I Love My Cell

“I love the routine. Every day I am awakened at 6:30. Breakfast is at 7 AM. I visit with my cellmates over breakfast. We all know the days’ routine. It’s an easy life. You soon learn who you can talk to and which people are mentally unstable, and you should avoid. There are no bills to pay and a warm place to sleep at night. Clothes are free and there’s even an on-site store. I really don’t want to leave.”

“This is much better than living on the street. Those people are crazy. The addictions they have are all over the place. Some are already zombies. But they all had one thing in common. The world they left behind had become too complex, difficult and stressful. Trying to play that role was too hard. Living on the street is a lot less stressfull than living in the big world.”

Joey, it’s time to get up. Breakfast is almost ready and the bus will be here soon. Make sure your homework is in your book bag.

“The bus arrives right on time. I’m lucky. I only have to ride a couple of minutes since I only live two blocks from the school. The first bell rings. Five minutes to get to class. Assigned seats. Pass in your homework. Turn to page ____. Teacher talks for 10 minutes. Questions about today’s lesson. Another 10 minutes of YAK. Two minutes till the bell rings. Move on to the next _____.”

“Someday I’ll get out of here and get to live in the real world. I’ll get a job at a big corporation. I’ll go through security at 7:55 and be at my own little cubicle at 8. The phone will ring and my day begins. At 10 AM, I will have a break period and lunch is at 12:10. Life will be good.... and predictable.”

“Mom, can I make pancakes for breakfast? I hear Suzi singing her morning song in her room. Can I study frogs today? I heard them singing last night. Can we go to the park and maybe I can catch one to bring home? I’ll build a home for it and catch flies to feed it. Maybe it will sing me to sleep tonight in my bedroom.”

“I also want to read some more about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn later this morning. I can curl up in the treehouse to read. Can you send my lunch up a basket?”

Multiple award-winning New York City teacher John Taylor Gatto said: “Is there an idea more radical in the history of the human race than turning your children over to total strangers whom you know nothing about, and having those strangers work on your child’s mind, out of your sight, for a period of twelve years? Could there be a more radical idea than that? Back in Colonial days in America, if you proposed that kind of idea, they’d burn you at the stake, you mad person! It’s a mad idea!”

“Slowly I began to realize that the bells and the confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.”

“Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges. It should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die.”

“I feel ashamed that so many of us cannot imagine a better way to do things than locking children up all day in cells instead of letting them grow up knowing their families, mingling with the world, assuming real obligations, striving to be independent and self-reliant and free.”

Please take this newsletter to heart. If your child is struggling, even in early elementary school. Get them out – somehow! Do not allow your child’s spirit to be crushed. If they have been enjoying summer and are not wanting school to start up again, get them out. Find a way. Guiding your child to discover the world from your own home can be easy. If only a professional teacher was capable of doing it, then the state would not allow homeschooling. If you are not willing to rearrange your lifestyle for the sake of your children, then at least explore Montessori, Waldorf or other micro-schools that may be available. Home-learning can be accomplished in just a couple of hours each morning, giving your kids the rest of the day to follow their passions. It will lead to stress-free kids who love life!

“The vast majority of people live in prisons
of their own fashioning”
– Earl Nightingale

It’s Fun Being a Kid Again!