Modern culture calls it progress, but many parents are beginning to see that what we have built is closer to a machine — an intricate system that shapes how we think, work, and even raise our children. It promises freedom while quietly producing conformity.
Author Paul Kingsnorth, in his book Against the Machine, describes this reality with unsettling clarity. Humanity has built its own cage — one made of screens, schedules, and systems that seem neutral, but often pull us away from God, family, and what is real. The modern educational system is one of the most powerful gears in that machine. Kingsnorth says in his book, he believes homeschooling is the NUMBER ONE way to begin breaking free of the machine.
Public education as we know it was not born from a purely biblical or humanitarian vision. Karl Marx listed “free education for all children in public schools” as the tenth plank of the Communist Manifesto — a necessary structure for creating a compliant, centralized society. The goal was not to cultivate wisdom or faith, but to form citizens who think alike, work alike, and depend on the state.
Today, many teachers enter the profession with sincere compassion and good intentions. Yet they are often constrained by a system designed not to liberate minds, but to standardize them. The tragedy is that countless good people — teachers, parents, and students alike — are caught inside a framework that was never meant to lead to true freedom or flourishing.
Homeschooling, then, is not merely an educational preference; it is a peaceful act of resistance. It is one of the most effective ways to reclaim your family’s freedom from the grip of the machine. By teaching our children at home, we are saying no to mass programming and yes to individual purpose.
In the home, we can show our children that life is not meant to be lived in lockstep with culture’s demands. There is beauty in thinking differently, living slowly, creating with intention, and learning from faith, family, and nature rather than from screens and state-approved scripts.
As the world moves further into artificiality, the call to return to what is real grows louder. Homeschooling becomes a way to raise children who can see clearly, think freely, and live fully — unplugged from the machine and anchored in truth. It is how we protect innocence, restore curiosity, and pass on the wisdom that cannot be mass-produced in a classroom. It is how we keep our children — and our future — free.