Grown Unschooler Kate Fridkis: Embracing the Weird

Kate Fridkis lives in Manhattan. She works as a lay clergy member at a synagogue in central New Jersey, teaches in the city, writes a blog called Eat the damn cake, and writes for the Huffington Post. http://www.eatthedamncake.com/

Her newest blog is called Un-schooled (Superman isn't worth the wait) http://un-schooled.net/

You can hear the complete interview here:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/48260

You were unschooled up until you started college. How was that transition like- from being in a situation where you could pick and chose what you wanted to do, to one where you are still choosing what you want but you have to go by the rules?

I’m not going to lie- it was very difficult for me. I think that had to do with the particular school that I went to; I went to a really big state school, and later I went to a smaller grad school. That was a really different experience –I thought, “Oh man! I should have done this one first!”

A lot of the things that were tricky for me were the obvious. Like, I thought it was so ridiculous to be sitting in a classroom. I’d never really spent time sitting in a classroom before. I looked around and everybody was facing forward and a lot of people were falling asleep. The professor was at the front, at the board trying desperately to keep everybody’s attention. It seemed like such a silly format to me. It was stuff like that that kind of threw me a little bit for a loop.

It was a little bit rough but I adjusted and I did enjoy being able to meet a lot of professors; and be exposed to a lot of subjects that I had no previous exposure to.

That exposure- that always comes up as a critique of unschooling-;You are not going to get a balanced or overall exposure to subjects out there!" Comments?

First of all, I have a problem with the idea of balance. I’ve never liked the notion that ‘well rounded education’ is the ideal education- because I think that when people pursue that model of educational success they end up with a lot of people who maybe know a little about a lot of subjects but who aren’t experts at anything and who also haven’t learned how to pursue their interests.

So the idea of balance- maybe in its ideal form is awesome- when it’s applied broadly kind of prevents people in a lot of cases from learning what they love to do. Because when you learn to love learning and do things that interest you-whatever it is that interests you ends up connecting you to a whole huge network of other stuff-other subjects-- in really surprising ways.So maybe you end up being more balanced then people expect in exciting ways, but it's never through pursuing well roundedness.

To my eye, that is not really an issue-all those people who went through school don’t seem to more ‘balanced’ or know a whole lot more than those who didn’t-be anymore well balanced but the argument goes- "You won’t know Canadian history-a great gap- how are you going to fit in culturally?".

The truth is that you learn something new in absolutely every environment. It’s not like there is an environment that you can go to and that is where you get access to all the important information. You learn everywhere! The idea that I love and always find true about unschooling is that you are always learning.

Because you are living.

Because you are living! Of course when I went to college I learned from interesting people who I wouldn’t have otherwise met but to be perfectly honest I would have learned somewhere else too.

On your blog you have a post about how being unschooled is a lot like being grown up. No one tests you, as an adult. People don’t go around asking adults if they are well rounded. Do you have anything more to add?

My experience as an unschooler kind of felt like being an adult – the idea that I saw that people had about what it meant to be an adult. I kind of discovered this through interaction with adults. By being around adults and being in the community rather than in school I had a lot of contact with grownups who didn’t expect to end up being my friend because here I am, a kid.

It is kind of expected that kids are going to be with other kids and adults with other adults: everyone is going to be slotted into their particular age bracket and that is where they are going to stay-which is kind of a strange idea really because it is so useful for children to learn from people who are older than them.
So a lot of my experience as an unschooler consisted of being around adults who told me, "Oh! You seem so grown up!"

Well, it wasn’t that I was grown up - it was just that I was interacting with them us I would with a friend. And through these relationships I was able to talk about things that were relevant to adults.I was able to have a lot of educational and relational experiences that other children didn’t seem to have access to.

There is a lack of fear of adults with unschooled kids- they are not afraid of speaking with adults-not wary of adults.

I think that is exactly right. I was surprised by my school peers I met in college who were still afraid of interacting with adults when they were 20- not that I wasn’t scared about interacting with large giant of my peers.

And another thing about unschoolers being grown up I’ll add is that you just have a lot of responsibility and that is something that people don’t expect from kids who are in school- but I have to qualify that and add that kids in school have tons of responsibility.
Not the same kind of responsibility, not the kind where you get to decide what you do with your time, and what you learn and what you pursue. It’s the kind that I shrink at- like having to do hours of homework or getting straight As in every subject. I mean the stuff that sounds so stressful to me I can’t imagine how anybody does it.

It’s imposed responsibility-not coming from the self.
Another thing I noticed about your blog is that you seem to be very playful-your idea your way of thinking. So you think it has something to do with your upbringing?

I don’t think it has very much to do with my upbringing.
For a long time I felt I needed to defend my life to the world. I felt that I needed to explain that I was valid; that I was smart and successful because they kind of assumed otherwise. And just recently a couple of years ago, I felt that I was tired of trying to defend my existence in these very solemn terms.

