8 Reasons To Not Send Your Child To School: The Unschooling Manifesto

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The reason I’m writing this article is because I know I’m going to get a lot of questions and judgements from family and friends when we decide to politely “opt out” of sending our future child to a state run school system. Heck imagine telling your kids to skip college and pursue their passions or their dreams. It’s not very popular to question certain things in our culture!

The idea of “Unschooling” has been gaining lots of momentum over the past few years but it has been around for many many years. I’m sure you have heard of home schooling. But even home schooling has drawn lots of criticism from folks who love the comfort of being in the status quo.

What I’m talking about here is something called, unschooling. You don’t send your kid to a public school, a private school or even a home school. I know this idea sounds far out there. But if you’re close minded to it, don’t worry you’re probably just a product of the educational system that hasn’t taught you to have an open mind. People fear what they don’t know.

I’m sure we’ll be getting lots of questions like…

• How will your child turn out if they don’t go to school?
• Aren’t you depriving them from socialization and creating friends?
• Everybody has to go to school don’t you know that?
• What’s so bad about schools anyway?

I’m sure we’ll get a lot more questions than that from worried people.

If you are in favor of schools I’d like to ask you a few questions:

• How did school make you a better person?
• What part of your day to day life has school enhanced the most?
• How has going to school benefited you as an adult on a day to day level?
• What life skills did you learn in school?
• How has school opened your mind?
• How has school increased your passion for learning?
• How much of your adult life do you dedicate to learning new things?
• Did school teach you how to balance your check book?
• Did school teach you how to feed yourself properly?
• Has school taught you how to influence people effectively
• Has school taught you how to be the best version of you possible?

Whenever you question such basic ideas that are seemingly fundamental to American or Western culture, you’re going to get odd looks or opposition from people who have never taken the time to learn anything about what you’re saying.

At first glance when you question something as basic and fundamental as simply going to school, people get scared because deep down they might agree with you but they are so identified with what they’ve been taught, they don’t want to subject themselves to the same ridicule or scrutiny you’re subjecting yourself to. They wan’t to agree with you but they’re scared. And these are the exact reasons why I don’t think schools are shaping our minds correctly.

Why are we so afraid to step outside of the box and question these types of seemingly fundamental institutions?

Perhaps we’re afraid to step outside the box because we’ve all been conditioned through years and years of indoctrination from the education system to follow the pack. We don’t want to rock the boat because we’ve been conditioned not to.

The very fact that people are close minded, judgmental and won’t consider unschooling as a viable choice is reason enough to question the types of mindset that schools have created.

If schools consistently produced highly intelligent people with open minds that thought about things in an open and objective way, than attending school might be something to consider. But the fact that people can’t even think outside the box and question something like school is kind of scary.

We don’t need more close minded, emotional and judgmental people in society. What we need is the opposite.

In that vein I’d like to ask a few questions and think about things in an open minded way when it pertains to our current educational system.

Who’s In Charge Of The Curriculum?

The current public educational system has its roots deep in the pockets of the Rockefeller and Carnegie families. You can find more about that by clicking here. And in my opinion these people are less than stellar individuals. Some people downright [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=GFWzDFjBKUw width=640 height=480 anchor=hate-them] and have video taped their [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=6sCioKnpHdY width=640 height=480 anchor=confrontations] with them.

In fact it was Rockefeller who said,

“It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”

and

“This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long — We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

Over the years governments all around the world and politicians alike have lied to the people, started unconstitutional wars, imposed unjust sanctions, illegally occupied other countries, invaded nations, set policies and done whatever they can to protect their global positions. It’s these same governments that have created our public school systems.

I often think about the word relationships when it comes to our interactions with these institutions. We all have a relationship with them and what they create. There’s no way around it.

In a romantic relationship how often should a wife trust her husband after he repeatedly lies and cheats on her? Should she blindly continue to believe him when he comes home late at night smelling like perfume, with messed up hair and lipstick all over his face? How many lies must she endure before she finally severs that relationship?

Whether we like it or not, we are in a similar relationship with our government and the policies, laws and institutions it offers us. At the very least it’s important to realize that we are dealing with an entire institution that wants nothing more than to continue to exist and push agenda.

Why should the curriculum be selected and put into place and then forced upon my child unilaterally by people I don’t trust or agree with? These people don’t have my good fortune at heart. And neither should they. Their job is to keep the status quo and continue doing whatever it is they do. Look at slavery or the right for women to vote as two examples of legalized injustices that took massive unrest, demonstrations and protesting to overcome. Had we never protested those unjust laws there would still be slavery and women wouldn’t’ be able to vote.

This is the same government that is determining what your child should be learning.

Scary.

What They’ll Be Learning

We all know that history is written by the winners of wars. In 2001 I read a book called A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. This book gives the “other side” of just about everything we’re taught in school.

