I home school my boys. Public school sees them as failures. This stigma covers them like sewage. It does not wash away.

Here’s what my boys can do.

Find kids lost in the mountain woods we live in.

Train dogs.

Train dogs to find kids lost in the mountain woods.

Help prisoners put out forest fires.

Survive in the mountain woods.

Disappear if necessary into the mountain woods where they cannot be found.

Read.

Write.

Handle the Internet.

Focus.

How to use a gun.

How to ride a horse.

How to raise animals.

How to speak Spanish.

How to build a cabin.

How be invisible.

How to swim, canoe, ski, run a snow mobile, and get someone who has fallen through the ice out of the ice.

How to use a bow and arrow.

How to walk the trails in the Blue Ridge.

How to be aware of who is behind you.

How to tolerate normals.

I do not care what public school teaches. I care about what I teach.

How to raise a garden.

How and when to fish.

What medications do.

How to keep food away from bears.

We read. I broke down and got them Kindle. Now, we are reading more than ever before. I can’t afford to buy all new books.

How to use a burner phone. How to drive a tractor.

Public school teaches you compliance. To only ask questions, the right questions, in the right way, when appropriate. My boys don’t even want to know public school kids. There is no there there. Nothing in common. We are reading Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste. We get it.

No one will get Covid at school. Over my dead body.