Please, teacher, leave that kid behind

I'm reading a wonderful new book by Charles Frazier of Cold Mountain fame entitled Nightwoods. Like other Frazier novels, its writing is beautiful. I didn't have to read more than 2 sample pages on my my Kindle before I clicked "buy this book."

I'm relating more to the main character in this novel than I have in almost any novel I've read in the past --
not because she has a glamorous or exciting life to which I aspire, but because she has a life and experiences that bear great resemblance to my own, and about which I feel perfectly satisfied.

Luce describes herself as being the product of a free-range childhood, of having a mom and dad whose parenting style she describes pretty much as
benign neglect." As the narrator says

... benign neglect had been about the worst of it during Luce's childhood. And that had its reimbursements. Mainly limitless freedom, even at age five. Out roaming without anyone calling your name way on into moonlit evening, if that's what you wanted.

  When I was her age, I reported to the great outdoors in the morning and was free to roam  in the companionship of only my imagination and my dog. I reported back in at dusk. And I loved it. In my freedom and in my imagination I lived countless pioneer adventures and became an astute observer of the natural world.

But then came state-dictated school, for me as for Luce:

... even though Luce had sat in careful concentration all day to determine exactly what school was all about, when the three o'clock bell rang, she'd seen all she needed to see. The confinement was intolerable One little room all day long. Everybody breathing the same tired air together.

Luce skipped out. This was not a choice I could make, however, I did the good- kid thing and endured the confinement, always waiting for the three o'clock bell. After three, I was free-range once more. Both my parents worked (I was "latch-key" before that became a popular phrase), so I walked home to a most-often empty house, fixed a snack, and was back outside for more adventures in the fragrant pine woods, the sedge-thick tidal marshes, and soybean fields that surrounded my house. I loved it. And I'm certain I learned more about life after three and on weekends that I did during my state-mandated confinements in school.

When my own children reached the age when the state asserted control over their lives, I tried to put my best face forward. But I cried like a baby when my son, all scrubbed and dressed in his little blue shorts and neat red tee-shirt stood waiting for the bus. I cried because I was sending him off to an institution that would have complete control over his day, applying rules and restrictions created for the efficient herding of children, and made without consulting me or asking my approval. It was a  rough 12 years during which my main job as a parent was teaching my children how to play the school game. That means, how to please the man but retain your own sense of sacred personhood.

Nothing much has changed as far as I can see it when it comes to school. Nothing for the better. It's maybe even worse. Now we have to make sure that no child is left behind. All must be equally confined and spiritually brutalized by a system that wants to churn out homogenized adults.

And the current rage to advance STEM education at the sacrifice of arts and humanities is ... well ... dehumanizing. I can't imagine how awful my school days would have been  without a creative outlet and at least a small portion of time devoted to imaginative activity of my own making.

No, I don't want children to live in ignorant bliss. And I do believe that knowledge expands one's appreciation of, and ability to prosper in, the world.  But, I don't agree that confinement and regimentation are worthy of our spirit nor do they address our shared needs.