Why do we place so much value on reading as a culture but fail to raise a country of readers?
Read More4 Strategies to Raise Children of Good Character →
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Societal influences can make it easy or difficult to raise a child who is well-mannered, respectful, and resourceful.
In today’s social climate, we face many parenting challenges, but there are strategies you can implement to ensure a better outcome for your family.
When our children are young, we want to train them to do the right thing, so they develop the right habits in childhood and learn to make the right choices.
“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
It begins with little things such as learning to pick up after themselves, doing chores before they play, and learning to be considerate of other people's needs.
Role Models
Good role models in a child’s life are essential. If the parents treat each other courteously, are respectful towards family and friends, and honest and helpful with others, the children are more likely to follow suit.
Discipline
As no child is born a civilized human being, there is also a training through discipline that has to occur, too. In fact, raising our children to become civilized human beings is the essence of our work.
Good parents can produce bad children; there are no guarantees that children turn out well.
Discipline is key to developing the qualities that make up good character, as it takes discipline to do what is demanded of us!
Think of how much discipline it takes to pass up a piece of chocolate cake, to put away the screens, to go the gym.
Discipline is a key trait that most of us never develop. It is what sets the above-average, who reach great heights in their endeavors, from those who never will.
Public School
Public school can undo your hard work, though, because rudeness and crudeness are now the norms. Children sent to school for eight hours a day where the teachers are not allowed to discipline them, are at a disadvantage.
However children who spend their days in a homeschooled environment are with adults who are able to put the time and effort into guiding the kids in the right ways.
At home, we do have authority over our children and can discipline them as needed. The right training in childhood is essential to raising a well-mannered, happy child.
Spare the rod, spoil the child, was an old adage that adults used to repeat before the 60's cultural revolution when sound parenting principles were abandoned for unproven theories.
Multi Media
Another disadvantage to raising children today is the decline in quality films and the introduction of screen activities.
The films are vulgar, the music is ribald, childhood games are on screens, and texting replaces real conversation.
On top of that, social media alone is causing a distortion of the way children see themselves and the world, leading to a host of mental health issues.
Negative influences will unravel any good work you've done to raise your children well, which is why we need to be diligent with the environments that influence our children.
The aforementioned should be a strict NO for every concerned!
The Ancient Greeks knew that bad influences in a child's life would affect their characters. It is really just a matter of common sense, something the Ancient Greeks had plenty of.
We’ve buried our head’s in the sand, though, because we believe we can put our children into these environments and all will be fine.
Our children are telling us a different story, and it’s time we start listening to them.
We have a generation of children, raised on technology, who are becoming active in the movement to protect children from the ill-effects of technology, because they can see the damage it has caused to their generation.
A Dishonest Trend
Dishonesty is a serious character defect, but it is common now. Ninety-seven percent of schoolchildren are dishonest according to statistics gathered by Vickie Abeles, who produced the documentary, Race to Nowhere.
Even without the statistics, we know from experience that we are no longer an honest society. Each of us deals with it every single day.
During the Covid days, my son took a statistics exam online, only to receive an email from the teacher announcing that some of the students had cheated on the exam.
I was told the exam was easy, too. College students cheating on an easy exam?
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
Cheating is a habit for many children today.
When cheating on exams is pardoned with no serious repercussions, we are tolerating dishonesty and teaching our kids that it is no big deal.
But it is a big deal. Bad character is a big deal because these people cause harm to others, and they cause harm to themselves.
For sure, they don’t sleep well at night.
These students have learned to become dishonest people, because they are raised in a system that doesn't uphold the values of truth, goodness, and beauty.
It’s difficult to believe now that such values were once so honored in the West, but it is true.
In a Nutshell
Protect your children from the negative influences in society for as long as you can. Raise them in a bubble! Allow them the time to develop in healthy ways; physically, morally, and intellectually, because the bubble will burst.
When it does, you want to feel confident that you did your job well, by giving your children the right kind of start in life.
The rest is up to them.
Don’t miss our free download, 7 Steps to Protect Your Child's Mind and Heart from Negative Influences.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
11 Ways to Convince your Spouse to Homeschool (even if you think he'll never agree!)→
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If your husband or wife’s mind is already set against homeschooling, you have to approach the situation very gingerly. It’s not wise to push our views on someone, least of all a spouse.
“It is time that we squarely face the fact that institutional schoolteaching is destructive to children.”
Usually when a spouse doesn’t agree with homeschooling, it’s because he doesn’t understand what John Taylor Gatto refers to as "the dangers of public school."
The Conversation
But you can start the conversation by asking your spouse a question, such as, "What are your hopes and goals for our children’s education?"
You have now opened the channels for him to let you know his hopes and goals in a non-threatening way. As he shares these with you, listen for his concerns too.
Once you’ve got a friendly discussion going, approach the subject of homeschooling.
If you were to consider homeschooling, would he have any objections or concerns? If so, what would those be?
The Objections
The typical objections to homeschooling are the following:
The children will be academically behind and fail to get into a reputable college.
Homeschooled kids lack good social skills.
Homeschooled children don’t have any friends.
You aren’t qualified to homeschool unless you’re an accredited teacher.
You aren’t qualified to homeschool unless you have a college degree.
Maybe your husband doesn't know any homeschoolers and the idea sounds too fantastic to him?
Keep in mind that your spouse wants what is best for his children just as much as you do.
The Persuasion
Whatever his objections are, you want to take note and ask him if he would be open to watching some videos on the subject, looking at some research, or even reading some books together.
If you keep the conversation neutral and show a genuine interest in his views and concerns, most reasonable husbands will oblige their wives.
Now, here comes the tricky part: you will need to provide him with information that is sound and relevant.
No need to panic though because we have you covered. You can download our free resource list to convince anyone about the merits of homeschooling.
The list will provide you with 11 resources to educate your husband (or anyone) about the many problems with public school and why homeschooling is the best option today.
This resource is also helpful if you have family members or friends who are strongly opposed to homeschooling.
Grab your free download here: 11 Resources to Convince Anyone to Homeschool.
Once someone truly understands what is fundamentally wrong with public school, it is near impossible to put a child into it unless the person has no other choice.
Some Cautionary Advice
Be careful about taking the attitude of proving your spouse wrong. No one likes to be proven wrong, and trying to show your spouse that you were right will not help your cause.
