"When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That's if you want to teach them to think."
--Bertrand Russell

Each person whether they realize it or not has a philosopy of education. It dictates how you decide to educate your children. Some people don't take the time to ponder what they believe and why they believe what they do about education. I have run into people who when asked "why do you send your children to this or that school?" their answer is something like, "that is what you are suppose to do." If that is true then you believe in the public school's system and not only their philosophy of education but also their philosophy about life, who children are, the importance (or lack thereof) of the family. An unthinking generation of parents produced some rebels who did not want to go along with the status quo. Perhaps that rebellion started out on a destructive path but when our own children came on the scene it took us to a new place. A place of questioning the methods, philosophy and control the state attempts to have over our children and ultimately our family life.

My children are thinkers. They question things, they want to understand things, not just accept them because I say so or you say so or as I heard one of their cousins say yesterday, "that's what they taught us in school." I am so grateful that my philosophy of education has been revised and continues to be revised through various means in my experience. I do see my children are miles ahead of where I was at their age, that is in the way they think. As a family we are learning and living differently.