My wife and I started homeschooling our children nearly from the get-go. Only our eldest child has ever experienced public school. She protested, at first, but as the years went by, she came to realize that home school was better than public school. Any time she gave us grief, the threat (in jest) that was held over her head was that we’d put her back in public school.
At first, we did the best we could with the material we could get our hands on. I ended up buying a course for $350 that we hardly used, at all. It contained a lot of patriotic stuff, meaning government propaganda, and me being the anarchist that I am, let’s just say that that didn’t sit too well with me. We used more stuff from the library and used bookstores than from that course.
Homeschooling also took up a lot of our time, both in preparation and in teaching. Often, my wife worried that we’d get to a subject in which we weren’t experts and that the children would be taught incorrectly by us. But the benefit of being able to also teach them character education and remove the false ideas taught in public school outweighed her concerns. All in all, it was still better than public school.
One of the things I didn’t like about the pre-made course was that it wasn’t sufficient for all of our children, for all of their years of schooling. I’d have to keep buying material for each child for each year of their lives. The dollars were going to add up, but the financial sacrifice still seemed worth it.
The Robinson Curriculum
Not long after we began homeschooling, I came across an article that mentioned the Robinson Curriculum, an autodidactic program for K-12. I could use it for all of our children. It was one single purchase: I needed the course of CD-ROMs, a computer (which I had), a good printer (one-time purchase), the Saxon Math books (one-time purchase), printer paper (cheap) and printer ink (cheap). With these supplies, all of my children could get an outstanding education with very little parental involvement. It required about 15 minutes of parent time a day. The children just taught themselves using the material. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
After visiting the Robinson Curriculum web site, reading, listening to and watching all the media that is on it, I decided that the Robinson Curriculum would be perfect for our family. We made the required purchases and haven’t looked back since.
Since starting the course, we’ve noticed that the children are learning to think for themselves, to figure things out for themselves and to take initiative. As no one is teaching them anymore, they have no one to blame for their ignorance except themselves. Because each child is different, they learn at their own pace, according to their maturity level and desires for learning. The mentally quick children with strong desires for learning gobble up the information, the slower ones take longer, but each eventually learns the information and does so without reliance upon a teacher or each other. If asked, “Who taught you this?” each one could respond, “No one did. I taught myself.”
The Robinson Curriculum is a complete course, so my wife and I no longer need to worry about teaching subjects that we, ourselves, are weak in. The children get taught out of books written by experts in those fields. They literally get taught by the best.
The only thing required of the parents is to get each child to the point where they can read, write and do the arithmetic tables: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Most parents are capable of teaching their children these things, if they, the parents, already know how to read, write and do simple arithmetic. Once a child knows these fundamentals, they can start the Robinson Curriculum with no further input from the parents. Parental involvement after that is just to make sure they are engaged in their work (good study habits) and to focus on the one thing parents can excel at: character education.
The Robinson Curriculum allows a parent to incorporate other material, as they see fit, into the course, or to subtract material that is deemed unhelpful or unneeded. However, the course alone is complete and no modification is necessary, so even without any changes, a child who undergoes the entire curriculum will have an exceptional and well-rounded education.
A Decentralized Course
The Robinson Curriculum is better than other homeschooling courses in that it is based upon truly anarchic principles. The child alone must teach himself. There is no reliance upon Mommy or Daddy. There is no reliance upon other students. There is no cheating possible. It instills confidence from the get-go. Each book that is read in the course must be analyzed by the child and its meaning figured out. Dictionaries and encyclopedias must be consulted. It is supremely individualistic in that the child comes to his own conclusion concerning the information coming in, without any interpretation from the parents or teachers. This makes for highly critical thinking. And as the course is finished, the child can now be placed into high stress situations, such as the university, without being overwhelmed, without having to hold a parent’s or teacher’s hand, with the ability to learn whatever material is presented. Why? Because it no longer depends upon the instructor’s ability to instruct. The child learns on his own. Put the information before the child, and he will learn it, because he now knows how to learn. This is the beauty of the Robinson Curriculum.
Such supremely decentralized teaching can only create superior intellects, as the brain is engaged more than in other courses, which rely upon a teacher telling a student what the meaning of something is, instead of the students figuring it out for themselves. As long as the material is superior, decentralized, anarchic self-education will always produce greater intellects. It is my estimation that the Robinson Curriculum contains just such material.
On the sidebar of this blog, under Education, you’ll find a link to the Robinson Curriculum web site. You can also just click below to go there now:
Additionally, I’m including links to Lew Rockwell dot com articles that talk of this course. I invite all public, private, and home schooling parents to look into the Robinson Curriculum for yourselves. I especially invite all anarchist parents everywhere who are still raising children to consider this course as the anarchy-based education solution you’ve been looking for.
Why Home Schools Are Superior to Private Schools by Gary North
Destroying Your Child To Save a Buck by Gary North
Quality Time vs. Quality Guilt by Gary North
Must Your Children Run the Collegiate Gauntlet? by Gary North
This Advice Might Save Your Life: Don’t Bring Ayn Rand to a Gun Fight by Greg Perry
The Best One-Shot Investment on Earth by Gary North
America’s Bread and Circuses—Schools and Jails by Greg Perry
Spreading Anarchy through Education
For those who wish a peaceful means of spreading anarchy throughout society, consider the Robinson Curriculum as a powerful tool towards that end. The wide-spread promotion and use of this course will unplug entire families from state-propaganda machines (public schools). If there are those who really want to turn the tide against socialistic education (public and private schools), a United Effort could be organized with the express purpose of pooling financial resources and equipping families with the Robinson Curriculum.
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6 Comments
LDS Anarchy 
Hello ~ I found you via an RSS feed. I was interested in reading about your homeschooling journey, as we homeschool our kids, two of whom are currently attending the colleges of their choice on scholarships. Six more to go! =D
I thought it was interesting to read about your interest in the RC, as my husband and I wrote the Vocabulary Supplement for Art Robinson’s course about eight years ago. It is part of the RC now, but we use it as an SAT prep course in our home.
Happy Homeschooling! Nice to run into you in Cyberia.
Warmly,
joanne calderwood
I have to say, I like the sound of the Robinson Curriculum. It’s the type of thing I wish I had been given access to as a child. Admittedly it is for different reasons than those driving you- I merely would have loved to go at my own pace, finishing years ahead of the schedule set by traditional schools. I was competent in multiplication and division and learning algebra by the time I entered grade school (I had previously been in a Montessori program). But as soon as I entered a normal school, my education slowed drastically.
A question though- how does the Robinson Curriculum do in teaching the sciences? Specifically I think of labs- my favorite thing about school as far as I can remember. There were many of those which would have required a teacher to do properly, not to mention all of the materials. Must we add this to the curriculum ourselves or does the Robinson Curriculum have a way of allowing our children to do these exercises safely?
lucidlunatic, you can use the search function on the RC web site to read what Dr. Robinson has said about science and science labs. (Or just click the hyper-linked word in the previous sentence.)
joanne, thanks for your contribution to the RC. My wife and I love it.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/20133772515825350.html
Hm the curriculum looks like it has plenty of patriotic propaganda. They list the Federalist Papers but not the Anti-Federalist Papers, for example, and almost all of the examples of books from the course are hagiographies. Also, Adam Smith? I’m all for casting a wide ideological net to allow for critical thinking, and for understanding the society we live in, but where are the other viewpoints from anti-capitalists? Am I missing something, or are they leaving the more radical things off of the list? http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p45.htm
It is fairly mainstream and Christian and conservative, but you can tailor it to your viewpoints however you want.