Hello. I'm listening to the conversation with the mother-daughter team who are touting "no school" for children. How charming, for people who don't need or dismiss the aspect of general education.

As a teacher, I am NOT in favor of home schooling at all, unless people live out in the wilds of Montana and have a very long jaunt to a school. Or the like. I don't really have time today to go into this, but stopped myself from going out the door (on errands) to send a short note. 

I taught 8th grade for many years. Wonderful, high-energy children that many people dismiss as "troublesome." I wrote all my own curriculum, and with a team of 3 other teachers, we developed an open-learning blend with basic required curriculum (Illinois) for our students. The administration cooperated with us and allowed us to re-structure the wing that housed the junior high school students.

Best wishes to the young lady who is working for her PhD in Sociology. I hope she will be able to open her mind and heart to the countless numbers of folk who have not had her "advantages."

Now I go out to the Library, where many children of our public education system will be coming to get and return books, to wait for their turn to work on a computer (they get 30 minutes when it is their turn) and to head for home when their parents are expected to arrive from their 2nd or possibly 3rd job. Or have no job in this desperate non-society of ours. 

And, the rest of us will carry on.
Best wishes to all,
Kate Walsh