Hubby's Reason to Homeschool: An Expanded Definition of Education

I am part of a yahoo group which networks homeschooling families where I live. (Amazing resource!) Anyway, one mom posted a quote from the book,  Proof of Heaven, A Neurosurgeon's
Journey into the Afterlife, by Eben Alexander, M.D. "The ascendance of the scientific method based solely in the physical realm over the past four hundred years presents a major problem: we have lost touch with.our consciousness. it was lost to our secular Western culture as we became increasingly enamored with the power of modern science and technology. For all the successes of Western civilization, the world has paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence- our human spirit."

She added,  "I do think our traditional educational society does not value what cannot be seen or proven. We have been taught that there are certain "experts" who know best how to teach and assess our children. Not only do many, many people believe that, but they think that they can tell if learning is happening based on the same judgment scale. It is so flat and one-dimensional."

My response is here:

That is one of my husband's favorite things about homeschooling - that we can educate our kids about their souls, their inner workings, about valuing their feelings and intuition. In essence, he loves that in OUR definition of being well educated, we CAN (and do) include mastery of the unscientific or difficult to measure. 

We hope our kids turn out to be smart in traditional ways too, but we know well plenty of people who are who have made a mess of their lives, and even injured their capacity to be productive members of society because, while being amazing at "school," they were sorely lacking other skills. Some are completely disconnected from a sense of right and wrong. Others can't make a decision without enough "facts" when there simply weren't enough "facts" available, so they failed to act because they couldn't feel which course of action would bring the most happiness. Many have ruined their own happiness by obsessing over the past because they lacked the skill of letting go and living in the present.

There aren't curricula, generally, for this type of learning. It is difficult to measure and nearly impossible to conjure up a contrived test for these skills. But life DOES administer very real tests. As a parent, I want to observe when my kids "pass" those, and show as much (more?) excitement about those accomplishments as I might a high score on a science test. I'm sure there are parents who send their kids to public school who do this. But we love that in our home, these accomplishments can be recognized in the same context as academic accomplishments, and therefore, FEEL equally weighty to our children.