Oh my, I’m bawling watching this video. I’d already decided to homeschool next year but i needed to see this. I get so frustrated with my son and today and yesterday i was REALLY frustrated. He is a kangaroo, totally!! Next year we may learn something in our first year of homeschooling, but my main goal is to help him love himself again. To find passion in what he loves again, and to spend time telling him how much i love him!! THank you sooooo much for posting this!!!

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I know what you mean Nicole…I can’t watch this video without crying like a baby!

That is such a beautiful and true video. Thanks for sharing.

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Wow! I am not a parent (yet), but I’ve often had the “Will I homeschool?” debate in my head. This is such unique way to look at the problem – thanks so much for posting it!

Animal School…

An interesting way of looking at the inadequacies of the public school system. Will at least make you think about possibly homeschooling!…

I really liked this video. I was one of the “bees” in high school, but found many of my friends lost by being bears, eagles and all the other animals. I was shocked by the California ruling and even more by the concept that our government has the right to indoctrinate our children, the whole reason why I want to keep my child out of public school in the first place. Were lucky that we live in state where public school has actually been embraced (there is a free online school) and where alternative schools are available, so we have several options when my daughter gets old enough to start school.
Also since graduating from high school, I have been on my own “un-schooling” process instead of attending college. I’ve found that many myths about education were told to me when I was a teenager and about how important it is to fit into the corporate box, go to a tradional college and get a traditional education. I don’t doubt that’s a good way for some people, but I am finding out that for me that’s not what I am interested in. Despite of that I’ve seemed to find my own path, my own niche and I’m not homeless like my teachers convinced me I would be. Which makes me believe the myth that home schooled children just won’t fit into our society because they are self starters, independent and unstructured is a myth too. Actually at my job all of those things are encouraged and embraced.

I believe the ruling does alow homeschooling to continue as long as a credentialed teacher is present or in association with the program so not all home schoolers are “illegal.” But this ruling is still a blow to the rest of the homeschool community.

What Julia said is true, but it still really, really rubs me the wrong way. Compulsory schooling is a new invention and the facts show that Americans have gotten LESS literate and dumber (especially minority groups) since its inception. It’s a failed experiment.

Any small move like this is indicative of a larger goal – no freedom and personal responsibility, more government. That, and the government is turning more and more against religion (this whole thing probably started with religious homeschooling families). But we knew that was going to happen!

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hey, i happened to find your blog in the quest to make my growing family have less of an impact on the environment. LOVE it! keep posting please. this post especially hit home as my husband and i are in constant debate about homeschooling in another 2 years. i have always been pro homeschool, and loved this video! what do you say to the argument “yes, all these animals had a tough time but it only made them stronger and learn how to deal with their lives in the future as adults in the real world blah blah blah.” i would love a great argument for that. anyway, i will go poke around older postings. thanks for a cool blog.

“Also since graduating from high school, I have been on my own “un-schooling” process instead of attending college.” – congrats Brooke, I also went through this. It was a truer learning experience that made me feel more alive than I had ever before.

To paige-
The school system teaches you to be employed. That means you have someone to tell you what to do. What if we all decided for ourselves? Wouldn’t that also empower us not to live so blindly and to question life-style more, thus would we not live more conciously? more concious of our environment, our peers, our production, our waste…. and it would be very amazing in our work-system to implement all of our creative minds rather than squash them into machine parts, another cog in the machine, a peon. Human minds are not designed to be peons. Children know this even if we as adults are too tired to remember it.

Parents are teachers and teacher are guides, they should not be dictators.

That explained so eloquently what I have been trying to share to my skeptics and can’t quite convince.
Thanks for posting this!

I can just see our rights dwindling away little by little. Soon they’ll take homeschooling away completely, require vaccines with no exemptins, not allow herbs and natural medicine…etc. I hope I’m wrong, but I fear the worst when it comes to our government.

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Hi all. Sorry to be on the other end of this but I don’t get it, at all. Do y’all homeschool because you are located in school districts that have poor quality public education or because you feel that you can do better because the system is broken? That video to me was so gloom and doom about public schools. This can’t universally be the case. I can see it in pockets of the country but not across the board. What about the social interaction part of it? If you are home all the time, how can you expect to learn about different types of people, behaviors and to sharpen your social skills? As a person who worked in business all my life, aside from the academics, social skills are crucial elements of growing and developing character and a moral compass, and becoming successful on the job. Please help me to understand because I don’t get it. Thanks.

Hi Kristine,

Public schools teach the concept that kids are generally the same and should learn the same basic things at the same level. They should be molded with cookie cutters for 12 years and all bake up the same way. Animal School illustrates how REAL children can be as different in personality, character, ambition, ability, skill, learning capacity, etc. as a fish and a zebra. There can be NO cookie cutter mold that will fit them both and make them well adjusted, learned children…they need different approaches to learning and MOST schools will not meet the needs of children who don’t exactly fit the mold.

I am running into this now with my son. He is sharp as a tack but he is exactly 6 months behind his peers in reading because he started school later than they did. His ONLY option is to speed up his learning to “catch up” or flunk out. The school really doesn’t care which one either. I would say this is a minor problem…other kids have it even worse.

ANY system that makes kids feel bad because they don’t measure up to certain standards is not effective in my book.

As for social interaction. School kids only learn to interact with kids in their immediate age groups and with authority figures (teachers). Is that real life? Homeschool kids might get to interact with kids of ALL ages from babies to teens and adults of all ages…much more valuable range of experience if you ask me. That is REAL life.

Oh, I should also mention that my son is very much an artist. He might never care very much about reading. Like his dad and that’s cool. I won’t let public schools make him feel like a failure because of that.

loved your response to kristine’s question. this is another point my husband argues with me about. liked what you said about interacting with all ages of people. SO true! and also thanks for your response to me.
and just maybe to kristine, i was a reader. i loved lit, i was in ap lit, and excelled in any form of speech and writing they threw at me. math on the other hand? not so hot. so of course i had to study extra at that, which took away from my studies at english. then i started to hate school, cause i was forced to do math twice (c’s were unexceptable) which brought down my love for school. i was a failure. stopped caring about school and started preparing for a future without it. which i have done well at, but what would it had been like if i could have dropped math for awhile and learned it at my own pace at home with my parents? i would have kept a love for learning.

Thanks for the education and responding.

I get it more now, and I’m sure as my child progresses through school, we will see how it goes.