in 2023 human beings still do this to little children.

Thread:

wow! What if? Seriously, what if...?

None. Of. Us. Died.

I played on every bit of that equipment in the park near us —without adult supervision!—and I’m still here. As is every other kid in our neighborhood who went to the playground. Also w/o adult (or SWAT team) supervision!