Bring Back the Governess!

Great New York Times article, Turning to Tutors, Instead of Schools, on the rising use of tutors to supplement or replace home schooling [thanks to FFF]. For me at least, “home schooling” really just means non-government schooling where the parents fully take the responsibility that is properly theirs for the education of their own children. Before government took over most of education, there were multiple approaches to educating children in a “nonsystem of individual education”: private schools, home schooling, tutoring, apprenticeship, self-directed learning and more. This was not only more effective than government factory-schools but more in keeping with the diversity of situations and aptitudes of children. My wife often talks about how reading old British novels as a child had her longing for a governess instead of the lousy government schools she was in. For our children, that needn’t be just a dream.

[On a related note: You have signed the Proclamation for the Separation of School and State, haven’t you?]

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11:30 am on October 29, 2003