LETTER OF THE DAY
A psychiatrist, on home education:
‘Schooling’ vs. ‘educating’
In its debate on schools and homework, USA TODAY might have mentioned those who never go to “school” at all: the home-schoolers. They, in my view, are on top of the heap socially, psychologically, physically, intellectually and academically.
As for children in traditional schools, coercion, homework, testing, report cards and a forgettable curriculum tend to make those passive, bored and sullen kids “hate” school, their teachers, learning, books and then their parents.
What’s more, about a third of college graduates are proficiently literate, down from 40% in 1992, according to the latest National Assessment of Adult Literacy.
The solution — stop schooling and start educating by:
• Abolishing all quizzes before those necessary final exams.
• Stimulating students with lessons involving art, music, theater, sports, museums, good books, periodicals and technology, along with math games, choral reading and assisted writing.
The only “problem”: I, and many prison guards, are then apt to be unemployed!
Dr. Robert E. Kay, psychiatrist
Philadelphia
It might work as a bumper sticker: Put a psychiatrist out of work– homeschool.
It needs some polish, I think.
Tip credit: Jill