Where is This Train Going?

"Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6

How are we training our children? What do we want our children to become? It's funny, because many times we send our kids off to school to be raised and trained by other people. We may see them in the evening when they come home from school and we get home from work, and at that point we as adults are usually too tired from the day to interact with them in a healthy way. Many times our weekends are spent getting things done that need to get done around the house while our kids are doing their own thing. So how are we training them? They learn from us what they see us doing. If we are too focused on our own problems and issues, that is what they will see as the right way of handling things. If we spend all of our time working on take home from our jobs what does that teach them? Who and what are we training our children to become and at what cost to them? How are we training our children and what exactly are they learning from us?

Image from Patrick M Fulton used under cc license.

So What's the Equation for Freedom?

It being 4th of July and all, i have been so tempted to write an article "celebrating" America's freedom. Our freedom to become slaves to media franchises with their own (not so) hidden agendas. Our freedom to work so hard that we alienate our children and place them under government care to be raised & instructed. Our freedom to allow Supreme Court Justices to make decisions for the people and legislate from the bench because of how they decide that they want to "(mis)translate" our Constitution. At this point i have already spent more time on this off subject than i had planned to.

What i really wanted to look at today deals in part with one of those previous topics. Who is really raising our kids? There was a time when most parents raised their own kids. They taught them the fundamentals, there was a school that taught students what they needed to know to succeed in life. Reading, writing, math, a little science, and some history. From there the kids would go home and learn a trade as part of a family business or farm. If they decided not to follow the family tradition, they were able to work as an apprentice in another area to develop the skills necessary to do that trade. When they hit a certain age (early to mid teens usually), they were treated as adults, expected to act that way, and did. They had everything they needed to survive, succeed, and raise a family of their own. Now, less than 150 years later our lives have "improved" to the point where in order to "succeed" and "do well" one must have at least 16 years of "formal" education, and even then people leave school with no idea as to how to do what they have been "taught" to do. Even in lower education there is so much time focused on information that will most likely never be used again. For instance, how many people really apply questions like those below to their lives or work?

Graph the equation and solve the problems below
45X^2(squared) + 15XY - 16Y^2 + 12 = 152
If X = 8 what does Y = ?
If X = -12... If X = p...

or even

What factors of 84 are also prime numbers?

So much time is spent away from home, students are expected to learn facts and equations that they will never use or need in real life only to leave school unprepared to succeed. Meanwhile, an ever widening division between them and their parents is formed.

Many times what formal education does develop is immature individuals who have no idea what it means to be adults, and who are full of tons of mostly useless information with no idea as to how to apply it. Meanwhile those who have so much to teach their children about being adults, spouses, and parents are spending more and more time away from those that need them the most.

Image from ~Darin~ used under cc license.