Maybe (slightly) Reducing the Consequences of Government Education

Government education generally carries with it certain traits.

1. The history books they purchased by the government tend to focus on the government’s history instead of the history of the people.
2. They see everything as geography based.
3. They introduce jobs that tend to have heavy ties to the government. Ask a group of students in elementary school what they want to be when they grow up and you’ll get a bunch of firemen, police men, teachers, lawyers, astronauts, and doctors. Every one of those industries is heavily involved or subsidized through the government.

I’m probably a little more sensitive to this issue than most parents, but there is a part of what my kids were being exposed to at school that seemed nothing more than a marketing campaign for public sector jobs.

So, I decided to do something about it.

Thankfully at precisely the time that I discovered Erin McKean online he was getting asked what he wanted to be in school. So I trained him that if he ever gets asked that question he should respond with ‘I want to be a Lexicographer.’ Then explain that it’s the person who puts words in the dictionary. I then went the next layer knowing that my son would probably get asked what his favorite word was, I proceeded to teach him the word absquatulate.

Fun adventures have ensued.

We’ve learned that Lexicography will not pay a living wage, but he’s no longer trapped in the firefighter, police officer, teacher paradigm. He wants to be an engineer.