I want my kids to be educated, not trained.

Some people who know us have questioned why we home school our children. Hey, even I have. My first answer is that I want my kids to be able to think for themselves. In order to do that, I think they should be educated in critical thinking, by reading, asking questions, writing, and interacting with other great thinkers. They should learn how to diagram sentences and analyze propositions, and communicate properly whether in writing or speech. They should be able to problem solve.

On a related note, I have noticed that by God's grace, I don't really care what job my kids get when they grow up. Instead, I want them to be able to think and reason and talk and act in such a way that God is glorified and they are happy—whether they become a doctor, lawyer, or short order cook. I want my kids to be educated, not trained.

Here is a quote from Doug Wilson's recent blog post on higher education that inspired me to comment.

This unholy alliance between higher education and industry was successfully accomplished, and the system has become unquestioned, and almost unquestionable. Moreover, it has become a system that many Christian parents insist on maintaining. Even while opposing Obama's proposals for socialistic health care (because they don't want "socialism"), they insist on perpetuating the central engine of socialism (as well as the central example of it) by having their kids go to the very schools that Marx demanded of us, and got. And on top of that, when someone proposes that their older student attend a liberal arts school that is seeking self-consciously to reestablish the old tradition, the parental (and Marxist) objection is often that they "want their kid to be able to get a job." But before we think about getting a job, we need to train the next generation how to get a life.

Read the whole thing.