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Whenever I wonder about the future of our homeschool adventure, I can usually count on the Lord to send me out like a hockey puck through the culture that I usually avoid. (My middle daughter told me a couple of weeks ago that she really wanted to go to a mall! When I asked why, whatever could there be at a mall that she wanted to see; she answered that she wanted to ride on an escalator! And that she wanted to see all the stuff for sale. She's always been a shoe/jewelry hound--even as a baby.) The great thing is that I keep "accidentally" meeting homeschool moms who have and are graduating children from homeschool high school. It happened again this week! Thank you Lord. ANYWAY, it only took an hour at the public library yesterday to remind me why I'm homeschooling and why I will continue until they pry my cold, dead fingers from the pencil sharpener... Our library is small, really small. We're in a small used-to-be rural community that has experienced the growth pangs of an in-the-country-but-close-enough-of-a-commute-to-develop-everything-in-sight expansion. So large new schools have been built all around the little library (which is planning a new larger version of itself a couple miles up the road.) Because of its handy location between the high school and new middle school, the library is a very convenient dumping off ground for school children. Sort of a free babysitting service for the masses. I have experienced this on several occasions. Once I watched an elderly (and grouchy) children's librarian trying to catch and stop some boys in the children's section as the crawled down the book aisles snickering at her. There's always young people standing out front or sitting in the entrance hall waiting for parents. Usually there are a couple boys with skateboards and blackened hair. There are girls hanging on said boys. Yesterday one boy was hugging on two different girls. Then there were the middle schoolers sitting in the main entrance hall looking intently at the ring on her hand. Clearly we've been watching a lot of Desperate Housewives. Then the public computers in the main hall are crammed with kids and kids waiting to get on. Kids with blackened slicked-down-over-their-face, kids with studs and leather and piercings, kids who look like the picked-on wimpy kids. Kids in the adult area spitting things at one another. Kids sitting with older kids tutoring them in ridiculous knowledge that they don't need other than to regurgitate on a test sometime to justify the existence of the establishment. Ick...ick..ick I know I am prejudiced. I know I discriminate. But when I read the stories in the paper about test scores (the only way they can justify their indoctrination/incarceration) and failure and how more school is the answer, either earlier or oftener, I just want to scream--isn't it obvious that something is wrong with the system??? Is this the only "industry" that won't look outside its box. Read Gatto! Why do we school the way we do?? It's crazy. And parents willingly hand their children over for 12 years of it!! Insanity.
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