Today I read about a story that has gone viral. It was about a dad’s response to a letter he received reprimanding him from his kids’ principal after he took them out of school for three days.

This reminds me of the time my dad was taking me to Europe for seventeen days. I met my dad and the entrance of the school and we walked into Mrs. Locket’s office. She was the high school principal. The purpose of our meeting was to get my upcoming absences approved. She looked at the dates that we proposed that we would be away. She stated that missing 10 days of school was a long time, and it was during my mid-term exams. She went on to explain how this would be detrimental to my overall education.

When it was my father’s turn to speak, he spoke about our itinerary; we would be traveling to Austria, Italy and Germany. Touring, skiing visiting castles and many historic sights throughout Europe. He asked her to explain how she was going to teach me more in two weeks of school, than the two weeks I would be visiting traveling through several countries of Europe. Literally walking through history. She got very quite, as her hands shut the manila folder on her desk with my name typed on the sticker label. She stood up from her desk and outreached her hand to shake my father’s and said “Have a nice trip Mr. Carder”

Guess which two weeks of my high school years have taught me more than any other? I’m glad that Mrs. Locket and my dad understood the true value of my education.

What a shame that today many public schools are too short sighted when it really comes down to educating children. It seems as though everything is tied to government funding and standardize testing. It is now illegal in many states to pull your children from school for a family vacation. What do you think about this? When we moved to GA we were so grateful to discover that online cyber school was a viable option for our children. I’ll save those details for another blog post, another day.