Blogger Idzie over at I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write has a piece up about the idea that home education or unschooling is problematic because people who don't go to school run a greater risk of suffering from "gaps" in their knowledge. She writes
This [fear] strikes me as coming from such a very schooly mindset: a mindset that says that schools have the answer. That everything chosen for the school curriculum is Important, and MUST be learned at some point or other for the learner to be a properly functioning member of society! It comes from a presumption that the government [or the authority, I would add, behind a private school -- whether religious or non-religious] knows everything that's essential knowledge for every human being. And it comes from the belief that there IS one essential body of knowledge out there to be learned!
. . .
As far as I'm concerned, a healthy community is made up of many people with many different skills, experiences, and knowledge bases. The things that are important for each individual to learn are those important to that individual. The idea of "gaps in knowledge" at all is pretty ridiculous, actually, when everyone can agree that there is a colossal amount of information out there. No one can hope to absorb any more than a tiny fraction of the accumulated knowledge available to them, so everyone no matter what their education will have "gaps"! It's just a matter of whether the knowledge you do have is of your own choosing, knowledge that is meaningful and worthwhile to you, or whether it's chosen by someone else, and forced down your throat "for your own good".
Check out the whole post over at Idzie's blog.
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