In Memoriam

I had a perfectly good childhood. Here I am at four years old, lit with happiness, as any four-year-old should be. Yet I can't help but feel lately, after delving into this subject of homeschooling and looking critically at the state of education in our country, that I was gypped as a kid. I can't help but feel that school as I experienced it robbed me of countless golden hours from childhood, what Rainer Maria Rilke called "that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories." And what school didn't take, television snatched right up.

Funny, isn't it, to put school and television in the same category this way, when we are supposed to see school as the vitamin and television as the junk food of our culture. Yet to me the two look more alike every day, with a similar narcotic effect on the mind and spirit.

I would like to write more on these themes when I am feeling more rested. (My two-year-old kept me up last night from 2 to 5 am, fighting sleep, and then she boycotted her nap today. I am completely flattened.) But for now I wanted to acknowledge a strange feeling of grief for a lost piece of my childhood. And in acknowledging it, I would like to let the feeling pass.

homeschooling