© Beverley's Blog: 19th December 2005
[last article when children resist education 17/11/05]

"The fact is the educational authorities have no control over what is taught at home so they are desperately trying to gain control."

I wish it was purely a matter of the authorities worrying about what is taught at home, but it's not control over content or methodology that bothers them. As a form of private education, home education is a thorn in the side of those that seek to control history by manipulating whole populations.

The people within the school sector are largely unaware of their part in this manipulation - they are totally brainwashed that what they are doing is akin to charity work: if they don't educate us we'll be hopeless victims for the rest of our lives, or worse, vagrants and criminals. Like evangelical missionaries they see that their work is vital to our individual survival, but ultimately it's more about the survival of a particular culture. Unlike evangelical missionaries their work doesn't add a spiritual richness to our lives [there are exceptions, but definitely not in public education].

Home education threatens the viability of teaching positions directly. Schools are well aware of the effect of falling classroom numbers. At election time we hear rumblings about public versus private education - the electorate is deeply divided and emotions run strong. Private schools threaten the existence of public education and are increasingly blamed for the declining quality of public education. There is a strong and powerful lobby fighting for the public education system and because its 'free' most people will, at some time in their live, find themselves fighting hard to protect the integrity of public schools. If not for ourselves, then for the 'poor' people... 

Home education is just another form of private education and we're lumped in with private schools and considered just as much of a threat. It's an idealogical position. Here in SA one of the first things the Labor government did was to implement a policy that required all educators - homeschool, private and public school - to teach the new SACSA framework. One size fits all... The curriculum doesn't only teach us skills and content, but insists that we learn to think in a particular way. Curriculums come and go, and ages have seen many different ways to think about ourselves and the world, but instead of being encouraged to think for ourselves and find our own perspectives and values, through government control we are made to think like everyone else. I ask: for what reason, what purpose? The purpose of regulation in education is to control us - in every area of our lives, so that we continue to participate in the type of society our leaders - politicians and corporate CEOs - find most profitable.