Freedom From School: And other forms of imprisonment

By Greg Vanderford

The development and education of our children is too important to entrust to a bunch of overworked strangers in a standardized system more appropriate to the manufacturing of automobiles than the cultivation and development of happy productive human beings. Our beloved children deserve more. They deserve to spend their formative years with people whom they love and have their best interests at heart. When children spend most of their formative years with people who love and know them, they are more likely to develop into happy confident and independent adults.

By opting out of the public school system, your children will avoid millions of advertisements and exposure to other commercial messages through their peer groups. They will be safe from bullying (by both their teachers and classmates), gun violence, sexual abuse, and chronic boredom. By allowing your children to self-direct their education, to whatever degree you deem appropriate depending on your individual child, they are far more likely to enjoy the educational process and develop a high level of skill in one or more areas that they are passionate about.

Human beings are extremely curious creatures with brains that are wired for learning. It is therefore terribly ironic that the very places we have created to teach our children have ended up being the places that actually hinder the learning process rather than stimulate it. When you allow your child to opt out of such a damaging system, you are giving them a great gift that only a very small minority of human beings are given in their lifetime. The gift of a free childhood. We should all be so fortunate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Vanderford
• Release date: Jan 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463465219

Greg Vanderford

My courses are designed based on my many years as a teacher and student of education and business. I hold a master's degree in curriculum and instruction and have been designing curricula for over a decade. My business, language, and chess courses and eBooks are a reflection of this experience and dedication to education. My goal is to reach as many people as possible with my courses, which is why I have chosen the internet as my ideal mode of delivery. The following is a little more about my expertise and background. I was born and raised in Sandpoint, Idaho. I attended the University of Idaho where I earned a bachelor's degree in Business Administration in 2004. After a few years in the work force as an account manager I moved to Vietnam where I lived for over 5 years. While in Vietnam I taught English as a second language for almost 2 years to students of all ages and backgrounds. For the 3 final years that I lived there I opened and ran a sports training company called Saigon Sports Academy. We coached sports such as soccer, tennis, and basketball as well as ran large sporting events such as tournaments and leagues. My positions while at the company included Director of Strategic Initiatives as well as Director of the Chess Program. While living in Vietnam I became fluent in the Vietnamese language and developed a deep love for teaching and traveling internationally. I then came back in the United States to work on a masters degree in education so that I would be an even more effective teacher in the future. It is my wish to be a positive force for education in the world, and to inspire my current and future students and readers to be the best that they can be in whatever they do. I am now a full time real estate investor and online entrepreneur specializing in flipping properties, showing others how to do the same, and having a great time doing it!

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Introduction

Society is sick. Not just politically, although there are obvious problems there. And not just physically, although that’s also a huge issue (healthcare expenses are now the number one cause of bankruptcy). Even more important than such major challenges, society is sick emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. At this point, it’s an obvious truth. One that’s even more obvious to an American expat living in South East Asia and seeing things from the outside.

One of the first things I began to realize after moving abroad in 2007 is how differently one views America when you aren’t consuming its media every day. You start doing a lot more independent thinking and less taking things for granted. When you watch the news or read the newspaper, even though you may ostensibly be able to listen to or read something and then disagree with it, it still influences your thoughts and emotions, whether you realize it or not. This is especially true when you consume the same media content every day for years.

Take politics for example. If you spend an hour watching Fox News and an hour watching CNN, you are really only listening to a few different perspectives from a small number of talking heads, when in reality there are literally an unlimited number of ways in which we may view some event or idea. Not to mention the fact that with only two mainstream parties and a handful of candidates that almost all believe the same thing with some small variation, we aren’t being exposed to a lot of new ideas. On the contrary, we are living in a little bubble of small ideas and limited thinking. The analysis of today’s mainstream media is shockingly bereft of depth or thoughtfulness.

The Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, Being well adjusted to a profoundly sick society is no measure of mental health. At first blush, that may sound like an extreme statement. But if you think about it objectively, what makes for a healthy society? If a healthy society is one in which most people feel happy and that they are generally doing well in life, then it looks like America is, and has been, failing miserably (poll after poll shows that most people feel the country is going in the wrong direction, it is ever more difficult to make ends meet etc.).

If a healthy society is one in which people are physiologically healthy and have access to high quality health care, then America is failing in this area as well. According to a recent report, healthcare spending takes up an astounding 18% of GDP, with millions of people not being able to afford insurance, even with government subsidies.

If a healthy society means that people are able to get ahead and enjoy social mobility, American society and the so-called American Dream are not delivering. In fact, a recent study showed that America ranks among the lowest of all rich Western countries in social mobility. But as important as physical health and economics are, what should be even more concerning is what is happening to us emotionally and psychologically as human beings. The problem has its roots in materialism, conformity, and the standardization of everything.

Modern Materialism

Study after study have shown that happiness (however measured) does not increase with an increase in material wealth once you have your basic needs met plus perhaps a little extra (one large study showed that around $70,000 per year was the limit where money stopped contributing to happiness for an American). So why do so many people strive to be rich? There are many causes for this phenomena, two of which are probably the chief contributors: fear and envy. Warren Buffett has said that greed isn’t what makes the world go ‘round. It’s envy. It’s the keep up with the Jones’s mentality. And our modern corporations have been exploiting this psychological tendency for decades, with ever more effectiveness.

If it makes us feel bad to see others with more stuff than us, then the way to feel better is to acquire more stuff than them. There is no end to this cycle once it has begun because there will always be someone that has more than you. Some may say that this is human nature and that it’s been this way ever since we have existed, and that may be partially true. But we’ve never lived in a time when there were so many skilled and well-paid people who spend their entire working lives and all of their energy intentionally creating dissatisfaction in order to make money until now (i.e. the professional marketers of the world).

In addition to envy is an even more basic emotion that drives most of our current ills: fear. We live in a very fearful society. We are fearful of not having enough money, enough love, or of what people think about us just to name a few. We are fearful of the police, our neighbors, politicians and the list goes on. Where did all of this fear come from? And what can we do about it?

We live in a so-called free market, capitalist society. The merits of this type of economy have been debated and analyzed for hundreds of years (maybe even thousands depending on how you count). And while the current version of this system is a large part of the problem, it’s not primarily what this book is about. This book is about diving deeply into why modern society is in the state that it’s in, and what we can