We Must Build an Ark, pt 1

Why We?

Education independence often begins with the evolution of individual conviction. A family recognizes problems, counts the costs, and makes deliberate choices. Those moments matter. But moments, by themselves, do not endure.

Ideas Do Not Sustain Themselves

Ideas that remain private may benefit the one who holds them, but no one else. Even good ideas do not persist simply because they are held sincerely. They must be scattered like seed—communicated, repeated, watered, and nurtured—if they are to grow and spread. When they are not, they are quietly replaced, not always by better ideas, but often by louder and more coordinated ones.

Education independence, often described as privately funded, parent-directed education, is not simply an alternative to government schooling but a long-term effort to preserve freedom in education through shared responsibility.

If education independence exists only as a series of isolated household decisions, it remains fragile. It cannot grow, adapt, or spread with clarity. Without intentional propagation, conviction becomes memory, and memory eventually becomes nostalgia.

Enduring ideas require effort beyond isolated choices. They require people willing to share what they have found to be worth keeping.

Fragmentation Dilutes Impact

Alongside the challenge of propagation is the challenge of fragmentation. Many families and communities are working hard, with sincerity and creativity, to preserve educational freedom. However, when those efforts remain disconnected, their impact is limited.

Fragmented work duplicates labor, drains energy, and restricts reach.

The same problems get solved over and over in parallel. Good ideas circulate in small circles but never break through. Momentum builds locally, then dissipates. Over time, fatigue sets in—not from the work itself, but from the isolation of doing it alone. This isn’t a failure of commitment. It’s a failure of connection. When we don’t take the initiative to build strong communities or invest in maintaining the unity we’ve started, we lose more than efficiency. We lose endurance.

Operating within a community gives longevity and sustainability to ideas. Sometimes we lack because we do not take the initiative to build strong communities, and at other times, we do not take the time to maintain the unity of our community.

Benjamin Franklin captured the cost of disunity with his characteristic dark humor: We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. His point was not mere wit. When effort is scattered, it becomes easier to exhaust and extinguish.

Consolidation is often misunderstood as control or conformity. But at its best, it’s the stewardship of valuable relationships—coordinating effort so that time, talent, and attention aren’t wasted on redundancy. It’s recognizing that what is shared can be sustained, and what is coordinated can be carried beyond a single generation. Ideas that survive do so because communities form around them. Not just to agree, but to build, adapt, and pass them on.

A “We” Is Necessary for Endurance

If ideas must be propagated and effort must be coordinated to endure, then a “we” is not optional—it is essential.

Scripture names this reality with simple clarity: For the body is not one member, but many (1 Corinthians 12:14). The strength described here does not come from sameness, but from coordination. With a “we,” knowledge accumulates, understanding spreads, and wisdom and momentum can be maintained rather than lost.

Some work is simply too large, too long, and too important to be carried alone.

A “We” Is Not the Same as a Tribe

At this point, it is important to name the types of groups to distinguish them. A “we” is often assumed to mean a tribe, but the two are not intrinsically the same.

Tribes form around identity, personalities, or shared opposition. They are held together less by careful thought than by social allegiance—who is “ours,” who is “theirs,” and which lines cannot be crossed. Over time, belonging depends on conformity, and disagreement is treated as disloyalty.

A functional “we,” by contrast, exists to sharpen one another and to carry valuable work forward. Its purpose is not identity reinforcement, but continuity and shared vision. It does not require sameness, and it does not depend on constant agreement.

The difference matters because tribes fracture under pressure. A “we” exists precisely so work can endure pressure.

Why Shared Recognition Precedes Cooperation

So what is step one? Real cooperation does not begin with strategy or execution. It begins with recognizing a shared vision.

C.S. Lewis observed that friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, What! You too? I thought I was the only one. That moment is not about recruitment or persuasion. It is about seeing the same reality and finding agreement in its value.

This is how durable collaboration forms. People do not build well together because they are identical, but because they recognize something worth carrying forward. Shared vision creates trust. Trust makes coordination possible.

The Question That Remains

Again, if education independence is to endure—if its ideas are to be propagated and its efforts consolidated—then a “we” is not optional. It is essential.

Some work cannot be improvised in the moment it is needed. It must be built ahead of time, by people willing to labor together for a future they may not fully see.

Once we understand why this work requires a “we,” the next question is why this work also requires that we build. Why isn’t opting out enough? Why can’t resistance carry us forward? Why must something be intentionally built?

If a “we” is necessary, what makes building necessary?

Reflection Questions

Where has your commitment to education independence been primarily individual rather than shared?

What good ideas or practices have you seen struggle to endure because they remained isolated?

In what ways have fragmentation or disconnection limited the impact of otherwise sincere efforts?

What would it look like for your work in education independence to be carried forward beyond your own season of involvement?

How does thinking in terms of a “we” challenge or clarify your understanding of responsibility?