Do you ever wonder how humanity managed to make it this far?

Question

I mean, with all the thousands of years of homeschooling or at-home tutoring, all those people were horribly sheltered and didn't know anything about real life! They didn't know how to interact with other people. (Kind of makes you wonder how they got married and had kids...) They didn't have friends. They were never in contact with other adults, other people... When they grew up, they must have been terribly shocked to see what the world was like! How did they handle it?!

They certainly couldn't have been properly educated either. I mean, look at Benjamin Franklin--spoke something like 5 languages, knew all about navigation, geometry, science and more. You call that educated? His parents should have insisted he stay in school. Or Thomas Edison--instead of being in school like he should have been, he spent his time reading history and science and experimenting!

So, how DID humanity manage before mass institutionalized schooling?

Answer 1

....you can carry this thought into recent years.  How did my friend who is now over 30 ever succeed and progress through 8 years of college and universities only to *grow up* to be a veterinarian in his home community?   How did his younger brother ever get through college and teach at Cal-Tech and then go on to be a Chemist in medical research? How is another friend able to attend Iowa State and study veterinary medicine?  And another --- how do these young adults that I know make it in the Nuclear Engineering program a the university that they attend?  They are all *products* of an entirely at-home education from kindergarten through 12th.  These are only a tiny smattering of the bigger picture.  I have interaction with thousands of people that are entirely home-educated ---- imagine how boring this world would be without them.  They are wonderful friends and fine upstanding citizens in their communities.  Many are now parents too --- and they continue on by home-schooling their own families.

To answer your question, "how did humanity manage..."  tee hee.  The same way we manage now.  Millions of people are educated at home --- it is almost comical to read so many negative ideas and thoughts about home-schooling from people that don't even realize that *it* is the very earliest form of education and that it works very, very well.

Like I've said before, "Schools are for fish".  

(not an original thought....)  It came from a very cute cartoon by Dan Liathe from www.answersingenesis.org

Answer 2

Do I sense a little tongue-in-cheek here?  Until democracy came along the common person didn't need an education.  Education was reserved for the wealthy and powerful who had private tutors or who attended private school.  That's a great way to go if you can afford it.  In order for democracy for mature into a viable form of government ALL citizens needed an education so they could make informed decisions to govern themselves.  Those people couldn't afford an education so the government would pay for it, using the best model they had the time: industrialized mass production.  Hence today's public schools.  We're ready for the next quantum leap to a new educational system, but nobody's thought of one yet.  I'm curious to see if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation comes up with something someday.  By the way, the weathy and powerful people with their private education never had to socialize the way our kids do today.  Their social lives - often their marriages, too - were carefully arranged by their families.  They never were shocked by the real world because they weren't a part of it.

Answer 3

Great question!  I really wish some anti-homeschoolers answered this.  

I think humanity managed quite well before mass institutionalized schooling.  In fact, it may well have done better in the good old days. :D

BTW, are you winterwarmth?

Answer 4

It is almost as if we are living in A Brave New World.

Answer 5

You funny lady!  I couldn't agree more.

Answer 6

I know, its amazing isn't it?  I wonder how the ancient Egyptians and Greeks (and a few other ancient cultures) managed to INVENT things like mathematics.  You couldn't possibly learn about all of that without having someone with a college degree teach it to you.

And how on earth did we manage to form civilizations, since we were all so unsocialized and isolated?

Answer 7

.......just blows the mind, don't it? ;)

Answer 8

Have you ever heard the saying, "those who can't do, teach"? In the past, people learned many different things from those with the most knowledge about those things. Our educational system has pumped out assembly line teachers. There are many professional, passionate people who are skilled at teaching and have a love for knowledge and learning and passing it on but there are many who basically could care less.

Many parents now expect schools to essentially raise their children and if the school intervenes in a child's behavioral issue, those same negligent parents threaten legal action.

Children and young people are often disruptive and disrespectful without fear of repercussions. We have mainstreamed children who have special needs and done a disservice to children on both sides of the issue. Our system is broken.

Secular Humanism is a religion we impose on our youth yet we claim to separate religion from state.

This was never the intent of the Constitution.

Our moral compass is broken and lying in the back of an old desk drawer. The fabric of our society is knit together from dirty rags.

I am amazed we have made it this far but I believe a day of reckoning is coming soon for our country.

I believe Christ is the answer.

Answer 9

You should try to keep things in perspective.  There have been a good many that have benefited from being home schooled.  Their parents were committed to their education.  On the other hand, there have been many, many kids that have been robbed by being taken out of school because the parent didn't want their kids to be disciplined by someone else.  My best friend and her sister fall under this category.  Now they are in their mid and late 20s.  One can barely read.  Neither can do any math past basic arithmetic.  Forget about the sciences or history.  I know several families that decided to homeschool their kids because they wanted them to have a religious education.  Those kids are all adults now and are in far worse condition.  They can list all the books of the Bible in order but can't tell you the last book they read.

Answer 10

awesome question. but i think that schooling isn't exactly necessary...what's needed is knowledge, school (here where i am) is mostly learning of facts useless things by heart. that probably wasn't the case 100 years ago...i'm not researching my answer, but that's what i feel...

plus, i'd say school wasn't such a compulsory thing so people would learn as fun, and with interest, see todays' kids, you force study upon them, and they won't do it. benjamin franklin learning 5 languages was probably because of his interest in learning. edison was interested in stuff like history and science, that's why he did that.

if you'd see, it takes a different approach to do something different. these people did it unknowingly, maybe. no one told them if you be a rebel, you'd do something great...it happens. it's their dedicating to their work that makes the difference, i feel. see they didnt know things they were inventing, they just had simple ideas, and they somehow made them happen.

about interaction with other people, you're so right! people like that normally remain locked away, doing experiments and work, and are have no idea what is going on outside. but i feel that they didnt really have to learn, actually how to interact with others. they're inventors, people automatically get attracted to them through their work that's what i feel. some girl might be attracted, and then thy get married blah blah lol...you understand? isn't it like celebs? everyone isnt that educated, you'll find dropouts too? get me?

i think "education" is over-rated. what you need is knowledge...but is that just me?

Answer 11

And the flip side of this question is how did I get through 12 years of public school and learn so little about life?   I know it was true of myself that I did not truly learn how to learn until I was out of public school.    I know it was true of my step-daughter who learned more on her first job at the age of 14 than she had ever learned in school.    

So, yea it amazes me that people are so closed minded concerning education especially when the results of public school are so contradicting to their propaganda.

Answer 12

John D

While it was not unusual for common people to be illiterate in Europe, however, that was never the case in the part of the new world which now makes up the U.S. In fact the colonists in those areas were the best educated population in the world and continued to be well educated until public schools intentionally lowered that education level beginning in the 1850's.

In fact, Thomas Jefferson had a study done during his presidency which found that 98% of those (free men and women) in the northern states and 80% of those in the southern states were functionally literate.

That number is about 75% nationally for high school graduates today.