Instead, you want to humble yourself and be gentle in the way you handle the situation.
Go slowly.
When someone has a fixed opinion, it’s prudent to allow time for that person to shift into a new mindset.
Start early by educating your spouse when your children are young.
By the time they are ready to go to school, hopefully, you'll both be excited about homeschooling!
“School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.”
Upcoming FREE Live Masterclass! Discover 3 Homeschooling Mistakes No One Tells You About! with Liz Hanson
Free Download: 11 Resources to Convince Anyone to Homeschool.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
Don't Teach Your Children About Diversity!→
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One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we can protect our children from political agendas that don't serve mankind, and the diversity issue may be one of them.
It mirrors the old military strategy of Julius Caesar's, "divide and conquer."
And Julius Caesar was no dummy.
So why is diversity the wrong conversation to have with your children? The best illustration for arguing against a topic which has divided so many of us is the example of my mother.
My mother was different from the social-justice warriors you hear about today. An original warrior, she never preached to anyone, she wasn't spouting angry rhetoric about perceived wrongs, she never felt better than you or me because of the services she did; she just helped where she saw that people needed help.
When I was a young child, my mother was very active in the Civil Rights Movement, a violent and bloody time in America. Despite the dangers, she relentlessly marched with the oppressed in their struggle for equality, more worried about their safety than she was her own.
The World Encyclopedia even included a picture of her and my sister Kathleen, who had both flown across the country to demonstrate with hundreds of other people in the historic march on Selma, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1965.
My mother is on the left, my sister is holding the sign.
As I became a young woman, my mother, who was now middle-aged, served on the board for the homeless people where she listened to their stories, helped them get shelter, and assisted people in getting back on their feet.
She said to me once that homeless people weren't the bums others thought they were; they were usually people who'd had some hardship in life with no one to fall back on for support, and they'd ended up on the streets.
Her heart always went out to the underserved amongst us.
When I hit my middle-ages, my mother, who was now an old woman, served as a volunteer teaching the Hispanic community English. She did that until she became ill at the age of ninety.
To my mother, each life mattered because each life contained a human heart and that human heart possessed inherent dignity and worth. That was the ideal my mother embodied and lived by.
Color, religion, race; those weren't labels she understood.
She recognized that we all suffer the loss of loved ones, we all worry about our children, most of us struggle with our siblings, some of us wonder if God exists and many of us question why so much killing and suffering happens in the name of religion.
There’s more sameness in us than there is difference.
The Diversity Rhetoric Questioned
Some years back, after my mother passed away, I had a series of experiences which led me to question the new diversity rhetoric that had emerged, such as the time I was asked to give a talk on education to a group of mothers from varying backgrounds.
In defense of diversity, a woman of color felt it her duty to ask me why I only promoted books written by white people. Well, I don't, I explained. I promote books for the quality of the writing and content, not because of the skin color of the author.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. ”
The fact is that there are only six canons of great literature in the world and one of them belongs to the West.
I had wanted to introduce these women to our body of great books for children—not all of whom were written by white people—but this particular mom could only see the color of my skin and what she thought was the color of the authors' skin.
Another experience was with a friend who espoused diversity ideals. When Trump became president, this particular friend of mine from an Eastern country grew livid and said to me, "The white people have shown their true colors!"
I had never seen my friend in terms of her skin color, yet she had just revealed that that was exactly how she saw me. I was her "white" friend and now my people had shown their true colors.
But the experience that took the cake was when an academic corrected me after I objected to the racism of a certain "movement" which was in vogue at the time.
She informed me that I could not accuse other people of being racist because I was white and only white people were racist. Her lack of logical reasoning dumbfounded me.
When you have lived in many different countries, as I have, you learn about different cultures and different ways of viewing the world. I can tell you first-hand that I have never met a people who did not think they were better than another people.
In every country I’ve lived in, there’s always been the majority group who believed they were better than the minority group or they were better than the people of a neighboring country.
And then there's the individuals; us. Have you ever known an individual who did not express a judgement on another individual, either verbally or by inference?
We expose our petty, self-righteous arrogance every day; she gossips too much, he's too ambitious, he's too materialistic, she's too bossy.
Whatever they is, we is above it, right?
“We’re all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.”
We all contain seeds of the virtues in our hearts such as compassion, generosity, temperance.
However, our hearts also contain seeds of the vices, such as envy, anger, greed.
But the crowning vice is arrogance, and some of us cultivate the roots of it more than we like to admit, even to ourselves.
Yet, what is racism, if not arrogance?
The Danger of the Group
There are a lot of diverse groups in America and they largely stick to their own kind. Maybe it's a kind of religion; or a kind of race, or a kind of political ideology, but "groups" tend to keep to their own, which makes sense because, after all, they are groups.
But there is something dangerous about a clustering of kind when we base our identity on the "group" we belong to and see people outside of the "group" as the "other."
Barbara Coloroso, a parenting expert who had studied the genocide in Rwanda, said that the seeds of genocide take root when we objectify a group of people as "other."
Rather than see them as fellow human beings traveling with us through the journey of life, we see them as "different" from us.
And that's the crux of the matter. When we teach about diversity, we are teaching about differences, we are teaching about the "other."
If we allow our identity to be based on the identity of a particular group instead of our shared humanity, we lose sight of the inward bonds of our collective hearts.
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
It's not that we can't be a member in a group, but let's not be of the group. And if we have to identify with a group, then let's identify with the group of human beings who shed tears of joy and sorrow for all the same things.
That was the group to which my mother belonged.
Instead of teaching our children about our differences, I'm suggesting we raise our children to focus on our samenesses.
Genocide is genocide; it doesn't matter who is committing it or who it's being committed against.
When it comes to the innocent slaughter of women and children; regardless of their race, religion, or color, who are we being if we don't stand on the side of mercy?
Who are we when we raise our children to think in terms of "otherness" instead of the common bond of the human heart?
When we dismiss a child's book, not on whether or not the book is worth reading, but because of the skin color of the authors, haven't we ourselves nurtured the seed of genocide?
Upcoming FREE Masterclass! Discover 3 Homeschooling Mistakes No One Tells You About
with Liz Hanson
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
Don't Homeschool If Your Children Have This One Bad Habit!→
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The most frequent complaint I get from homeschooling moms is that their children don't listen to them. It's more than just a complaint because for a homeschooling mom, not listening is a serious issue.
