Spring & Compulsory Schooling- Carpe Diem!

I’m thinking about spring, and the need to seize the day, and do the thing that is appropriate for the moment. It’s time to emerge from our winter cocoons!

Spring means being outdoors, breathing great gulps of crispy-fresh air, moving winter-weary bodies and bones in unfamiliar ways, clearing mental cobwebs along with the physical. It’s simply not human to be confined, institutionalized, imprisoned, when life is waiting.

Even in the heart of the largest cities, there are pockets of green in which to rejoice in the new season (I know, because I grew up in the heart of a very large city, and green was nourished and cherished). For your children’s sake, clear the calendar of obligations, and go outside. Work in the yard, take a picnic to the park, ride bikes, play basketball, walk, walk, walk!

Finally, here is a quote from John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education, page 129. Call it a thought for the day!

“What should make you suspicious about school is its relentless compulsion. Why should this rich brawling, utterly successful nation ever have needed to resort to compulsion to order people into school classes– unless advocates for force-schooling were driven by peculiar philosophical beliefs not commonly shared?”

If you’d like to read more of Gatto’s thoughts on education, I recommend Dumbing Us Down. It’s interesting, to say the least.

Now… how about enjoying those daffodils (and William Wordsworth’s poem about them, too).