I introduced myself and my homeschooling background in “How the Idea for This Group Came About,” and bytheway did the same in a reply within that discussion. But it occurs to me that we should have a thread just for new members to introduce themselves and tell us about their backgrounds, their homeschooling approaches and experience, etc.
Let this be that thread.
Welcome to the Mises Academy. Please tell us about yourself.
My name’s Andrew Codispoti. I’m from New Hampshire, U.S. As far as homeschooling goes:
From the age of about twelve I was “schooled” at home, mainly by my mother. We gradually shifted into an unschooling approach. For most of my teenage years I was allowed to live rather than forced to learn (learning’s a natural process every human undertakes in the course of life).
I’m a recent college graduate and going through a more formalized educational experience (albeit on a different “level” of education) has reminded me of the horrors of such a system. I’ve come to believe that it’s desperately important for those who value freedom to look beyond the public school system, and even beyond the colleges and universities as they are currently structured in our search for education. To me, the educational system in the modern world is mostly incompatible with or at least highly inimical to the ideals of liberty.
Thus my interest in your group and the exchange of ideas I may have a chance to take part in. I’ve only been recently begun looking into the literature of the Austrian school, and I am eager to learn more, especially as these philosophies interact with my ideas about learning and human development (i.e. “schooling”).
My name is Carolyn Fay. My husband is Albert “AC” Capehart (he will eventually join the Mises Academy, I’m sure) and our daughter is Samantha Fay Capehart. Sam will turn 3 in just a few days. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, though we are originally from the east coast. AC is a web developer and technologist for Linden Lab (makers of Second Life). I am a former French professor who is now a SAHM, a writer, and an infrequent podcaster at my online course, ImaginingSleep.com.
Our journey to homeschooling is intertwined with our embrace of libertarianism and philosophical anarchism, though AC and I were both sympathetic to homeschooling long before we began to question our statist indoctrination. For me, it started with readings in Ivan Illich, the anthology Deschooling Society, and John Taylor Gatto’s Dumbing Us Down. Around the same time, AC was reading Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, and many others. Both us spent many hours discussing these texts with our friend, BK Marcus.
By the time I was pregnant, we knew we would homeschool our child. At that time, I was earning the family’s bread as a member of the French faculty at Penn State Altoona. Yes, for most of my life, I have been “in school” in one way or another. I have often had to explain to family members who are perplexed that we have decided to homeschool Sam that no, I didn’t hate school when I was a student. On the contrary, I loved it. But it has taken me years to even begin to undo my “schooling,” that is to say, my indoctrination into the statist religion (and I attended both public and religious schools The statism is pervasive throughout). And as a teacher, I know full well that most of what passes for education in schools is but indoctrination. (The other part is all about people management. How do you get 30 people in a room to behave the way you want them to?)
So, our decision to homeschool our daughter is based on 1) our distrust of the effectiveness of one-size-fits-all group schooling, and 2) our desire to keep her mind, body, and soul out of the hands of the state. Another way of putting this: we want to indoctrinate our own child.
And the doctrine will be liberty.
Currently we are planning to give Sam a classical education, following the Well-Trained Mind Curriculum. We like the structure and the rigor of the Trivium as well as the emphasis on reading and history. I am looking forward to the discussions and resources this group will provide with regard to texts and approaches for teaching Austrian economics and history. Especially history for the young child. The WTM approach for the grade school child encourages “filling the child’s head with stories.” And so I feel like one of my early challenges will be finding or creating historical narratives that do not glorify the U.S. state, and that do not turn politicians such as Lincoln and FDR into heroes.
Thank you, BK, for getting this group started.
I’m a Home School Mom and Navy wife in Florida.
I use an Umbrella school that does not get involved. I just send attendance records.
I have 3 home schoolers.
One just happens to be only 3 years but my other two are 7 and 9 years.
I tend to find lots of learning sources for those geared to Republicans.
I tend to find people who tell me my kids are too young to know where the money goes. That it is too frightening for their age. That they shouldn’t know what a parent makes or see how it is spent.
I was raised seeing where all our money did not go. I can only think that it helped me learn to budget better. It helped me understand the world better. Though I do not have anything more than a High School diploma, I have a better credit score than people I’ve met who are financial consultants!
When the Principal of the public school system told me that I’m wrong about my kids. That they wouldn’t understand “things” I decided it was time to home educate.
No I do not expect kids to grasp every detail of what they learn but with more exposure and less sheltering I think they will grasp it better later on.
I’ve been happy to find a lot of people through stumbleupon who are like myself. I just haven’t found people locally.
My name is Michael Van Beek and I reside in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
I currently am an educator in a classical school where I teach History, Political Philosophy, Government and Economics, and Logic.
I have a 9-month-old son, who I will probably have classically-educated and probably homeschool.
I am fairly new to the Mises Institute, libertarianism, and Austrian economics, but I have developed a real passion for all of them as they change the way that I look at my research, reading, writing, and lecturing. I most certainly have had to re-learn many things from my undergraduate and graduate degrees in History, but fortunately, the deductive logic innate in these principles has allowed me to grasp them quickly, since they all following from the same ethical ideals.