Unschooling Quotes

Everyone who has ever been to school knows that school is prison, but almost nobody beyond school age says it is. It's not polite. We all tiptoe around the truth because admitting it would make us seem cruel and would point a finger at well-intentioned people doing what they believe to be essential. . . . A prison, according to the common, general definition, is any place of involuntary confinement and restriction of liberty. In school, as in adult prisons, the inmates are told exactly what they must do and are punished for failure to comply. Actually, students in school must spend more time doing exactly what they are told than is true of adults in penal institutions. Another difference, of course, is that we put adults in prison because they have committed a crime, while we put children in school because of their age.

There was a little girlWho had a little curlRight in the middle of her forehead.When she was good, she was very, very good.And when she was “bad”,Her Papa loved her anyway.

For those of you who may be homeschooled: high school is that four-year asylum where they put teenagers because we have no idea what else to do with them.

Anthony M. Esolen

To understand a child we have to watch him at play, study him in his different moods; we cannot project upon him our own prejudices, hopes and fears, or mould him to fit the pattern of our desires. If we are constantly judging the child according to our personal likes and dislikes, we are bound to create barriers and hindrances in our relationship with him and in his relationships with the world. Unfortunately, most of us desire to shape the child in a way that is gratifying to our own vanities and idiosyncrasies; we find varying degrees of comfort and satisfaction in exclusive ownership and domination.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

There is nothing to be gained by pretending that academic involvement is necessary, or even always desirable, in the quest for truth and knowledge.

Christopher Langan