So what is the plan?

When I decided I wanted to write a blog, I imagined myself writing about frivolous things like the life of a celebrity, anything involving fashion or shopping. However, now as I start this endeavor I find myself only wanting to write about the truth. I hate to be a downer, but I recently became aware of of how poorly our American education system compares in the world. I was aware that our schools were lacking, and that the education obtained is extremely dictated by your zipcode and income. I was aware that there are overcrowded class sizes, and students that disrupt and make it difficult for their fellow students to learn.  However, I was floored when I heard the statistic that our children rank 23rd and 25th for Language and Math, out of the top 30 industrialized countries. Wow! That is bad! Bad and extremely embarrassing. So What is the Plan? Do we have one? Or, are we just going to go on our merry way acting like the important things in life revolve around what certain "celebrities" are or aren't doing and the shopping that I mentioned previously. After hearing these statistics, I found myself analyzing all the ways this will poorly affect our country in the future. How it will affect our already bad economy, our lack of good jobs, and our relationship with other countries in the world.

What is the plan? For some time now, I have realized we are playing checkers instead of chess.  Checkers requires little forward thought and anyone can play it, whereas chess is difficult to learn and each move must be calculated/planned against future actions. We are always so worried about socializing our children, being politically correct and making sure they have more than we had when we were young. But by doing that we really aren't giving them more, at least not more substance just more material things. That is not what we need more of. We need more substance, less options, less touchy feely ambiguous half solutions and more truth should be what we strive for. What are our children going to do for a living in the future? How are they going to compete against all the nations that have our picture on their mirror and everyday work a little harder and get one step closer to beating us? I hope we realize that this is the goal for many other countries in the world. I know this looming future for our children is a huge undertaking, something that can't be fixed overnight. However, we can't fix any of our problems if we aren't honest with ourselves. See ourselves clearly in the mirror, be honest about what we see, make some goals, be willing to change and work towards a better tomorrow.

Our priorities must change. I want my children to have a better future. I want them to have more than me; after all that is a central part of the American dream. However, I want it to be in measurable qualities, things that will make them stronger, smarter and evolved for what must be a new future. When I started homeschooling my children it was out of necessity. I am not some religious zealot who had a master plan to keep my children home and read them bible verses all day. Homeschooling was never a thought out plan for me but became a perfect fit for my family by accident. I realized that once your children are home and not following someone else's path they become a little different than their public school friends, and their road follows a different path as well. I see clearly now, that by my children being home they are able to be themselves, whatever that may be. Not pressured into following what the media deems to be important, not dumbing themselves down to win friends. My daughter can like the guitar, music, art and whatever she chooses to like. Then she has the time to master all the things that she is interested in outside of the judgement of her peers; the things that make her who she will become as an individual. When do American children in the public school system have the time to master anything?

I definitely don't have all the answers. By no means am I declaring homeschooling as the answer. I attended public school in my little California town, and a good education was provided to me. However, something changed in the time since I've been to school and now. We really need to open our eyes to this crisis and do better. I hope to see a movement, a plan/way ahead for our children's future.  We need to stop looking for someone else to fix this problem. We are always looking to big brother to fix all of our problems. Together we must honestly come up with real answers for the challenges that our schools and children are facing. We can still want more for our children than we had, but it has to be based on different qualities. We must evolve as a country to remain competitive in the future.  Other countries are training for a new tomorrow; I hope our children are ready when the time comes. God Bless us.