Photo courtesy of Dominika Roseclay / Pexels
A teacher recently asked me if I thought being a mother made me more educated in regard to children. My prompt retort was to ask them if they could explain to me the history of compulsory education.
Many parents and educators are not familiar with the history of our educational system. This particular teacher’s question did not come as a surprise to me because, as a former educator, I have encountered this mindset on more than one occasion. I am fully aware that the system, as a whole, usurps parental authority. It is a common belief of many educators that they are the experts and they are better equipped at educating and even raising children. If we delve into history, we can clearly see where this ideology originated.
During the 1900s, educational psychology appeared on the scene and the belief was adopted that “experts” were better equipped than parents. William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education 1889–1906, propagated the “radical” notion “regarding children as the absolute property of the political state,” according to author and educator John Taylor Gatto. This has been a recurring theme in education ever since.
During my years as a classroom teacher, a common complaint was the presence of parents in the classroom. Educators felt their presence challenged their authority and caused behavioral issues. In order for educators to effectively maintain control, children must be submissive. At the top of the chain of command are the experts and the professionals, primarily the teachers and administrators. Children must be conditioned to recognize this hierarchy and respond accordingly. The younger the child when this conditioning begins, the more effective the training.
Subsequently, the push for pre-K instruction has raced to the forefront. New teachers enter the workforce every year trained in the aforementioned. Generations have been fed this propaganda and now parents have been conditioned to believe that they are not qualified to teach or raise their own children without the intervention of the experts.
Involved parents have been reduced to catchphrases such as “helicopter” parents. Experts warn of the damage over-parenting causes, yet I would argue that we live in a society in which parents are more disengaged from their children’s lives than ever before.
By design, the majority of children in our nation spend 40-plus hours a week in schools. The sheer amount of time spent away from their individual families results in someone other than their parents and family members having the most influence over their waking hours. Couple that with the fact that Americans are addicted to screens and spend a large portion of their day preoccupied with a device, and it is apparent that most children are grossly under-parented.
Research proves the damaging effects of absent, disengaged parents. Instead of discouraging parental involvement by using derogatory terms, we should encourage parents to invest more time in their children and reclaim their God-given supreme authority in their lives.
As a current home-school parent, I often hear educators question the ability of parents to educate their own children, perpetrating the narrative that only the experts can effectively educate the masses.
Research proves there is no correlation between a parent’s education and their ability to home educate, according to the National Home Education Research Institute. Parents are the most invested in their own children. They know them and their educational needs better than anyone else. That makes parents the professionals and the experts.
I unequivocally believe that being a parent makes one more educated in regard to their own children. I don’t believe handing one’s children over to strangers for the majority of their formative years is in the best interest of the child. Parents are more than equipped. This was a common, successful practice for hundreds of years before forced compulsory education was adopted. I believe that institutionalized schooling fragments the family, usurps parental authority and damages relationships between parents and children. I believe that parents can and should assume the responsibility of discipling and educating their own children. For over a decade, I have encouraged parents to do just that through my work as a homeschooling advocate and with Free YOUR Children. The only hope for our nation is for parents to reclaim their rightful place in the lives of their children.
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For more on the history of compulsory education: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto
