A Blog? Am I serious about this?

What the hell am I doing?
A Blog?
Well.  I can't really call it a blog, at least not in earnest.

So what the hell am I doing?
I think this is going to be an all purpose place.  A scatter-book, a journal, a place to document our home-school, a complaint dump sight and so on.

So here it is.  Blank page.
What will I start with?  A quote?  I suppose that's a good way to start.

Hmmmmm.  What quote?  Cue rustling through paper journal to find something, Anything to inseret here:

Ok.  I will start with Neil Postman, from The End of Education

Without a narrative, life has no meaning.  Without meaning, learning has no purpose. Without a purpose, schools are houses of detention, not attention.

So why this?  Mostly because it struck me so strongly when I read it.  I mean, it's a really strong statement to say something without a purpose is a prison,  especially when the purpose itself could turn an institution into a prison too.  My childhood was kind of prison-like.  So why this quote?

I think when I read this, I presume that I have only good intentions in my homeschool.  It would be a pretty sick f'er to say that he has only bad intentions.  Now...I also presume that when I say I have only good intentions in my homeschool, I think there's all kinds of stuff that can be picked through on that simple subject of what constitutes good intentions, but I will just state my goals here:

1. That the children develop their OWN minds and spirits according to what is true and meaningful to them
2. They NEVER stop learning
3. They are OPEN to the notion that they don't have any final answers
4. They are kind and charitable
5. They are brave and love courageously

This might be a list that gets edited.  But I think that's a good start.  Anyway, so those are my intentions with my home school.  That said.  What is my narrative?  I think the Charlotte Mason notion of children being persons is a good place to start.  Julie Bogart has brought these ideas into the modern age with the Brave Writer Lifestyle and she is pretty much preaching to the choir over here when she talks about her views on education.  So what is that?  Education is a lifestyle and a science of relations.  It isn't simply how things relate to each other, but it is also how 2 or more people interact in the pursuit of knowledge.  It is the notion that without a meaningful relationship to the source (or subject) a child cannot learn in a meaningful way.  Now...I have a feeling that last statement leaves a LOT of exploration to be done.  I mean how the heck can I back that up?  It's a pretty broad statement.  But, what I mean is that the child needs to feel excited/stimulated by the material to be engaged.  The same goes with their partner in learning (i.e. teacher).  They must have a positive relationship for the learning to take place.  I'm feeling like I'm hitting an intellectual brick wall, so I'll just stop here.  But I hope you/I know what I mean.  I've got a sense of it.  Perhaps this is where I'll just say goodbye!