The Educational Journey

My family unschools.  That is, we discard traditional, standardized ideas of what learning should be and follow the talents, interests, abilities, and passions of the students.  Unschooling is all about life learning.  It reflects the beautiful journey of education rather than focusing on some pre-set goals. 

I often write about our society's obsession with money.  Everything revolves around money in our world - including education.  Our society has come to believe the earlier we start a kid in his or her educational endeavors, the better.  Send the kid to daycare to learn how to be away from parents.  Then send the kid to preschool to prepare him for kindergarten.  Send the kid to kindergarten so she can be better prepared for college.  The kid should learn algebra by second grade to get better math scores in college (which, btw, recent ACT scores prove has backfired.  The United States has the lowest ACT math scores in fourteen years).  The future (that is, the future that makes the most money) is going to be based on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math).  Better push even harder for kids to learn - if we can call it learning at all.  

Unschooling is counter-cultural.  That is, unschooling families do not pressure kids into following an educational plan to eventually earn a lot of money.  Unschooling families believe and realize education is a journey to be savored.  It is precious in and of itself.  It does not need a monetary value attached to it to be important.  

I wrote a couple of posts ago about my frustration with people degrading my choice to pursue multiple degrees.  After much contemplation, I have to think my choice demands so much societal critique not just because it is unusual but because that choice does not lend itself to today's ideas of what education is.  College is a means to an end, according to today's thinking.  It is simply something that must be done in order to get that all-important, money-making, wealth-inducing job.  When I say that is not my purpose, people truly get offended.  When I say I am enjoying my educational journey, people become irate.  They twist and turn the idea of enjoying an education in order to prove society's... er, I mean their (conditioned)... opinion that education is just a means to an end.  It is something to get through as quickly as possible, but it is not something to enjoy.  It is something to endure.  

How sad our society has become when it teaches kids education is to be endured rather than enjoyed.  It teaches kids education is something to push through rather than savor.  Money is the goal.  Education is simply a way to reach that goal.  

I, personally, choose not to buy into society's rhetoric.  I choose to enjoy the educational journey for what it is.  I choose to allow my sons to enjoy their educational journey, even if it is different than mine.  I choose not to place my trust in our ideas of what supposed success looks like.  As I've said many times, if society's ideas of money-based success are so great, why is there so much depression and anxiety from people who are living the so-called good life?  Why do people leave their jobs at quitting time and go home and get drunk to alleviate the pain of life?  I choose to enjoy all life offers, including as much education as I can achieve.  I choose to enjoy the journey.