Educationally Free

Originally Posted Thursday, August 1, 2013

I met a girl the other day.  Sixteen.  She'd never attended school.  Her mother said that none of her children had, that she had wanted them to figure out who they are on their own, to develop their own interests.  She had two boys and a girl.  All had been home schooled.  I asked Mom if she was a hippie, and she said yes, or wanted to be.  She'd been born a little too late.  She was an artist, she said, though she didn't practice much.  She'd drawn a picture of her daughter that people could recognize. 

"Well, that could be good or bad," I said in my usually ironic way. 

I asked the daughter if she had any friends.  She looked at me like I was kidding. 

"Yes," she said.  When she talked, it seemed to me, it sounded like she was reading lines.  She had a strange, halting manner of speaking. 

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"How old is he?"

"Sixteen." 

"What is your favorite thing to do?"

After a long, long pause. . . "Eat pizza with my boyfriend."

"Does he go to school?"

"Yes." 

"Is he envious that you don't?"

"Yes." 

"What does your oldest brother do?"

She paused and looked at her mother.  She did that a lot before she spoke.  "He works at a gas station." They both chuckled a little.

"I guess he followed his interests," I said.  Mom looked at me askance, as they say. 

"Do you want to go to college."  This brought on the longest pause, so I interjected, "What do you want to do?" 

"I don't know."

I wanted to say maybe you could work at the gas station, but rather I said, "You're not thinking of college." 

"No." 

I want to meet the rest of them, maybe make a documentary.  I want to go to their house, sit around the table with them, see if we can have a conversation.  This is like having a religious order in my own backyard, only it is not religious.  But think what a life free of educational institutions becomes.  You can read the books, but the experience is completely different.  What if the only authority you ever concerned yourself with came from mom and dad?  I want to pursue this further. 

While I'm not working at the factory, of course.  Life is cruel that way.