A class for babies to learn to walk?

A baby is born. Provided with all she needs, she still desires to communicate. Momma responds to her squealing with love and nourishment. She learns that by making her need known, she will be provided with what she needs.

A year later she watches those around her walking, and desires to walk. We clap and cheer her on, and in no time she's exploring on her own two feet.

A year later she's saying words to communicate and make her needs known. We proudly write down her first words and encourage her to say more.

We read her books and sing songs, we splash in puddles and change her diapers and gently redirect when she tries to unplug the lamp or taste a penny, we prevent her from running into the road or pulling the cat's whiskers, we provide crayons and puzzles and well baby check ups and car seats. We visit the zoo,  we offer healthy foods, we keep her safe and protected. We often hope we are doing it right.

Suddenly, she's four and we as parents are led to believe we no longer have the knowledge or ability to educate our children. They must learn in a school, spending days with similarly aged people led by one adult who clearly must be better at parenting, after all, this person has a college education, and that is what you must have, right?

Why? What changes? Why do we suddenly need to bus our children off so that a stranger can tell them that they need to learn this, that and the other? We don't tell a ten month old they are smarter than their peers when they walk, we don't tell a sixteen month old they are behind, slow, they need to catch up. But go talk to a six year old who struggles to read, they are "behind" and forced reading is imposed at home in an effort to catch said child up to the average. Now take another child who has very little interest in reading and unschool, and watch a love of reading develop at age seven as they decide they want to learn this new method of  communication.

I believe we are born with a desire to learn. As parents, we can nurture this desire, or we can diminish it. We have done the public school thing with several older siblings and choose to nurture our youngest child's natural desire to learn.

Here's my grandgirl- walking and said "boat" and "utoh" over the weekend... without any classes or training! On her own schedule. Imagine that.