Children who don't listen, won't obey and children who don't obey, won't get their work done. Which means that you, the homeschooling parent, will struggle to do your job well.
“The essence of successful discipline is not technique; rather, it is self-confidence.”
However, I am not suggesting that you put your children into school; but only to train them to listen before you continue homeschooling. After all, the skill of listening is a vital skill and one children must be taught.
An Effective Approach
The most effective approach would be to stop homeschooling for a short period until you get your relationship back on course with your children.
The reason for this is because the frustration everyone is feeling from the tug of war around studying is probably causing a lot of tension, and your children may develop a negative association with homeschooling if it continues.
Once your children decide that homeschooling is no fun, instead of one problem, you’ve now got two. So a break is the best strategy for this situation.
But rather than announce you are putting homeschooling on hold until they learn to obey, announce that next week will be a homeschool break week. You don't need to offer any reason other than, "Because I said so!".
The Crux of the Matter
Now, you can focus on the issue which, at the core, is a problem of disrespect. Like most parents in the West, your children are not showing you the respect you deserve.
It's a societal problem for various reasons including, but not limited to, the negative influences on children via multi-media and technology, as well as the push for modern parenting practices that sound great in theory but haven’t worked.
While there are multiple strategies that should be employed in your efforts to correct your relationship with your children, we'll focus on the primary tactic of assuming the role of leadership.
As two captains will sink a ship, you and your spouse will have to show up as one. In other words, you have one voice. What one says, the other supports, at least in front of the children. Any disagreements you have regarding your children, must be discussed privately.
Successful Parenting Traits
It's critical to understand the traits of successful parents, so you can learn to imitate them until they become your traits, too.
Successful parenting leadership…
They are decisive
They communicate clear expectations
They hold their children accountable
They assume authority (not to be confused with "authoritarian")
They set clear boundaries
They give their children age-appropriate responsibilities
They do not bend down to their children's level; they let their children look up to them
If this list sounds too authoritarian, it may be in comparison to the modern advice you've probably been given.
The question to ask yourself is, how's that working?
Your children need to see you as the authority, someone worthy of respect, someone they can trust to keep their word, and a role model they can emulate.
You want to be a good influence for your children, so you can guide them towards developing good character and excelling in your homeschool. Like us, they won't emulate someone they do not respect.
“The more attention you pay to your child, the less attention he will pay to you.”
Once you have successfully established your boundaries by assuming the role of leader, your children will listen and obey you and homeschooling will be more fun and fruitful.
Effective parenting leadership must include unconditional love, but I know you have that part covered.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
The Six Purposes of Schooling by John Taylor Gatto→
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When people ask me why I homeschooled, I tell them I had no choice. If they knew what I knew about public education, they would homeschool too.
John Taylor Gatto was the man who opened my eyes to the nefarious agenda behind institutionalized schooling. What follows is a transcription of the key section from John’s classic speech and opus, The Underground History of American Education.
John was a brilliant and well-researched man. I have read what is below in Ingles’ book myself; it is all true.
Transcription of John’s Talk
“I have something here. I have the six purposes of schooling [from the book Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander James Inglis] as laid down in 1917 by the man whom Harvard named their Honor Lecture in Education for.
So far from being a fringe individual, this guy is the reason the Harvard Honor Lecture in Education is named as it is: The Inglis Lecture. I would like to read you the six purposes of schooling. I moved heaven and earth as it took years to find this book [Principles of Secondary Education]--just like trying to find in past years a copy of the Carol Quigley [book] Tragedy and Hope.
I learned about Inglis from a twenty year President of Harvard [1933-1953], James Bryant Conant, who was a poison gas specialist in World War I--and was in the very inner circle of the Atomic Bomb Project in World War II--was High Commissioner of Occupied Germany after the War.
So he [James Bryant Conant] wrote--there must be 20 books about the institution of schooling--of which he was completely a proponent. And he is a very, very bad writer. I forced myself to read most of these books, and one of them he says that if you really want to know what school is about, you need to pick up the book that I’m referring to Principles of Secondary Education.
Two years it took me to find a copy of the book [Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander James Inglis]--750 pages, tiny print and as dull as your imagination can be. And furthermore, it is not till you get to the very middle of the book--in an unlabelled section--that he spills the beans. Let me spill them for you.
There are six purposes, or functions, as he calls them. The first he [Alexander Inglis] calls the Adjustive Function: Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. That’s their main purpose--habits and reactions to authority.
That is why school authorities don’t tear their hair out when somebody exposes that the Atomic Bomb wasn’t dropped on Korea, as a history book in the 1990s printed by Scott Foresman [did], and why each of these books has hundreds of substantive errors. Learning isn’t the reason the texts are distributed.
The Adjustive Function
So, first is the Adjustive Function--fixed habits. Now here comes the wonderful insight that being able to analyze the detail will give you. How can you establish whether someone has successfully developed this Automatic Reaction because people have a proclivity when they are given sensible orders to follow.
That is not what they want to teach. The only way you can measure this is to give stupid orders and people automatically follow those. Now you have achieved Function #1.
The Integrating Function
Have you ever ever wondered why some of the foolish things that schools do or allow to continue? [Function] #2, he [Inglis] calls it the Integrating Function, but it is easier to understand if you call it the Conformity Function.
It’s to make children alike as possible--the gifted children and the stupid--alike as possible because market research uses statistical sampling, and it only works if people react generally the same way.
The Directive Function
The Third Function he calls the Directive Function: School is to diagnose your proper social role and then log the evidence that here is where you are on the Great Pyramid, so that future people won’t allow you to escape that compartment.
The Differentiating Function
The Fourth Function is the Differentiating Function. Because once you have diagnosed the kids in this layer, you do not want them to learn anything that the higher layers are learning. So you teach just as far as the requirement of that layer.
The Selective Function
Number five and six are the creepiest of all! Number 5 is the Selective Function. What that means is what Darwin meant by natural selection: You are assessing the breeding quality of each individual kid. You’re doing it structurally because school teachers don’t know this is happening.
And you’re trying to use ways to prevent the poor stuff from breeding. And those ways are hanging labels--humiliating labels--around their neck, encouraging the shallowness of thinking.
I often wondered, because I came from a very very strict Scotish-Irish culture that never allowed you to leer at a girl. But when I got to NYC, the boys were pawing the girls openly and there was no redress for the girls at all, except not showing up in the classroom--high absentee rates.
