A few nights ago there was a feature on a current affairs program about an alternative school that has been set up in Victoria. It shared some of the characteristics of many homeschooling families. Children learn at their own pace, when they want to and what they want to. The emphasis is taken off tests and exams and placed on the joy of learning just for the sake of knowing more. But the government has taken away funding to it and here is the reason why.

"By taking away the need to sit regular tests and exams, students are crippled in their thinking. They miss out on a necessary component in their development which is competing with their peer groups. Therefore, they enter the 'real world' with no idea of how to push themselves forward to vie for the best jobs and make the most of themselves."

I was upset by that report. The more I dwell on it, the sadder I feel. What sort of 'real world' do we live in, anyway? I don't want my children to learn that they must do their utmost to become "No 1" out there and to look at others as threats or people you must tread over on your way to the top. In fact, I'm sure comparing ourselves to others is a surefire way of making ourselves feel either proud and haughty or totally frustrated and inferior. I've experienced both these feelings at different times. There will always be people who are both better and worse at doing what we do and that's the way it will always be. Comparison is a treadmill we need to jump down from.

Galations 6: 12 says "Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself without comparing himself to somebody else for each one should carry his own load." No wonder it is so hard in our culture to learn to define our worth by our relationship to God, when we are so programmed to learn to regard each other as rivals.

I remember reading one of Robert Kiyosaki's earlier books before "Rich Dad, Poor Dad." This one had the apt title of "If You Love your Children, Don't Send them to School," or something like that. He included this story. In one of his first ever exams, a friend leaned over to ask him the answer to one of the questions. Robert knew the answer and whispered it back, but the boys were caught and hauled before the principal, who punished them.

The school wanted to gauge each individual's progress in order to rank them and therefore, the two boys were "cheating". But in young Robert Kiyosaki's bewildered opinion, he was simply helping out a friend, which is what his parents had always taught him to do. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?