Winter weather has arrived, and with it have come the requisite school closures. This year, my kids have the benefit of e-learning: online coursework assigned on cancellation days to keep them in the swing of things and, more importantly, to allow the school to avoid tacking extra days to the end of the year.

Lately my 13-year-old daughter has been asking me to take her to school on those days. (Strangely, though the weather is bad enough to cancel school, they open the doors for kids to come in and access their computers.) I questioned her about this.

Last night you begged and pleaded and hoped for a cancellation. Now that you’ve got it, you want to go to school. What’s up with that?

She told me that while she didn’t like to be IN school, she liked to be AT school. And I couldn’t argue one bit with what came out of her mouth next.

School just ruins the purpose of learning, Mom. Learning is so much fun, but the way they want to define everything by a letter just messes everything up. It takes away the incentive to really learn anything–just what they want you to know for the test.

I’ve long been concerned for the dwindling critical thinking skills in our society, (see one of my very first posts HERE), but my middle schooler got to the heart of the issue better than I ever could. If we just start with what she said and get back to really learning–asking questions, making discoveries, connecting the dots–the rest might just take care of itself.

Give that girl an A.