Well, you are supposed to teach structurally that sexual pleasure is what you withdraw from a relationship and everything else is a waste of time and expensive.
So, the Selective Function is what Darwin meant by the favored races. The idea is to consciously improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit with their inferiority by poor grades, remedial placement, and humiliation, so that their peers will accept them as inferior. And the good breeding stock among the females will reject them as possible partners.
The Propaedeutic Function
And the Sixth is the creepiest of all! And I think it is partly what Tragedy and Hope is about--a fancy Roman name, the Propaedeutic Function. Because as early as Roman bigtime thinkers, it was understood that to continue a social form required that some people be trained that they were the custodians of this. So, some small fraction of the kids are being ready to take over the project.
That’s the guy--the honor lecturer [Inglis], and it will not surprise you that his ancestors include the major-general of the siege of the Luknow of India--famous for tying the mutineers’ on the muzzle of the cannons and blowing them apart, or somebody who was forced to flee NYC, a churchman at the beginning of the American Revolution, because he wrote a refutation of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
They were going to tar and feather him. He fled and was rewarded by the British by making him the Bishop of Nova Scotia. Those are Inglis’ ancestors!
So, Al Inglis is certainly--when I learned of this and wrote to Harvard, asking for access to the Inglis Lecture. Strike me dead, Lord, if I’m exaggerating at all. I was told “We have no Inglis Lecture--hasn’t been for years, and we have no records.
It was the same that happened when I discovered that Elwood B. Cubberly, the most influential schoolman of the 20th century and the bionomics genius had been the elementary school editor of Houghton Mifflin, and I wrote Houghton Mifflin--Is there any record? And they said, “We have no record of anyone named Elwood P. Cubberly.
Now Harvard is telling me, “There is no Inglis Lecture. A week passed and I got a call from Harvard, from some obscure office at Harvard, saying “What is your interest in the Ingles Lecture?” I knew that I was on thin ice.
And I said, “Well, James Conant referred me in his books to the man the Inglis Lecture is named after, and I was just wondering if I could get some background on this fellow, and a list of the lectures.
And in due time, I got a list of the lectures and instructions [on] how to access the texts, but not easily. Enough hoops that someone who has to mow the lawn and burp the baby wouldn’t jump through those hoops. I was able to prove Harper’s [magazine] wouldn’t publish [it in] the cover essay I wrote, which Lew Laflin [?] named Against School, but I had called The Artificial Extension of Childhood because I think that is the key mechanism at work here.
So, they wouldn’t print the information about Cubberley because Houghton Mifflin denied it. It was only months after that I looked through my extensive library of incredibly dull books about schooling, and I opened [one]--and on the facing page said Elwood B. Cubberly, Editor and Chief of Elementary School, publishing arm of Houghton Mifflin.
By the way, the secondary Editor and Chief was Alexander Ingles. So you see how this cousinage works.”
*****
*Video transcribed by Roger Copple. To watch the full 12-minute video: The Six Purposes of Schooling [Video]
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework, so you can raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of good character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated; as she guides you to train your children’s minds and nurture their characters.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
One Reading Habit that Will Increase Your Child's Intelligence→
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Not just any kind of reading will help develop and strengthen your child's mind.
You want to provide your kids with literature that will challenge their minds and get them into the habit of applying effort when reading.
Because the more your child actively uses his mind when he's young, and the more he continues to use his mind as he matures, the brighter he'll become.
We know that the brain is an ever-changing organ. It can weaken from misuse or neglect, and it can also become stronger from the right kind of use.
“John Taylor Gatto had his sixth-grade class read and discuss Moby Dick by Herman Melville. ”
Parents say things like, "Well, he only reads comic books, but at least he's reading!"
As John Taylor Gatto put it, "Teach your children to grow up to be readers of more than the daily newspaper."
Comic books are fine for comic relief on occasion. Maybe you're on a road trip or flying cross-country; this might be a time to let your child read a comic book or two or three.
☞ It’s probably prudent not to let comic books work their way into your home though.
Comic books will make his mind lazy because they require almost no effort to read. The pictures tell the story, and the dialogues are simple. When it becomes time to read challenging literature, he won't be able to tackle the vocabulary or follow the longer and more complicated sentence patterns.
He'll complain to you that the book is "boring."
It's not boring; he just hasn't learned to read well. Do not let him blame the book!
Great books expand the mind and help us to understand the complexities of life and ourselves. If we replaced the department of psychology with a department of Shakespeare, we'd be off to a good start in improving our colleges and universities.
The inner workings of the mind and heart are there in his plays.
Once you get used to the language, Shakespeare is no more difficult to read than authors such as Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.
The ability to read great literature is what you want for your children. You want them to be exposed to the great ideas of Western thought that take us all the way back to Ancient Greece.
John Taylor Gatto was very in support of reading great books. It's where he got the seeds for many of his ideas. Had he not been a good reader himself, he would not have been able to plow through all of the material he read to uncover the real history of modern education.
☞ It took a competent reader and thinker to accomplish such a great feat.
I said there was one thing you need to do to increase your child's intelligence, but as I was writing this, another occurred to me, so there are now two things.
The second thing is to homeschool your children, so you expose them to great literature. I say homeschool because, sadly, your children won't get the kind of education they need in public school.
☞ And with a lousy education system comes a dumbed-down people. One of the things not taught anymore is poetry.
Let me leave you with one of my favorite poems. It’s a good one for your children to memorize, and it will inspire them to read more.
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
Have your children memorize Emily Dickinson's poem, and supply them with the kind of books to travel lands away!
Upcoming FREE Webinar! How to Raise a Reader with Liz Hanson
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Liz will share her 6-step framework to raise children of higher intelligence, critical thinking, and of better character.
As a homeschooler, you will never have to worry about failing your children, because working with Liz, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated. She also provides you with the tools and support you need to homeschool successfully.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
4 Tips to Raise Honest Children in an Increasingly Dishonest Society→
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A Dishonest Trend
Ninety-seven percent of schoolchildren cheat to pass exams, according to statistics gathered by Vickie Abeles, who produced the documentary, Race to Nowhere.
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
When my son was an undergrad, he took a statistics exam online—during the Covid days—only to receive an email from the teacher the following day, announcing that some of the students had cheated on the exam.
