Maybe We All Need an Education Vacation

After the craziness of this week, we all need a vacation.

This past week, with everything going on in the world, I was reminded of this by a tweet that has been making the rounds.

The tweet read:

I have to agree with the author—compulsory education is NOT the best environment for learning, and higher education is not much better. In our ever-adapting world, our kids have to learn how to be life-long learners—not just be spoon-fed information.

Education works best when we have the freedom to discover our interests and develop our abilities. Like anything else, people operate best when they are free. (Ahem… even kids!)

In a lot of ways, the coronavirus has revealed what we already knew about our education system—it doesn’t work for everyone. With a huge movement of people switching to homeschooling in the past several months, it is becoming apparent that the one-size-fits-all approach is outdated, and it doesn’t fit with today’s world.

Self-education is the direction our world is moving in this digital age. How often do we learn something by reading a book, watching a video on Youtube, or Googling the answer to any question we have? We are losing the need for memorizing facts as we carry access to unlimited information at the tips of our fingers.
Institutions of higher education consistently fail to teach students valuable skills like critical thinking, self-motivation, and instilling a love for life-long learning. (It doesn’t help that “woke” campuses are petri dishes for democratic socialism, either.)

It was this frustration with my own education that led to me writing the Tuttle Twins series. (Side note: I also wrote Passion-Driven Education, a book for parents to learn about a better way to teach their kids, leveraging their interests to inspire authentic learning… check it out here.)

In The Tuttle Twins and the Education Vacation, the Tuttle family learns from long-time educator and his book John Gatto, The Underground History of Education. They learn about real education and take their learning in their own hands.

And that’s a message many more people need to hear. So many families have had their educational status quo disrupted, but may not yet understand the opportunities this presents.

So what can you do? Share your story. Help other parents learn from your experience. Be open about struggles as well as the amazing benefits about whatever alternative approach you pursue.

More families could use a “vacation” from the schooling status quo—so find a family or two in your network who would benefit from anything you might have to share.

And maybe suggest they pick up their own set of Tuttle Twins books! 🙂

— Connor