Free Lunch? Part 2

Continuing my “Free Lunch” post …

In choosing my very specific books, planning our latest studies, I came across an old book I really wanted to use that is no longer available. It is part of a series that I love, and have all the others up to that point, but has now gone back out of print. I decided to check my ebook sites that are bookmarked. I found it! I also decided, since my time was already stretched to the max – so why not spend more time :-/, to look for other books we are using this year, just to see if they are available for free online. I found many of them (disclaimer – for this study, in these areas. I’m not vouching for my complete curriculum.)

I still hold that many of the foundational books we use, books that are key to our studies and therefore I’d not give up, can not be found “free on the internet”. Perhaps many (probably not all) of these could be ordered through Interlibrary loan, if necessary.

Probably my great question about a “free” education this way is, “Is it really?” I won’t even factor in the cost of the Internet, but will say I can teach my children wholly without it, the “old fashioned” way, with books. But we’ll allow it as a given since it will probably be an expense incurred even outside of education. If your “reason” for having the Internet IS education, then begin the cost of education at approx. $400-500 per year for Internet. I won’t include the computer itself into the cost either, but did you buy a computer “for school”? Need a second one for the kids, for school? These are costs that aren’t part of our “education” – so I’ll allow them as “no added cost”, although if you have several children and they are all reading all their lessons off a compter, you probably have had to buy an extra one or more – or are printing all the books, (see below). Books – I’ll also count them as “Free”. (I’ll allow the possibility that you can find ALL the books you want to use on the Internet for “free”. Although in reality I don’t believe this to be true. Although it MAY be somehow possible, I doubt that it is wholly realistic for a complete, coherent, bibical principles basced education to find EVERY resource for “free”. If someone can prove me wrong, it is an area in which I would be happy to eat my words.)

So here’s the cost. Are you going to print out all of those books you find or read them on the screen? Reading on the screen is “free” (fi you didn’t buy extra computers). But at what cost to your eyesight? Reading onscreen for many hours a day is not really a good choice for children (or adults). The cost may be your vision. That’s a high price to pay.

The other alternative is to print out your books. Have you totaled the costs of ink and paper? I’m told that the way to go is a laser printer, far cheaper per page for large amounts of printing – but a big initial investment. And not usually what you have at home already connected to your computer. Did you add that laser printer into your cost of “free” education?

What about the end result? Say you’ve printed off all these books. How did you bind them? Put them in a 3 prong folder? Use brads and duct tape? A 3 ring binder? Comb/spiral binding? All of these have various costs, granted some negligible. But what quality of “book” do you have? Not an heirloom to pass on or even a cheap paperback to resell.

But the greatest “cost” factor I see, is that your children don’t see the value of books. They are just something we print out, and possibly throw away when we’re done. They don’t see books as worthy property, worth sacrificing for. So is education really worth much?

As my children learned early on in Economics, TANSTAAFL – There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. [unrelated article on TANSTAAFL]

Conclusion? Stay tuned… You may really be surprised!
Read it here.