The curriculum of school MUST be regulated. There must be “banned books” because the institution itself must be protected from critical thinking. It has to be this way in order to maintain the socially accepted status quo.

Whether it’s the story of Columbus, the Civil War, JFK, the moon landings, the Gulf of Tonkin, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Pearl Harbor or anything else, remember there are always two sides to the story. Within the limited confines and marginalized framework of the school system, you’re only going to be spoon fed what they want you to know about those events. And what you’ll hear will always make the United States look like the good guy. Always. You can trust me on this one.

It’s like watching a basketball game with a fan of a certain team. The fan never thinks the player on their team commits a foul. But if you watch the game objectively outside of rooting for one team or another, you’ll see ALL the players are committing fouls.

And in this example the players would be the policy makers. They’re the ones committing the fouls. It’s because we accept the brainwashing we’ve received our entire lives that we think that these policy makers have our best interest at heart. We don’t think they commit any fouls because they’ve brainwashed us to root for them.

Can you say, The Pledge of Allegiance?

Why would I knowingly force my child to go to a school so they can be indoctrinated and brainwashed to believe things that aren’t even true?

Vaccinations/School Lunches

The idea of injecting poison, heavy metals and toxic substances directly into the blood stream (bypassing critical buffering organs like the colon and liver) of my child just so they can be manipulated, controlled and taught things that aren’t true just doesn’t make sense to me.

Am I taking [video_lightbox_youtube video_id=ZG_xNbVMmIA width=640 height=480 anchor=crazy-pills] here?

Even if the educational system were good for children, it’s still not worth injecting a child with these substances to have whatever supposed benefits they might be getting.

And God only knows what kinds of foods are served at school lunches. The school lunch program is a complete joke. Schools have vending machines selling Coke, Pepsi and every other genetically modified poisonous food substance that are harming our youth. And to think the schools allow all of this to make some extra money, is nothing short of frightening.

In my opinion, if schools know what’s in these foods and how these food products harm children, how could I in good conscience send somebody I love to a place like this? And it appears that the school system values the dollars they get from the vending machine companies and food production companies more than your child. If they cared at all about the children they would understand how these foods are damaging the children and make changes.

But they don’t. So I can only assume they’re too lazy to look into it or they value money more than children.

And I would send my child to an institution like this because….

Socialization?

Many times I hear how it’s important for a child to interact with other children so they can have better social skills. To some degree this is true. But on the flip side, why would I want my child to interact with children coming from broken families, fed poor quality foods, injected with toxic vaccinations and indoctrinated by the school system?

These kids are living in fear and they’re taught to believe everything they hear without question and are generally unhappy kids acting out of fear. How would my child benefit from the petty little interactions they would have with such a kid?

Would they learn to make fun of other kids because of how they look? Would they be influenced to do harmful things because they have no sense of who they are? If I’m going to learn social skills I don’t hang out with criminals. I’m not saying these other kids are criminals but I’m saying the quality of the other child is important.

Plus socialization occurs when any child interacts with another human being. It doesn’t have to be another person the exact same age. Think about it. Do you have 30 adult friends you interact with on a daily basis? No. You probably have 5 or 10 close friends you see every once in a while.

Kids will learn socialization every single day whether we try to force them or not. It’s like learning how to walk, you just do it every day you don’t have to force it.

In my opinion the socialization argument is one that was put into place by the very institutions that are trying to justify and maintain their existence.

Violence

Not only are kids damaged by vaccinations, poor diet, controlling teachers and broken families, they’re on psychiatric medications also. Sometimes these medications make kids do crazy things like bring a gun to school and kill people. Here in the United States we’ve seen a significant increase in school violence in recent years.

Is there a correlation between childhood vaccinations, broken families, psychiatric drugs and violent behavior? Again putting my child in a place of potential danger just so they can be taught things that aren’t true doesn’t seem to make sense to me.

It goes back to risk and reward. Does the reward outweigh the risk? The reward is being taught things that aren’t true. The risk is potential death or danger. In my mind there’s no question.

Can you remember all of the wonderful facts you were spoon fed in school? I know I can’t. There are a couple of classes that benefited me when I was in school. One was cooking, the other was computers and typing, and the other was critical thinking.

Everything else is a blur and has not benefited me in any way in my adult life. All the learning I do now is because I’m a lover of knowledge and enjoy expanding my mind.

The parents of the home schooled kids have to be breathing a sigh of relief after they hear about a school shooting in their area. It’s sad that we live life in such a way that we subject our kids to schools where bullying and violence can take place.

Learning Styles

Schools teach performance based on the grading system. This system does nothing to enhance or foster the curious and inquisitive minds that are natural in children. This is snuffed out of them at a very early age. They’re told what’s important and what they will learn and how they must learn it. And if they do not comply they’re labeled as not smart and as a result subjected to ridicule by their peers.