Juxtapose this to pre-1950s when students were on the honor system and cheating was relatively unheard of.
When the lines between honesty and dishonesty become so blurred that cheating on exams becomes common, we have a problem.
When a grown child finishes school, if he’s learned to cheat in school, he suddenly won’t become someone who never cheats; that’s not how it works.
These children have learned to engage in dishonest behavior, because they were raised in a system that doesn't uphold the values of honesty. Now, if you are younger, the level of dishonesty might not be as obvious to you, but as someone who grew up in relatively honest times, I find it glaring.
And as someone who has lived in countries where cheating is common, I can also tell you that people lose the ability to discern truth from lies. They will cheat you and justify it, because they have lost the ability to discern a “white” lie from a lie.
It’s a fine line but I would say that a white lie is something you might tell someone in order not to hurt their feelings, but a lie is something you might tell someone to deceive them for your benefit.
It’s not as easy to raise a children in the post-modern climate—but there are strategies you can implement to ensure they grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong.
Role Models
Good role models in a child’s life are essential. If the parents treat each other courteously, if they are respectful to their family and friends, if they are honest and helpful with others, their children are more likely to follow suit.
“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
As far as honesty goes, this means we don’t skip paying for an item if the checker overlooked it, or we try to get a discounted price to a national park by lying about one of our children’s ages, or we tell someone we won’t be home when we will be home.
These are untruths that our children will take notice of and do as we do. We can’t model dishonesty and then fault our children when they aren’t honest with us.
2. Discipline
There is also a training through discipline that has to occur, too, as no child is born perfect no matter how good his or her parents may be.
“Good wombs have borne bad sons.”
You have a higher chance of having your children grow up to be civil people if you understand how to train them in the ways of good character.
3. Public School
Public school can undo your hard work, though, because rudeness and crudeness are now more common, and teachers have little to no authority when it comes to correcting a child's behavior.
Children sent to school for eight hours a day, where the teachers are not allowed to discipline them, are at an obvious disadvantage for developing healthy character traits.
On the contrary, children who spend their days in a homeschooled environment have a much greater advantage than schoolchildren. Guiding children in the ways of correct behavior is something any discerning homeschool parent can easily do.
Spare the rod, spoil the child, was an old adage that adults used to repeat before the 1960's cultural revolution when the time-tested principles of raising children were abandoned.
4. Modern Inconveniences
Today, we can add to the problem the modern inconvenience of vulgar films, ribald music; silly, literature; violent video games, rude social media behavior, and stupid television programs.
The environment a child grows up in will help to shape his character, which means that we want to be diligent with the kind of multimedia we expose our children to.
In a Nutshell
A child who grows up with the ability to discern truth from falsehood, beauty from ugliness, and good from bad is a child who was guided well in his youth.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Elizabeth will make homeschooling manageable for you. She’ll guide you in helping your kids reach their intellectual potential and developing good character.
As a homeschooler, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated knowing you have the tools and support you need to homeschool successfully.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, she devotes her time to helping parents get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
How to Save Hundreds of Dollars While Homeschooling→
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Thinking of homeschooling but not sure you can afford it? Here’s a few ways you can save money and earn money while homeschooling.
Read More4 Ways to Handle People Who Disapprove of Homeschooling→
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The disapproving glances. The unsolicited advice. The warning by unhappy family members and friends that you're going to ruin your child if you homeschool.
Read MoreHow to Easily Track Your Homeschooled Child's Progress→
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Are you wondering how to track your homeschooled child’s progress? It’s much easier than one might think.
Read MoreRaising Stellar Kids Begins With Our Habits!→
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We impact our children’s character development every single day through our own behavior.
Yet, we don’t stop often enough to reflect upon the messages we send our children through our words and actions — even the expressions on our face.
For example, a common habit which we all have today is spending time on our phones around our children.
The typical scenario looks like this: We’re texting a friend or maybe we’re surfing the web when the child asks for something. We reply by telling him to wait as we continue looking at our screen.
The child begins to whine, and we mumble to him that we’ll be there in a second. But we’re not there in a second.
The message a child gets is that the phone is more important than he is.
“Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.”
— Phyllis Diller
Those two minutes we intend to spend on the phone can add up to hours in a day, and the hours in a day, over time, can add up to weeks and so on and so on.
To put things in perspective, in 2023, the average person will spend 3.15 hours on their phone every day; 12.6 hours per week; 50.4 hours per month; 604.8 hours per year.
You can see what a strong message we give our kids when we take a “quick” glance at our phones.
In addition, our kids will probably grow up to repeat the same pattern with their children. Don’t you find yourself repeating patterns that were once your parents?
I’m not suggesting we should cater to our child’s every whim, only that we should be diligent in the way we show up for our kids.
We can replace the smartphone with any bad habit, such as, eating junk food or eating too much; not exercising, using bad language, not keeping our word, gossiping, telling too many “white” lies, or working too much.
Our bad habits become examples for our children, so if we want to raise our kids well, we have to start by working on ourselves.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ”
— Aristotle
Raising kids above the fold takes a combination of factors and one of these factors is our own habits.
We need to reflect on our habits because it’s easy to go through life oblivious to things that seem inconsequential at the moment, but with time they become lessons we teach our children, for better or for worse.
Let’s take inventory of our habits; the things we think, say, and do — are they messages that will serve us and serve our children well over time?
If not, let’s work to replace those bad habits with good habits.
Start with one bad habit, conquer it, and then choose another. To try and tackle many bad habits at once would be to invite defeat. One step at a time in replacing the bad with the good while we adopt better habits for ourselves.
Be specific with ourselves about precisely what bad habit we are replacing with what good habit, so every time we find ourselves falling back into the bad one, we can quickly self-correct by replacing it with the good habit.
It’s not until our children are older and have developed their own habits, values, and beliefs that we come face-to-face with our own shortcomings.
We’ll naturally become more effective parents if we become aware of the little things we do that add up to the big lessons we teach.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Elizabeth will make homeschooling manageable for you. She’ll guide you in helping your kids reach their intellectual potential and developing good character.
As a homeschooler, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated knowing you have the tools and support you need to homeschool successfully.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, she devotes her time to helping parents get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
What Key Trait Do Independent Thinkers Possess?→
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It's easy to adorn oneself according to the latest fad, but it’s not so easy to stand in one’s truth when it goes against mob rule.
