When highly educated archaeologists

dig up our Sunday-best-dressed corpses in some century yet to come, I

wonder if we will be remembered as the culture who could argue over everything.

Among our ruins of Movado watches, Ford Expeditions and Mini cell phones

will they also discover our propensity for quarreling?

Though we have covered the

gambit of fighting with each other from politics to parking techniques

to Harry Potter, our current "dispute de jour" is schooling.

"Home schooling is best!" "No, public schooling is best!"

"No, private schools are the only way to go!"

You can hardly eat a block

of Velveeta cheese in the grocery store checkout line anymore without

someone bringing up the argument over which method of education is better

for kids. It's not that every facet of these diverse learning techniques

doesn't have their advantages, it's just the fervor with which people

will argue over them.

I am hardly an expert concerning

the process of intellectual development, but I do think we obsess a little

when it comes to our children's brains. Our generation acts as if we are

the first, in the history of time, that has really given the proper attention

to the student mind. If that is true, then how did WE get so smart and

reach this higher level of enlightenment?

I can totally understand the

advent of the home schooling movement. It is a scary place out there sometimes,

especially for kids. Too much of the time, home schooling is associated

with religious fanaticism; like parents are at home teaching their kids

how to handle snakes or over-apply blue eye liner, when in reality, home

schooling is simply parents taking control of the education process.

What? You mean there are people

out there who don't blindly and faithfully trust our government to know

what is best for our children and to efficiently and effectively execute

their red-taped agenda? Shocking.

When it comes to home schooling,

I am just like most dullards worrying about the inane things, like how

does one go to the prom? I mean, I have four siblings, so I guess I could

have asked my sister to the prom, which wasn't even that uncommon where

I grew up in the country. But, if things followed my life pattern, she

would have turned me down anyway.

Private schooling is obviously

always a great choice for kids, if a family can invest the money in it.

Besides, Britney Spears single-handedly brought back the schoolgirl uniform.

Private schoolers always get associated with elitism and it is one of

precepts of the upper-class mantra: 1. Private schools. 2. Hired help

(nannies, housekeepers, chauffeurs, et. al.). 3. "Summering"

in another location. And 4. Chemical dependency, though not necessarily

in that order.

Thankfully, private schools

are much more about education and preparation now than in the past. In

the South anyway, most were started in the 1970s in response to public

school integration. One of the premiere private academies in the country,

Woodward Academy in East Point, is a testament to what such a progressive

school should aspire to be.

Public schooling, by default,

is the stepchild of the education process. We are handed this system with

little control over what we can do with it. But, as with most stepchildren,

we tend to overlook the good. At the local level, especially in Fayette

County, there is a lot of positive to realize. The system might be as

perplexing as a overweight gymnast, but I know we have the greatest accumulation

of teachers to be found in the world. And besides, who else can our kids

turn to, to learn the skills they need to one day become rich enough to

afford to hire a nanny, or go to a major league baseball game?

There are pros and cons to

every form of schooling, so just quit arguing and teach your kids the

best lesson they can get nowhere else but from you: a little bit of humility.