A child naturally wants to learn things. It’s the way nature works. But when we force them to read, study and memorize useless facts (that may or may not even be true) just so they can get some kind of “grade” it teaches them that grades are more important than learning. Grades are king in schools. It’s all about what your GPA is not what kind of person you are. “Getting good grades” simply tells me that a certain kid is a hard worker and easily manipulated.

I remember when I was in high school I was never a good test taker. If there was going to be a mid term on the last 20 chapters of a text book I would inevitably end up studying all the wrong stuff. I’d study the information I thought was going to be on the test and (unknowingly) none of the stuff that actually was on the test.

As a result I would get a C instead of an A. But that just means that I knew different information. It doesn’t mean that I knew no information, it was just different information than what was on the test. But if all that matters is getting an “A” then I would be labeled as not smart. But in reality I just learned different information.

On top of the grade issue is the issue of learning style. All humans learn differently. Some of us learn by a hands on “doing” approach. Some learn best by audio. Some learn best by the written word.

Schools only foster one approach to learning and try to squeeze and conform all kids to learn the exact same way. When some kids excel and others fall behind, instead of figuring out what works for them we label them and treat them accordingly. How sad.

If schools truly educated people, don’t you think the teachers would be smart enough to realize that not all kids learn the same way? Food for thought.

In my opinion the entire approach to learned is out dated, archaic and should be thrown into the ash bin of history. It’s time to teach kids in entirely new ways.

I’d much rather have a child who has a passion for learning new things than a kid who used to have that passion but had it pounded out of them because they were focused on getting good grades to please others.

And by the way this is a beautiful way of creating a child that’s passionless and willing to live a life of quiet desperation based on conformity in every area of their life.

Thanks but no thanks.

Why Do We Have Do Send Our Kids To School In The First Place?

In my opinion the answer is money. Most people are either completely in debt or they love money so much both parents want to work. Most of the time it’s the former not the latter. Parents have houses to pay off, student loan debt, credit card debt all racking up month after month, year after year. Because of this debt, both parents must work in order to make ends meet.

So now that both parents are working where do we send little Johnny all day long? Well we send them to a glorified day care until they’re 18 called school. You see kids are too young to work so we have nowhere to put them all day so why not create a thing called school. This is where we can mold and shape each new generation and train them to be good little citizens who pay their taxes on time and hopefully get in debt too. This will ensure the cycle continues.

And on it goes…

If you had parents who understood money and didn’t get in debt and lived in such a way so as to not need both parents to work, one of them could stay home with little Johnny and raise him up the right way.

Again if schools produced educated people we wouldn’t be in so much debt because we would have been taught how to live our lives and handle money properly. Another reason schools aren’t working.

What Type Of Person Are Our Schools Creating?

When determining whether or not to do this or that, it’s often a good idea to look at the end result of a particular action. If I do X for 10 years what’s the result? If the result is something you like and if X is something you love than pursue doing it.

I realize that looking at things in a particular way can inherently polarize predisposed ideas about what we think is good or bad, but this is the way I look at it.

When kids graduate college are they happy? Are they in debt? Did they learn, grow, expand and become better people as a result? Did they learn how to handle money? Did they learn how to be a person of influence? Did they learn and develop a passion for learning? Did they learn how to manage and be successful in every area of their lives? What kinds of things did they learn?

Most likely they were forced to learn things that will have no day to day impact on their daily lives. And they were forced to learn it in a way that’s not even compatible with their learning style. On top of it, they didn’t go to college to develop these life skills, they went there to party and get a degree in something they don’t really like all that much just so they could earn lots of money and pay off their student loan debt.

Am I the only one who sees a vicious cycle here?

Question everything.

Are schools creating kids who are looking to foster and protect the resources of the world like free energy, dependence on oil, food, water and air?

Going to school to get a degree so you can earn a lot of money has to be one of the most shallow and depressing ways to go about living life.

After attending all the best colleges and educational institutions many young adults don’t even know how to eat or how to maintain healthy stable relationships. They don’t know how to live a balanced, centered life that truly impacts the world. The basic life skills are lacking even though they attended the worlds top colleges and universities.

Why is this?

In my opinion the idea of school is to maintain the status quo. It’s to create mindless and fearful subjects who don’t question anything and are too busy paying off debt to really make this world a better place.

Creating smart, passionate, determined, confident and self actualized people who are not easily controlled is not what the school system wants for ensuing generations.

If schooling created such children, this would only ensure one thing. The end of traditional educational establishments. Why? Because people would understand that schools aren’t the only way to learn.

But we can’t have that now can we?

What do you think? Was school something you enjoyed and benefited from or was it something you disliked and forced yourself to get through?