Learning to think and act independently requires courage: the courage to do what's right and just even in the face of ridicule, the loss of friends, or a loss of income.
John Taylor Gatto was an excellent example. He quit teaching when he was in his 60s, because he discovered that schools were causing more harm to children than good.
As a public schoolteacher, he believed that he was a part of the problem.
John sent an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal and announced his decision to quit teaching in schools. When you are a couple of years away from retirement and a pension plan, it takes a lot of courage to walk away.
“Character is higher than intellect.”
Sporting purple hair and nose rings is not a sign of an independent character. People who dye their hair crazy colors and fill their bodies with tattoos and rings are following a group-think fad in spite of their belief to the contrary.
We should teach our children to dress well and to conform to outward standards of propriety but to be nonconforming in their attitudes, beliefs and values.
Because the greater independence of the mind is not manifest outwardly; it's an inward state.
To raise our children to be independent in mind, we need to foster courage in their characters.
People often mistake courage for the absence of fear, but the absence of fear can lead to rashness. Courage is not an absence of fear, but the ability to act in spite of one’s fear.
For example, my children performed at piano recitals, recited poetry to small audiences, and attended public speaking classes. Through these kind of activities, they learned to develop their courage muscle.
Permitting your child to run into a local grocery store alone, to climb a tree, or to ride a bike for the first time are all activities that will strengthen his courage.
Every day there will be opportunities to let our children strengthen their courage.
As we know from Aristotle, and as we can observe in our own lives, our daily habits add up to the quality of our characters.
Children like to challenge themselves, and we need to encourage them to do so. The more they learn to face challenges in spite of the difficulty or discomfort, the more courage they develop.
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
Having courage will also help to preserve their moral integrity, because having moral integrity requires us to stand in our truth both privately and in public.
Someone once told me that I needed to develop a “public” persona. In other words, I should have two selves; one for the public and one for my private life.
But I believe the goal is to have one self.
As Shakespeare said in Hamlet:
“This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
Teach your child to read before sending him to school! Learn more about Elizabeth's unique course, How to Teach Your Child to Read and Raise a Child Who Loves to Read.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s singular online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Elizabeth will make homeschooling manageable for you. She’ll guide you in helping your kids reach their intellectual potential and developing good character.
As a homeschooler, you will feel confident, calm, and motivated knowing you have the tools and support you need to homeschool successfully.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, she devotes her time to helping parents get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
Avoid These 4 Mistakes if You Want to Raise a Child Who Reads→
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Why do we place so much value on reading as a culture but fail to raise a country of readers?
Read More10 Foolproof Ways to Convince Your Spouse (or Anyone) to Homeschool→
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If your husband or wife’s mind is already set against homeschooling, you have to approach the situation very gingerly. It’s not wise to push our views on someone, least of all a spouse.
“It is time that we squarely face the fact that institutional schoolteaching is destructive to children.”
Usually when a spouse doesn’t agree with homeschooling, it’s because he doesn’t understand what John Taylor Gatto refers to as "the dangers of public school."
The Conversation
But you can start the conversation by asking your spouse a question, such as, "What are your hopes and goals for our children’s education?"
You have now opened the channels for him to let you know his hopes and goals in a non-threatening way. As he shares these with you, listen for his concerns too.
Once you’ve got a friendly discussion going, approach the subject of homeschooling.
If you were to consider homeschooling, would he have any objections or concerns? If so, what would those be?
The Objections
The typical objections to homeschooling are the following:
The children will be academically behind and fail to get into a reputable college.
Homeschooled kids lack good social skills.
Homeschooled children don’t have any friends.
You aren’t qualified to homeschool unless you’re an accredited teacher.
You aren’t qualified to homeschool unless you have a college degree.
Maybe your husband doesn't know any homeschoolers and the idea sounds too fantastic to him?
Keep in mind that your spouse wants what is best for his children just as much as you do.
The Persuasion
Whatever his objections are, you want to take note and ask him if he would be open to watching some videos on the subject, looking at some research, or even reading some books together.
If you keep the conversation neutral and show a genuine interest in his views and concerns, most reasonable husbands will oblige their wives.
Now, here comes the tricky part: you will need to provide him with information that is sound and relevant.
No need to panic though because we have you covered. You can download our free resource list to convince anyone about the merits of homeschooling.
The list will provide you with 10 resources to educate your husband (or anyone) about the the many problems with public school and why homeschooling is the best option today.
This resource is also helpful if you have family members or friends who are strongly opposed to homeschooling.
Grab your free download here: 10 Resources to Convince Anyone About the Merits of Homeschooling.
Once someone truly understands what is fundamentally wrong with public school, it is near impossible to put a child into it unless the person has no other choice.
Some Cautionary Advice
Be careful about taking the attitude of proving your spouse wrong. No one likes to be proven wrong, and trying to show your spouse that you were right will not help your cause.
Instead, you want to humble yourself and be gentle in the way you handle the situation.
Go slowly.
When someone has a fixed opinion, it’s prudent to allow time for that person to shift into a new mindset.
Start early by educating your spouse when your children are young.
By the time they are ready to go to school, hopefully, you'll both be excited about homeschooling!
“School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.”
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
Become a Smart Homeschooler to raise smart, ethical, and critically-thinking children. Join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course and feel secure knowing that you have what you need to homeschool successfully as well as live ongoing support from Elizabeth.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child Well to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, coupled with her unique combination of mentors, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.
☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.
3 Ways to Make Homeschooling Affordable →
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Thinking of homeschooling but not sure you can afford it? Here are 3 ways you can make homeschooling affordable and stay within your household budget.
Read MoreThe Six Purposes of Schooling by John Taylor Gatto→
/When people ask me why I homeschooled, I tell them I had no choice. If they knew what I know about public education, they would homeschool too.
John Taylor Gatto was the man who opened my eyes to the nefarious agenda behind institutionalized schooling. What follows is a transcription of the key section from John’s classic speech and opus, The Underground History of American Education.
John was a brilliant and well-researched man. I have read what is below in Ingles’ book myself; it is all true.
Transcription of John’s Talk
“I have something here. I have the six purposes of schooling [from the book Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander James Inglis] as laid down in 1917 by the man whom Harvard named their Honor Lecture in Education for.
