A Treatise on Education

A Treatise on Education Public, Private, and Homeschooling is a collection of my writings related to education of children in the various ways families choose to do so. Heavy on my heart, as I put this collection together, is the recent school shooting of the Connecticut elementary school, where 20 children and several adults were murdered in cold blood by a ruthless young man gone mad. I cannot fathom one of my own eight children being put in that situation, which is partly why I am choosing to home school my two youngest children at this time. I find it strange though that I just recently had my daughter read the diary and story, Rachel's Tears, of a young girl, Rachel Joy Scott, who was killed at Columbine, one of the first tragic school shootings, for a home school assignment this year, and then another tragic school shooting occurs. Rachel virtually prophesied of the massacre to take place before it happened in her diary. Her father's testimony is a very moving account of the circumstances surrounding her last year or so of life. In such a world as this, where mentally ill people are left to wander our streets, even when known to be dangerous, and where schools have little or no security means, and have all been deemed "gun free zones," where only the criminals have guns, I wonder how we can protect our children from tragedies like these. Education is and should be one of our highest priorities for our children, but what is education without emotional and physical safety, not to mention spiritual heritage? Child sexual abuse is another tragedy that regularly occurs in many school systems and many teachers have abused their students in unfathomable ways during the school day. Many have been caught and stopped, but how many others have yet to answer for their crimes against our children? I once made a presentation in my college days where I addressed this very subject to a group of young teachers going into the field. I was severely berated and asked to leave the education program because my adjunct college professor took it personally. One of her teachers at her school had just been arrested for having sex with a student. I didn't know that it was one of her teachers that had been arrested. The case remains that teachers do sometimes abuse their students in sexual ways and this is certainly relevant to warn new teachers entering the field. I'm certainly no expert on education but this collection of writings are just some of the thoughts and ideas that I have had on the subject of education. I took a few education classes in college and taught briefly at a private Christian school, and then began home schooling my two youngest children. All of my older children were publicly educated. So I have seen and learned a few things about the different ways of educating children and I hope my thoughts on the subject might just interest a few people, whether they are teachers or parents, public, private, or home school educators. Education of children is the combined responsibility of us all, and we need to consider how we might educate them best, while keeping them safe from harm, whether by bullets, knives, or sexual predators. It doesn't take a gun to harm children. It only takes one crazy person with a weapon of any kind or one pedophile with a sick mind to destroy our children's lives. So I would ask, What are we going to do about it?