damn, scout! you take your video games and books very seriously. i like that about you.
you guys have made very good points that i am definitely taking to heart.
the main argument that i do hear against homeschooling is the socialization. granted, learning social interactions in a public school doesn’t teach a balanced form of socialization, but it is the kind that fits the image mother culture has set up for us to believe in. i know it’s wrong and that there is a better way, but i don’t believe i can hit that path yet.
the majority of my life is filled with slavery metaphors right now. i’m a slave to my rutty fast-food diet when i want to be going paleo. i’m a slave to paying rent when i’d rather pitch a tent. i’m a slave to my job because of my debts and the bills for all my civilized “necessities”. i’m a slave to my car because i can’t walk to my job.
i’m still functioning in a civilized world, and trying to do so, while i work my way out. and it has to be my way that i get out. i have to find it for me. i have to make it work for me.
i’m also a slave to my marriage even though my wife and i don’t believe in the construct of the christian marriage vows that we made to a god we no longer put faith in. but the memes hang over us, dangling into our eyes and burning them with their poisons. [okay, that metaphor was insanely intense and probably unnecessary.]
maybe this isn’t the best way to go about it, but i feel like as long as i am stuck being a wage-slave, i might as well be doing something that fits my character better while i’m doing it.
teaching resides in my nature. i live to drink knowledge in and spew it back out. i see it in my dad, and i see it in me. we dig knowledge and we love to shovel it your way. and i think i’m good at it. i feel like i can really get concepts through to people that others can’t. so i’m seeking to work out my nature in the middle of my stuck-ness.
plus i don’t think the civ will be around long enough for me to burn out as a teacher. i might be deluding myself, but i am pretty good at staying a course even if i don’t like it. i’ve had some pretty shitty jobs, been a slave master, and died a little in the process, but i know that i did some good while i was there. i worked as a night-shift psychiatric technician and chaplain for a mental hospital for adolescent sex offenders. it nearly killed my soul in a lot of ways–especially seeing how the others in my position were so quick to abuse their power. but i know that i was able to reach a lot of the kids there and give them hope in something better for themselves.
curt, i have enjoyed following your letters to the school board on your blog. i will be one to stand up and say “this dude’s right.”
we need changed minds everywhere
and i think i can change more of them in my area by being a teacher than i can by doing this compu-tech crap i'm living off of right now.
thank you both for your reading recommendations. more knowledge to drink.
the ideal would probably be for me to get a divorce, live in a hut in my friends’ back yard and be the teacher for all my friends’ kids. and even though there are a lot of reasons for me to do that, i don’t think it’s necessarily the best thing for the people that currently make up my family. but who knows, it may come to that soon enough.
and, yeah, when gas hits $10/gallon, who knows what all will come crashing to a halt. but i figure that a state-funded, mother culture-approved institution will have more longevity than a lot of other jobs.
i don’t think it will be easy or ideal. but it might be the most ideal for the situations i’m going to be in over the next 5-10 years.