So far from being a fringe individual, this guy is the reason the Harvard Honor Lecture in Education is named as it is: The Inglis Lecture. I would like to read you the six purposes of schooling. I moved heaven and earth as it took years to find this book [Principles of Secondary Education]--just like trying to find in past years a copy of the Carol Quigley [book] Tragedy and Hope.
I learned about Inglis from a twenty year President of Harvard [1933-1953], James Bryant Conant, who was a poison gas specialist in World War I--and was in the very inner circle of the Atomic Bomb Project in World War II--was High Commissioner of Occupied Germany after the War.
So he [James Bryant Conant] wrote--there must be 20 books about the institution of schooling--of which he was completely a proponent. And he is a very, very bad writer. I forced myself to read most of these books, and one of them he says that if you really want to know what school is about, you need to pick up the book that I’m referring to Principles of Secondary Education.
Two years it took me to find a copy of the book [Principles of Secondary Education by Alexander James Inglis]--750 pages, tiny print and as dull as your imagination can be. And furthermore, it is not till you get to the very middle of the book--in an unlabelled section--that he spills the beans. Let me spill them for you.
There are six purposes, or functions, as he calls them. The first he [Alexander Inglis] calls the Adjustive Function: Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. That’s their main purpose--habits and reactions to authority.
That is why school authorities don’t tear their hair out when somebody exposes that the Atomic Bomb wasn’t dropped on Korea, as a history book in the 1990s printed by Scott Foresman [did], and why each of these books has hundreds of substantive errors. Learning isn’t the reason the texts are distributed.
The Adjustive Function
So, first is the Adjustive Function--fixed habits. Now here comes the wonderful insight that being able to analyze the detail will give you. How can you establish whether someone has successfully developed this Automatic Reaction because people have a proclivity when they are given sensible orders to follow.
That is not what they want to teach. The only way you can measure this is to give stupid orders and people automatically follow those. Now you have achieved Function #1.
The Integrating Function
Have you ever ever wondered why some of the foolish things that schools do or allow to continue? [Function] #2, he [Inglis] calls it the Integrating Function, but it is easier to understand if you call it the Conformity Function.
It’s to make children alike as possible--the gifted children and the stupid--alike as possible because market research uses statistical sampling, and it only works if people react generally the same way.
The Directive Function
The Third Function he calls the Directive Function: School is to diagnose your proper social role and then log the evidence that here is where you are on the Great Pyramid, so that future people won’t allow you to escape that compartment.
The Differentiating Function
The Fourth Function is the Differentiating Function. Because once you have diagnosed the kids in this layer, you do not want them to learn anything that the higher layers are learning. So you teach just as far as the requirement of that layer.
The Selective Function
Number five and six are the creepiest of all! Number 5 is the Selective Function. What that means is what Darwin meant by natural selection: You are assessing the breeding quality of each individual kid. You’re doing it structurally because school teachers don’t know this is happening.
And you’re trying to use ways to prevent the poor stuff from breeding. And those ways are hanging labels--humiliating labels--around their neck, encouraging the shallowness of thinking.
I often wondered, because I came from a very very strict Scotish-Irish culture that never allowed you to leer at a girl. But when I got to NYC, the boys were pawing the girls openly and there was no redress for the girls at all, except not showing up in the classroom--high absentee rates.
Well, you are supposed to teach structurally that sexual pleasure is what you withdraw from a relationship and everything else is a waste of time and expensive.
So, the Selective Function is what Darwin meant by the favored races. The idea is to consciously improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit with their inferiority by poor grades, remedial placement, and humiliation, so that their peers will accept them as inferior. And the good breeding stock among the females will reject them as possible partners.
The Propaedeutic Function
And the Sixth is the creepiest of all! And I think it is partly what Tragedy and Hope is about--a fancy Roman name, the Propaedeutic Function. Because as early as Roman bigtime thinkers, it was understood that to continue a social form required that some people be trained that they were the custodians of this. So, some small fraction of the kids are being ready to take over the project.
That’s the guy--the honor lecturer [Inglis], and it will not surprise you that his ancestors include the major-general of the siege of the Luknow of India--famous for tying the mutineers’ on the muzzle of the cannons and blowing them apart, or somebody who was forced to flee NYC, a churchman at the beginning of the American Revolution, because he wrote a refutation of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
They were going to tar and feather him. He fled and was rewarded by the British by making him the Bishop of Nova Scotia. Those are Inglis’ ancestors!
So, Al Inglis is certainly--when I learned of this and wrote to Harvard, asking for access to the Inglis Lecture. Strike me dead, Lord, if I’m exaggerating at all. I was told “We have no Inglis Lecture--hasn’t been for years, and we have no records.
It was the same that happened when I discovered that Elwood B. Cubberly, the most influential schoolman of the 20th century and the bionomics genius had been the elementary school editor of Houghton Mifflin, and I wrote Houghton Mifflin--Is there any record? And they said, “We have no record of anyone named Elwood P. Cubberly.
Now Harvard is telling me, “There is no Inglis Lecture. A week passed and I got a call from Harvard, from some obscure office at Harvard, saying “What is your interest in the Ingles Lecture?” I knew that I was on thin ice.
And I said, “Well, James Conant referred me in his books to the man the Inglis Lecture is named after, and I was just wondering if I could get some background on this fellow, and a list of the lectures.
And in due time, I got a list of the lectures and instructions [on] how to access the texts, but not easily. Enough hoops that someone who has to mow the lawn and burp the baby wouldn’t jump through those hoops. I was able to prove Harper’s [magazine] wouldn’t publish [it in] the cover essay I wrote, which Lew Laflin [?] named Against School, but I had called The Artificial Extension of Childhood because I think that is the key mechanism at work here.
So, they wouldn’t print the information about Cubberley because Houghton Mifflin denied it. It was only months after that I looked through my extensive library of incredibly dull books about schooling, and I opened [one]--and on the facing page said Elwood B. Cubberly, Editor and Chief of Elementary School, publishing arm of Houghton Mifflin.
By the way, the secondary Editor and Chief was Alexander Ingles. So you see how this cousinage works.”
*****
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*Video transcribed by Roger Copple. To watch the full 12-minute video: The Six Purposes of Schooling [Video]
☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents, Elizabeth will guide you in homeschooling with the classics to raise brighter and more creative children.
Enroll using the link below and feel confident knowing you have the guidance and support you need to homeschool successfully.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with Elizabeth’s original online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, Elizabeth has 21+ years of experience working in education.
