Chickens, Children, and Freedom
Where have I been for the past month?!
Chickens.
Not metaphorically—literally.
We’ve been raising chickens as the final chapter of our Grade 3 Practical Skills curriculum. What started as a short-term project has turned into a six-week (and counting) enterprise in our backyard.
We began with twelve fertilized eggs, picked up from a local farm along with everything we needed to watch them hatch and raise them. Only five hatched. So, naturally, we added six more from Tractor Supply.
We now have a backyard of scratching, pooping, growing little teachers.
They sleep indoors in plastic bins and have officially outgrown the heat lamp. By day, they free-range in the backyard—keeping them (we hope) off the radar of our neighborhood coyotes, foxes, and raccoons.
In helping my child experience animal husbandry, I’ve also been grappling with how to frame my perspective on protecting the vulnerable. And in our messy, feathery, poop-covered yard, bigger questions have started to assume form.
The structure of education. The dignity of trade. The role of freedom in both.
Education: Equal Is Not Always Just
Our experience hatching eggs quickly turned into a living metaphor.
Despite equal and identical conditions—heat, humidity, care—only five out of twelve eggs hatched. Most of the remaining seven were nearly developed, but ultimately not viable. Other families had as many as nine out of twelve hatch, others only two to three.
This isn’t failure. It is nature. Probability. Variation. Life.
There is always abundance in nature.
The chicks that did hatch are each unique. One is notoriously the hardest to catch. Another was the first to discover the water dish. One is always able to find the biggest bugs. The differences are natural, beautiful, and necessary.
And yet, our education system—particularly here in New York—operates on the belief that equal inputs should produce equal outcomes. Spending $26-36k on every child should guarantee that every child gets what they need to flourish.
New York State homeschooling regulations state that "the purpose of this section is to ensure that all children of compulsory school attendance age receive an education that is substantially equivalent to that provided in the public schools of the district."
What started as a vision for justice has too often become a mechanism for conformity, profiteering, and extortion.
Equal isn't always just.
Equal means mass production. Great for a fast-food chain. Terrible for raising human beings.
Public education should be one option among many—not the default. Instead of requiring every child to hatch on the same day, in the same way, in the same box, we need systems that honor each community, family, child’s unique process of becoming.
Educational Freedom: Emancipation, Not Escape
Some view educational choice as a betrayal of equity.
But what if it’s something deeper?
What if it’s emancipation?
I recently asked ChatGPT to help me formulate policy for this vision, and it powerfully summarized it as:
"If the goal is truly about personal values, freedom of choice, and the removal of state mandates, then reforms could focus entirely on enabling individuals (parents and students) to make decisions free from state interference.”
This, I believe, is the shift we need: from enforcing sameness to enabling sovereignty.
Let public schools exist, but stop making them compulsory. Let families choose from a constellation of educational paths—forest schools, homeschools, microschools, hybrid models, apprenticeships.
Let our educational system reflect what life really is: diverse, adaptive, and alive.
Trade and Dignity: The Lesson of the Chicken Coop
Months ago, in a study group, I heard something unexpected—and it’s stayed with me.
Jerome Suah, a Liberian refugee now living in Buffalo1, shared why he admires President Trump. Not because of personality or politics—but because of trade.
He explained:
“Trump doesn’t pander. He trades. He treats even poor countries as if they have something to offer. That’s dignity.”
Jerome likened this to a mother weaning her child, or an eagle pushing its eaglet out of the nest—not out of cruelty, but out of love. Out of the belief that the other is capable of flight.
His perspective echoed a deeper truth:
Dignity isn’t in handouts. It’s in negotiation. In being treated as a peer, not a dependent.
What if we saw global relationships that way—not as rescues, but as partnerships? Not as dependency, but as mutual deals?
Not as victims, but as agents.
The same goes for education. When we allow families real choices, we aren’t abandoning anyone. We’re recognizing their agency.
From the Backyard to the Bigger Picture
So yes, I’ve been hanging out in the backyard.
But really, I’ve been contemplating much more—watching chicks stumble into life, thinking about what it means to grow freely. Considering the glory and the risk of stepping outside the nest. Wondering how we build systems that can trust people to choose—for themselves and their children.
This isn’t just about chickens.
It’s about Sovereign freedom.
It’s about offering every learner—and every country—the dignity of becoming something all their own.
Let’s stop trying to control people with scraps of uniformity.
Let’s start equipping ourselves to care for something wild, resilient, and free.
Join me in forging a path forward…
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