Roxanne;

I think all children have a great capacity for innovation and imagination, up until they enter Kindergarten. Then, our school system takes over and attempts to mould the minds of the young and “socialize” them.

We have a son and daughter in college and as they were growing up conversations with a number of our children’s teachers indicated many teachers and schools thought socialization to be more important than academic success. Some of the teacher’s thought we were terrible because we ate dinner together and said grace before meals, as well as went to church on Sundays. They told us it was important to give our children freedom and allow them to have many friends and be independent. This was when our children were from age 12-18. Such discussions were with both public and catholic schools administrators. People run institutions and parents raise their own children. We did not let the school administrators run our lives.

Perhaps one of the more humorous stories is this: When our daughter was 5, she was entered into Kindergarten. But first she had to take a number of tests to see if she was truly qualified for such a serious undertaking. The teacher (white hair, mean and stunk), asked our daughter to use crayons and color a picture of a hill, apple tree, and grass. A few minutes later our daughter finished her “assignment” and gave it to the teacher. The teacher asked her: “Why did you color the apples purple, the grass red and the tree blue”? She answered in the voice of a five year old who was very happy and innocent: “I like those colors”! The teacher replied in a most disgusted voice: “Well! I see she has a mind of her own”! I replied: “Yes, and that is the first thing you will take from her”!

By the way, our daughter is now 20 and an outstanding artist! No thanks to that “lovely” Kindergarten teacher or others she had that were just as encouraging. Somehow we all have to survive our educations. Some survive and others do not.


Tom