Paideia and Humanitas the core of home education citizenship

A deep-seated sense of rebellion grips every person forced to think beyond his/her own logic and believe futile, useless things for the sake of human growth. And yet, the education we disseminate often tends to be exactly that: we also push children into doing things they do not like to do and adults to obey the institutions, thinking that observance of the rules is the way out of disorder and social conflict. We educate more often towards conserving the existing state rather than producing sense and the thinking it selfgenerates. The paradox of the present day is in the imprisoned freedom of childhood and sanctioned authority of denied childhood. A child’s day is divided into obligations and homework, thus reducing free time and time to play. Adults, i.e. non-children, have schedules to respect and relationships to develop in order to affirm their authority. There is not enough time to talk and it is often used to try to change the ideas of the other person, rather than there being a healthy comparison of various points of view. Talking means establishing communication in a field, in which reigns the freedom of a person to express him/herself, even outside the rules; this is not due to undisciplined behaviour, but because digression is the sign of the birth of unexpected opportunities within contexts that solely and simply accept pre-established ideas. The above briefly introduces the subject of educating at home, known as homeschooling, which originated in the United States. This approach, with its selfexplanatory wording, has been disseminated throughout the world, including Italy. Groups of parents, inspired by the Steiner Waldorf Schools and Montessori Method, also adhere to homeschooling.