I’ve wondered what makes a libertarian. What makes some people take offense at the nanny state and some not. What makes people take personal responsibility more seriously, community involvement more seriously, being politically active more seriously and some not.I compared myself to my husband one day and drew a faulty conclusion. But I’d heard the story a few other times since and wondered if there was more to it.
I was a great student k12. I got good grades, good test scores, was well behaved in class. I did the same in college. I learned to please teachers and do what was required. My husband, he was a rebel. Son of an english teacher he was generally ahead of his schoolmates and incredibly bored. He wasn’t interested in pleasing the teachers. He routinely questioned them and the work assigned. He was interested in learning.
I was in my 30s before I started to question. And the more I questioned the more I realized you need to question all the time - question people, information, sources, spin, and probably most importantly question yourself.
Beliefs become ingrained. And much of what I was taught in public school is belief. I got a completley different view of history in college. A completely different view of politics. I certainly wasn’t taught to question, not in my government school education. In fact, if anything, questioning was discouraged. From the early days of raise your hand to ask a question or go to the bathroom to the days of being guided to conclusions about literature we were reading, public schooling is more training than learning.
As I had children my questioning became more pointed and far less patient. One essay, published in The Libertarian Enterprise, outlined my journey into full fledged and take no prisoners questioning. Mother’s instinct heightened my unwillingness to “go along”.
When it came to education it’s no surprise, then, that we chose to go an alternative route. We tried private school but found many of the same issues there. And now we homeschool.
But from very early on we’ve taught our children to question. “Mommy’s wearing a pretty yellow shirt” I’d say, wearing a blue shirt. And question they did. Their growing minds figure out things very quickly and need very little, usually no, help to do so.
I’m convinced that our country has lost the involved citizenry it once had. We vote, we might go to local meetings, but the expectation that we’d be active in our government the way people once were is gone. I strongly suspect that is in part due to how our young people learn. We’re trained to go along, not question. We’re trained that our government is good, is beneficent, and is powerful.
I’m teaching my children to not go along, to not believe but to know and to research, to look for facts and logic, not emotion and spin. I’m teaching my children to be involved, to have and value personal responsibility. And I’m teaching them to question - question information, question people, question statements they read or see on TV, question our leaders, to ask if it’s right not necessarily political correct.
So here we are at Learning Freedom. About the freedom to learn the way your family needs to, and about learning about freedom, two things that I no longer believe are disconnected. I expect to broach topics that keep the conversation about Learning Freedom going.
Welcome.