Reason #844: Cultivating Our Greatest Natural Resources

Deep vacation thoughts. :)

I learned many things on our recent trip to Disney World. (One being that I am a definite Disney humbug. Too late I remembered IT IS AN AMUSEMENT PARK. Why I go thinking I'm going to experience "the most magical place on earth" I don't know.) In fact, I think there is a TON to learn there, and if we lived close, I'd like to have season passes to go absorb instead of treating it like an amusement park and running from ride to ride. (Maybe I'm not a TOTAL humbug.)

BUT one thing I discovered there was a quote by Walt Disney that has me thinking. Apparently he said,

"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children."

Great quote. I couldn't agree more.

So, America, what do we DO with this resource? Mine it? Extract it? Harvest it? None of those verbs conjure up very pleasant images when we are talking about the minds of children. I landed on the verb "cultivate," and the image of a farmer creating the circumstances under which a plant can thrive and be productive.

Now, America, reflect on what public education looks like. With the adoption of Common Core, now more than ever before, our greatest natural resource is being ripped from it's natural environment, plopped down in a row, and fed a steady stream of processed fertilizer and pesticide. It's very sterile. Very safe. We've been promised a cash crop of students "fully prepared to compete in the global economy." We've identified certain traits of the fruit of these tender plants, decided those traits - perhaps size and ripening time are the most ideal, most beneficial for the masses - and are pursuing a course to wipe out all other strains that may be smaller, or later, but perhaps sweeter or with a different texture.

Just as many are going back to our roots when it comes to food production, valuing the organic and environmentally sustainable, perhaps it is time as a country to return in education to a more wholesome, even old fashioned idea of what this natural resource, the minds of our children, is and how we go about cultivating it. While we homeschoolers have already enjoyed the joys and the fruits of doing so and it is certainly a GREAT reason to homeschool, do take the time to try to affect education policy that will restore this resource to it's greatness for the public at large. The good of the country is, in very fact, at stake.

Oooh. PS. :) I discovered while jumping around on my blog, that this image of cultivating minds, again, is not my own, nor am I the first to call for a massive shift to a more natural approach. Go here to view a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson and hear his thoughts on the subject.