Today as parents and famillies from coast to coast are experiencing a flood of emotions related to the shooting at a Conneticut elementary school, America suddenly shrinks to the size of a computer screen or mobile phone as we all express our grief, shock, and anger. Everyone once again has come together in the face of tragedy to stand together against evil. Among the prayers and condolences, there are also considerations of personal choices. Several comments have popped up about bringing home children who are currently attending public school.
I'd like to share a quote from Thomas Paine's Common Sense: "PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason." This means that just because people have thought something to be right over the ages does not necessarily mean it is actually correct. It's just what people think. He goes on to speak of people's adversity to change, and how new and bold ideas are often ridiculed. Over time, however, people realize where they went wrong and make changes.
Paine published Common Sense in the winter preceding America's Declaration of Independence. The words I've quoted above refer to his revolutionary (pun intended) ideas about self-government. Despite the old language format, those words are true 236 years later as I apply them to the future of America in this post. By future, I am referring to our children.
Maybe you should consider home education. Maybe you shouldn't. Something is broken in our education system, regardless. There is feedback coming from many sources about this issue and the way we have been doing things is no longer working. Let's keep doing what works, and find alternatives for what isn't.
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