I thought, “You know what? Everyone is weird, everybody is different. And it’s so much more effective to relate to people as people-because we are all human."And my particular weirdnesses and my particular weird experiences they are really valuable and great. Just like I think other peoples' particular weird experience are valid and great. But I just don’t want to defend myself. And I also want to be able to laugh at myself.

Have fun.

Yeah! Have fun.

If schools were closed for good, do you see a vision for that kind of a world? Do you think that it is something that our society could go back to? We didn’t always have school-right? What with technology how relevant is school to the great enterprises of our time. Do we really need school? What do you think?

No one has asked me that question! I feel like people should ask. It’s a great question. I think that what you see now, even in school-- I blog sometimes Lisa Nielsen for the innovative educator and she works with New York City schools-- introducing technological innovations into the classroom and building a network of interconnectivity between schools. Getting everyone online and expanding education beyond the walls of the school and across state lines. I think that is the direction that school is heading in just like it is the direction that everything is heading in.

It doesn’t mean that everything is going to change overnight. But if it really did change over night and schools stop being school I think it would be the logical conclusion of what is happening anyway.

Because I think that-- the way our consciousness works, our interaction works now, as a nation and globally as well- is much less concrete, much more in the realm of ideas. That is what the internet has done-it has connected us with people; we are friends with people who we have never met. We are exposed to the same ideas and information that is free. There doesn’t have to be so much of a hierarchy of information like there used to be- when you had to go to find people who possessed a certain body of information and they would be the ones to impart it. Like teachers –maybe rural farmers wouldn’t have the information that a teacher who was instructing their children had.

It sounds radical, but in terms of knowledge and learning, I don’t think it is really incredibly radical to say that schools are not as necessary as they used to be- but then the way that they are necessary will continue to be valid until society changes dramatically in other, economic, ways.People need their kids to be in school because they are working.So it’s hard to imagine a world without school before imagining a world in which jobs have been dramatically restructured.

There’s that movement of unjobbing-the equivalent of unschooling; people becoming more self-sufficient and the whole nature of work is changing anyway with the internet and technology.

Yes and if really we could just plunge into this new world where there wasn’t school and jobs had been completely rerouted, I think that what we would see is that people would be starting their own companies a lot more-these things would be intertwined in a new way –but only new in the sense that it was widespread because, again, we are already seeing that things are moving in that direction.

Now, with the economy as it is, we are seeing that there is tons of new job innovation, and the entrepreneurial base is growing enormously because people are forced to do something differently and think creatively and that is fundamentally what unschooling is.

Unschooling owes schooling nothing

I found this quote yesterday evening in the Writer magazine (January 2011 issue). It's an interview called The Love of a Good Story with Lisa Cron, story consultant and agent.

Think about it. Have you ever gone into a bookstore, pulled a book off the shelf,glanced at the first page and thought, "You know, this is kind of dull. I can't tell what it's about, but I'm sure the author tried really, really hard, and probably has something important to say, so I'm going to buy it, read it, and recommend it to all my friends."
Nope you're gloriously heartless.
I'm betting you never give the author's hard work or good intention a second thought. And that's as it should be. As a reader, you owe the writer absolutely nothing. You read their book solely at you own pleasure, where it stands or falls on its own merit. If you don't like it, you simply slip it back onto the shelf and slide out another.

It's with this kind of attitude that I approach unschooling.

Browse. Discard if we don't like it. Embrace what excites us.

Complete freedom. We owe the Gods of Education, the Institutions of Learning, the Masters of Curriculum absolutely nothing.

Think of your life- and the times you were made to learn things you didn't care about. How much of any of it do you remember today?
For my part, I can say none of it.

I don't even consider what I was doing then education- it was school.

Reminds me of a quote by Mark Twain;

I never let my schooling get in the way of my education.

Education that is uniquely shaped from one's own intrinsic motivation is true education- at least the education that we care most about.

Unschooling gives

My 15 year old is grade 10 at the local high school. She's been attending public school for over two years now. An unschooler up to that point, she tells me that she still considers herself to be unschooling. She explains it this way; "It's my choice as an unschooler to have gone."

I've since been thinking about the idea of unschooling in school and if this is actually possible.
What I see from my daughter's experience is that her unschooling mindset is allowing her to bring to the school context something fresh and stimulating. She, as an unschooled agent is sharing her way of seeing and being in the world; doing things that are helping other kids understand learning in a light that is different from what they are used to.

She likes doing well (that is getting the good grades) but at the same time she knows that it's all a game that she can drop any time she feels like it. She knows that her future success does not depend on the outcome of her marks.

Unlike the kids who when the teacher asked the students what they think school offers them, what's the best part of school, the kids answered, "A chance to get a good job."

"And?" the teacher asked her eyebrows reaching in to her hairline; urging them on.