She has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, and she devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Elizabeth is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
*****
“Elizabeth has given us counseling and guidance to help us succeed with our home school planning. When I feel overwhelmed, scared, or lose my confidence, she offers words of wisdom and support.”
— Sherry B., Pittsburg, PA
9 Books Every Parent Should Read→
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The following books were carefully chosen as a guide to help you navigate some of the issues you will face raising your children in present times.
Read MoreAre You Raising Literate Children?
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Who Are We Fooling?
We think of ourselves as a literate society, but the truth is that we’re fooling ourselves.
Just because we can read, doesn’t mean we can read. Just because we can write, does not mean we can write. Unless we are educating our kids to be readers of difficult books, and writers of persuasive essays which they are capable of doing, we are short-changing them.
Read More8 Facts Every Child Should Learn About the Most Sublime Creature on Earth→
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What creature is that you are probably wondering?
It is the whale.
We studied dinosaurs in the second grade, yet, dinosaurs pale in comparison to whales. While reading Moby Dick, I discovered a fascination for them because whales are truly sublime.
I’m now convinced that no child should complete childhood without learning about their amazing lives.
Here are 8 facts about whales that you can share with your child:
Fact 1: Whales Are the Largest Creature on Earth
Did you know that whales are the largest animal on Earth, even bigger than the T-Rex Dinosaur? The nine heaviest creatures in the world belong to the whale family. A blue whale weighs 200 tons, and when they give birth, their babies weigh three tons and gain 200 pounds per day!
Compare this to the largest elephant ever to exist (as far as we know), who weighed only 4 tons, and you begin to realize the magnitude of of whales.
Fact 2: Whales Have the Largest Brains
The sperm whales have the largest brains of any animal, including man. Not only do they have the largest brains, but their brains contain a neocortex, like the human brain. The neocortex governs higher cognitive functions such as planning, memory, empathy, and language.
The sperm whale has a highly sophisticated language that is based on sound. They emit coded clicks at the speed of milliseconds and can emit these sounds at vast distances.
Scientists today are trying to decode their language using artificial intelligence. Someone even wrote a book about real conversations with whales and how the lessons we learn from them can help us live more joyful lives.
“As for his true brain, the whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common world. ”
Fact 3: Whales Rely on Sound to See
Because most of the whale’s life is spent at the bottom of the ocean, they must rely on sound to see. Whales use click sounds to communicate which is called echolocation. Echolocation is when their sounds bounce off of an object and send back an echo to the whale that tells them where the object is.
Fact 4: Whales are the loudest animals alive
They rely on click sounds to see, but these sounds can be as loud as 230 decibels making them the loudest animals on earth. In comparison, if you stood next to a jet engine, the engine's sound is about 150 decibels.
Whales are so loud that their clicking sounds can kill a man!
Fact 5: Whales Can Hold Their Breath for 90 Minutes
Whales can live underwater for about 90 minutes because their bodies can store massive amounts of oxygen in their muscles. When whales surface to breathe, they breathe for about seven minutes before they go underwater again.
Fact 6: Whales Have Complex Social Structures
Female whales live in multi-generational families. In contrast, the male whales live solitary lives and return to the females only during the mating season.
Whales will mourn the death of a loved one, and they will celebrate the birth of a calf, according to Shane Gero, a behavioral ecologist and founder of the Dominica Sperm Whale Project.
They have different dialects for each whale pod.
Fact 7: A Whale’s Excrement Is More Valuable than Gold!
Yes, it’s true. Whales eat large squid, and the indigestible parts of the squid are eventually excreted. These excretions float in the water for seven years, going through various changes, and can be washed up on shores in the form of what is known as ambergris.
“It’s beyond comprehension how beautiful it is, It’s transformative. There’s a shimmering quality to it. It reflects light with its smell. It’s like an olfactory gemstone,” is how Mandy Aftel, a perfumer describes ambergris.
It can sell for anywhere from 10K to 100K, depending upon the size.
In 2021, a group of Yemeni fishermen found 1.5 million dollars worth of ambergris in the floating carcass of a sperm whale!
Fact 8: Great Whales Are an Endangered Species
Sperm whales are the citizens of the ocean, and they are dying.
"Why are they dying?" asks Shane Gero.
And then he answers his own question: "It's us," he says. "All of us."
The deluge of gargantuan shipping fleets bringing us our goods from all over the world are killing the greatest creature on earth. Calves are born, but they are dying from accidents caused by large freighter ships.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, sperm whales were hunted for oil and spermiceti, but now they are killed because of our ignorance. It’s ironic that arguably the most intelligent animal on Earth is going extinct because of man’s stupidity, or greed.
Today, six out of 13 great whale species are considered endangered, including the sperm whale who was the subject of Melville’s masterpiece, Moby Dick.
Teach Your Children Well
Teach your children about the greatest creature on Earth when they are young, and you will have no problem getting them to read Moby Dick when they are older.
Moby Dick is the story of an obsessive pursuit for one albino sperm whale named Moby Dick by a man with a wretched heart called Ahab.
While it's not easy to read, it's a powerful and often humorous book with themes of human nature and human folly gracing the pages.
“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates. ”
John Taylor Gatto used to have his sixth-grade students read Moby Dick.
Though I never asked him why out of all the great Western classics, he chose Moby Dick; my guess is because once you read it, you can successfully tackle any other work of great fiction.
☞ Disclaimer: This is not a politically-correct blog.
Don’t miss our free download, Ten Books Every Well-Educated Child Should Read.
When you join the Smart Homeschooler Academy online course for parents of school-age children, we guide you in homeschooling with the classics to raise more intelligent children of a better character.
Enroll using the link below and feel confident knowing you have the guidance and support you need to homeschool successfully.
For parents of children under age seven who would like to prepare their child for social and academic success, please begin with our online course, Raise Your Child to Thrive in Life and Excel in Learning.
Elizabeth Y. Hanson is an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and a Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach with 20+ years of experience working in children’s education.
Utilizing her unusual skill set, Elizabeth has developed a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child. She devotes her time to helping parents get it right.
She is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
“Elizabeth has given us counseling and guidance to help us succeed with our home school planning. When I feel overwhelmed, scared, or lose my confidence, she offers words of wisdom and support.”
— Sherry B., Pittsburg, PA
