For a young child—say, under the age of 10—sitting still
inside an artificially lit building full of stale, climate-controlled air is
not the natural condition, nor the ideal or healthy condition. Young children
need a childhood. What does that mean to me, a homeschooler? Fresh air, tree
climbing, mud-pie making, dam building, stick-boat racing, playing with
friends, listening to a classic book under a tree, picking flowers, baking cookies
with mama, putting on puppet shows, sleeping when their bodies are tired and
eating when they are hungry. I could go on, as the wildness and sweetness and wonder
of childhood can contain an uncountable number of such moments, but suffice it
to say that conventional schooling does not permit children to have a childhood.
Of course, academics and creativity and logic and philosophy and virtue matter
deeply to me, which is precisely why children must be allowed a childhood—it is
the very ground from which these mature fruits gain the energy to exist.
