Heads up, opinion piece:
Last fall my oldest child had a girlfriend (who he is now broken up with) who, he slowly discovered, was frequently mean. She hated homeschoolers (red flag that he ignored) and in conversation with him dug up findings, gathered evidence, and proved that he was stupid and never actually was given the availability of an education. He was, she knew and proved, uneducated. Her #1 piece of evidence:
Said child had never heard of Anne Frank.
There it is. The evidence. And it was true. He brought it up when we gathered together for our morning read aloud lessons and discussions. And suddenly this blanket of failure descended upon us all. We were all feeling the weight of being bound down by our own failures and stupidity. After a long silence I said out loud, “Well, what do we know about Germany, wars, WWII, and wars in general?” A verbal list began to appear as each child remembered things that we have learned.
*Albretch Druer, goldsmith, wood carver, engraver, artist and painter. Born in Nuremberg Germany, traveled extensively, world renowned, and especially his painting “A Large Piece of Turf”.
*”A Large Piece of Turf” – we learned that on the globe Germany is longitudinally near TN and that many of the same weeds that grow in our yard also grow in that country; plantain, dandelions, speedwell, yarrow.
*We learned that what is known about the various tribes that made up the goths, visigoths, and Ostrogoths were of Germanic tribes, that they converted to Christianity and were Arians (they did not believe in the trinity), and that they sacked Rome and spread far, even into ancient Hispania.
But nearer to our modern time, I urged the kids, what do we know about starting from the 20th century?
*Well, we know that WWI was purely political and that many college school boys had to take trains back to their home countries so that they could take up weapons against their classmates. And we know about the great Christmas truce where weapons were discarded and games and songs, and fun times were shared in no mans land.
*We learned that after WWI Germany was left destitute, poverty stricken, and that sanctions put on them afterward lead to economic collapse from the devaluation of the money.
*We know about Helmut Huebener, and his two young friends, and the story of how 17 year old Helmut was excommunicated by his local LDS church, and guillotined to death by the nazis.
*We know of Corrie Ten Boom.
*We know of Rick Steve’s travels through Germany.
*We know of, and Michael Jr studied, the ancient language of futhark.
And so we aren’t stupid, are we?
And we know many things, don’t we? And yes, as the mom I was never interested in teaching about Anne Frank, but now that we’ve hit upon something we don’t know we can take the time to learn of it. So we did. We all know of her though I still refuse to read her diary 
*again*, first time for the kids though.
And here is my point from this long example. All American children are placed in schools every year, thousands of little people, and all taught the same thing, at the same age, in the same manner, expected to arrive at the same conclusions, follow that same path all leading to college and then the work force. School to Work, No Child Left Befind, Common Core. The result is millions of people with the exact same view, same vantage point, same small narrow keyhole to peer through in which to examine a full room. It is not the learning that public school recipients receive that to my mind is the problem, rather the plethora of things left out, and the narrow mindedness that those who looked at the same room, but not through the same key hole, are stupid.
We need more people looking at the same things, and in this example I’m talking about education, from a wider variety of perspectives. We need it.
Breathings 