This news shocked me, even though as a mom of always-homeschooled children for 6 years now I have frequently compared school to prison. Schools in San Antonio are requiring kids to wear badges with tracking devices in them. And this is not the first time students have been monitored electronically, as Peter Gray writes in School is Prison, So Why Not Use Tracking Devices?   Here’s a quote from the article, but do go read the whole thing. It’s not long.  And not only that, read as many of Peter Gray’s articles as you can. He makes a a very strong case for freedom in education.

He wrote,

“But I say, let’s do away with the hypocrisy.  Let’s put tracking devices on all the little prisoners, and, while we’re at it, let’s also make them wear black and white striped uniforms and let’s put coiled barbed wire on fences surrounding these institutions.  And, one more step, instead of calling them schools let’s call them “education camps.”

Or, alternatively, we could choose to trust kids.  We could offer them educational opportunities instead of forced instruction.  We could develop schools that they could choose to attend or not, and where they could choose their own activities.  Some of us know this is possible and that it works, because we’ve seen it.  Freedom works.  But most people don’t believe it.“

In Sudbury schools children are offered educational opportunities and never forced.  They choose their classes and activities all day long. There are several functioning Sudbury schools in the world including the original one that opened in 1968, Sudbury Valley, and the one I saw with my own eyes, Fairhaven, up in Maryland, that has been running since 1998.

And I’ve been watching my children learn in freedom for 11 years.  Yes, indeed, freedom works.