I’ve always had an aversion to the idea of “It Takes a Village”. I may have agreed more with this kind of a statement a few decades ago when the world was a smaller place and more people knew each other in the village they lived. I’m not sure about you, but there’s not a general agreement I have with the majority of people in my local community about how to live in general, much less what I want my children to learn. Watch the full, unedited promo from MSNBC below.
Here’s what was said by Melissa Harris-Perry:
We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children. Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.
Do I believe an education should go beyond the walls of my home? Should it involve more people than just myself? Absolutely, but where it goes, who it involves and how far it goes should be under my complete discretion and without fear of retaliation or retribution on my choices.
What do you all say? I’m sure given the general audience of this blog it probably upsets many of you as much as it does my wife and I. But, what about your family members who don’t homeschool? What about your friends? What about those you go to church with that are educators themselves? What do they think?
I’d love to hear your comments below.