Children as young as 4 years old are being tutored to get good grades on state entrance exams so that they can get into good primary schools and ultimately elite colleges. Yet, there is limited demand for individuals who excel at test taking but have few practical skills and are too deep in debt to consider apprenticeships. Some of the most desirable employers, such as Google, no longer look at college transcripts and are hiring a lower percentage of college graduates.
The two most famous technological innovators, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both college dropouts. The richest man in history, John D Rockefeller, was a high school dropout. These men are outliers but not exceptions. Preparing people for success is not the main purpose of schooling and never has been. But sending children to school is especially misguided today.
An entire world of knowledge is now at all of our fingertips. All any child needs is the ability and desire to attain and use it.
A TRADITION OF ORGANIC EDUCATION
Leonardo da Vinci, said that “study without desire spoils memory.” Perhaps the greatest scholar the world has known, his only formal study was apprenticeships.
In the early years of mass schooling in the United States, Henry David Thoreau asked…
“Which would have advanced the most at an end of a month–the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this–or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the institute and in the meanwhile, had received a Rodgers penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his finger?”
After the Civil War, Booker T. Washington founded the first vocational school for blacks. In his autobiography he wrote…
“It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have the buildings erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own furniture, as far as possible. I now marvel at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor, while waiting for some kind of bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a mattress, while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be made.”
A NEW ERA
Education focused work for hands-on organic learning in a dynamic and fun business environment.
Our Young Adult Business Program is located at and centered around a garden and nursery, growing berries, pumpkins, flowers and more. Students, 7-12, are involved in all aspects of the operation from growing and harvesting, to making and selling products such as, plants, juice, cookies, pies, bird houses, artwork and books.
A NEW ECONOMY
An estimated 50 percent of Americans will be entrepreneurs by 2030. Traditional public and private schools can not satisfy the needs of tomorrow’s business owners. Homeschooling limits the range of professionals and peers children learn from. Unschooling makes it difficult for children to develop self discipline, focus and drive. Those in the best position to learn and achieve are children who grow up around a business. For families without thriving businesses to center their children’s development around, we offer Harrier.
OUR MISSION
Our mission is to assist parents in raising lifelong learners and achievers.
OUR TEAM
All team and board members possess real and useful skills, know how to relate peacefully with children, and have great teaching and motivation skills.
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Harrier Education 