Smart kids

Back in the days before public schools and buses delivering kids and grades and teams and auditoriums and cafeterias and playgrounds and orchestra and cheerleaders and proms and graduations, there was home schooling.

Fathers and mothers woke and went to do the chores that fed the hungry mouths. The children had to learn on their own.

The father or mother had to train the child how to make noise to communicate but little else.

Some had grandparents to pass down skills and family culture. Some had books to read if they knew how to put the letters together. Some were taught the necessities of maintaining animals or working machinery or removing trees or constructing barns.

Yet the kids were learning by watching. Observation and mimicking became a daily lesson.

With formal education taught by a qualified instructor with a diploma upon accomplishing the task, who is the smarter?