Myths About Education

(written for LDS Homeschool Conference, 2013)

Four Myths About Public Education

This is concerning public education in general not individual teachers

1 - School teaches you everything you need to know for life

TRUTH - Schools do not teach you about 1) God: we are His children, His spiritual DNA,  we are Love, we have enough Security and Self-Esteem,Doctrines, Principles and righteous application. 2) Relationships: how to have eternal happy families, great spouse and children relationships, lasting friendships, 3) Finances: investing, creating residual incomes, how to make all your money back if you loose it (true security), marketing: how to create your own business and attract sales. or 4) How to think for yourself: make decisions, solve problems, be creative, seek new experiences.

Without these, what good is everything else? We can only take our knowledge, understandings, and relationships with us back to heaven, why not create enlarged knowledge, enlightened understanding and enriched relationships?

2 - School teaches to each individual child

TRUTH - They teach to the masses. They make each child conform to what everyone else is doing. Our world is filled with more stimuli than ever in the history of mankind and schools ask them why they are so distracted. ADHD diagnosis have gone up parallel to the increase of standardized testing.

3 - School will fill in the gaps for your child

TRUTH - What is the achievement gap? Who set the standard? You can see the gap as early as  is the first day of kindergarten, due to a number of factors including economic background, educational background (how educated are the student’s parents?), nutritional intake, genetics, and parental guidance. It would reflect poor reasoning to believe that school reform alone could ever close the gap, if there really is a gap. 

4 - Giving More Homework Means More Learning

TRUTH - giving children, especially grade school and middle school students, homework has found to my tenuous at best. Some public school have begun to prohibit homework on weekends and holidays. What is best for children is to give them plenty of free time to roam and imagine. 

Three Myths About Home Education

1 - I can’t teach my own children

TRUTH - YOU are their BEST teacher; God gave them to YOU to teach. YOUR experiences and life are what your children need to fulfill their mission.  God trusted you, when will you trust yourself?

2 - I have to know everything before I can teach (I don’t know enough.)

TRUTH - You have everything you need already within YOU. Love, Security, Self-esteem, Creativity, new experiences, recognition. We are ONE.

The Grandma Approach.  “What is that?”, “How did you do that?”, “Show me that again”, “Wow, that was so amazing”, “You are so good at this.”

3 - You have to learn by subjects / compartmentalized learning

TRUTH - we can teach with principles! Teach a principle within ALL subjects.  See them all as one whole with many examples of the same principle. For example: The Law of Polarity, everything has an equal opposite, find it in lips, hands, stomas, architecture, paper, what about problems, questions, lack/wealth, etc.

S.O.U.L. Self Organized Learning Experiences