facing the challenge of change

A post on Evolving Roles for Young People in Democracy concludes with this:

In his last book [Trumpet of Conscience] before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote,

"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change."

Activists, educators, youth workers, young people, and all people across Washington must stay awake and vigilant to the challenges facing society today. The need to strengthen democracy has never been greater, and the resources have never been so limited. Communities can no longer afford to ignore the power of children and youth, either morally or fiscally. As Henry Giroux writes, “The stakes have never been so high and the future so dark.” Young people provide light in that darkness – let’s encourage their flames to grow.

Homeschooling is the school reform movement of our day and the lessons we are learning from our children are many.  The first one is that children and families should not be policed into something called education.  Learning is a natural human activity:  policing families to send their children into 12 years of so-called job training is not the way forward.