Blank faces. "You come to school to learn to think." She said, a touch of disappointment.

"No. We don't learn to think at school," the class burst out laughing.

But I digress. Back to what my daughter brings to school. What keeps this kid in school then, is the fact that she is following her interests which currently are rights for gay and lesbians etc and also her current passion which is all things anime/manga-from the graphic novels, to the costume play.

So driven is she that she has gained notice at the top.
The principal stops her in the hall to express his admiration of the work she is doing with the GLBTQ group: "I stand in awe of you," he tells her. The teacher in charge of the GLBTQ urges her to take on even more leadership in the new year. She has already started organizing workshops that the group will be taking to local middle schools to help educate the youth there.

Singlehandedly she has created an anime/manga club against the indifference and lack of support that the teachers showed at first and now in its second year, as a fund-raiser, she has been making holiday greeting cards with manga characters which her dad helped make copies of as well as showing her how to make buttons to sell.

In short, she raised close to $100 for the group in a day through her art, and selling the cards. The only other person to raise money in the group managed a grand total of $1.

This indicates to me that the self directed person that evolved out of unschooling continues to act in the world -even in the restrictive world of school-on her own terms.
I like to think of her as a gift to the school system.

Readers-I'm interested in hearing your thoughts. Do comment!

wordle this blog

Unschooling does....

I'll leave it to others to hash out the precise and strict definition for what unschooling is.
My post today is about what unschooling does: how it acts. And what it gives you.
What does unschooling do for you, the individual?
And you don't have to be of 'school' age to be an unschooler. In my books, anyone can be an unschooler when they are approaching living in an independent, inquisitive way.

Let's get personal.

Life is hard but does it have to be dull? Does it have to be routine, predictable- boring? Must you always have to be told what to do, when to do it, how to do it-following orders like a lackey?
Do you have to seek permission? Do you have to have expert advice for every decision you face? Do you always have to wait; and wait and wait some more to maybe get your chance to shine?
Unschooling says, "No way!"

Life is for living--not tomorrow, not when I grow up, not when I'm older, not when I'm retired. Life is for living now. Unschooling understands this. It takes responsibility for one's time on this earth.

Unschooling acts immediately; it bites at the bit. But it also examines; it also reflects; it lets things stew and simmer; it is unhurried and unconcerned with the hurry-scurry, demands and expectations of peers and society.

Unschooling digs- it digs life, loves it, has you sniffing for hidden treasures, unearthing secrets, welcoming surprises.
Unschooling makes you have to trust, makes you scared sometimes but that's half the thrill of it-isn't it?

Unschooling has you questioning- your parents, authority, the world and the way it works. Unschooling allows mistakes; in fact mistakes are good because they help you learn- they don't prevent it!

Unschooling preserves-your originality, your curiosity your self-trust.

Unschooling nurtures your spirit of independence and has you demanding more out of your life; out of yourself.

"The child that's still inside me."

I came across this 1980 interview with author Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking and other books) and Agnetha Faltskog was singer for ABBA.
http://www.agnethaarchives.com/articles/ANonsmokingGeneration.htm-post

I was particularly interested in some of the insights Lindgren shared when dealing with kids and writing for them.

To the question "Were you a kind mother?"

Astrid: I played with my children and had just as much fun as they did. That's something that only children knows, if an adult enjoys being with them, if they have fun being with them. You can't pretend, "now we're going to have a good time". It has to come from inside you. Not everybody enjoys spending time with their children.

Astrid: When I walk in the streets I observe all people intensively. I saw a mother and a young boy and I thought that this boy is lucky. They were calm, both of them relaxed, holding each other's hands and were occupied with their own separate thoughts, but they exuded affinity and trust. I felt like walking up to them saying: Oh, how good things are with you and your mom. But you see others "now come with me"...

Astrid, why do you think adults like your books just as much as children?

Astrid: When it comes to a children's book, adults have to be able to stand it in order to read it. If not, it's not good. If you ask me the question: How should a good children's book be like, then I answer: It should be good! Because you never ask how good a collection of poems or a good novel should be like. There's really no good way to judge children's literature, in any other way than as literature. You have to have the same demands, on artistry, on genuineness, a good language and so on. You can't just sit down and say: well, this is how a good children's book should be.

Agnetha: It's just as if they would ask us, especially the guys, how do you write a hit, do you think that now we're going to write a hit? They don't. You don't work in that way. How would you know?

Do you picture any special kind of children in front of you when you write a children’s book?

Astrid: No, I write for the child that's still inside me. I never think that there will be children reading my books. Never. I write just to have fun. It's just as fun writing books as it is reading them. Since I always read books, as a child, and I still do, I can feel when I write that this is the way I want it. I go inside it in some kind of way. No, I never think of any other children. It doesn't matter what they think either... I can't let it. It's good if they're just as childish as I am.

Blake Boles on Unschooling : College Without High school

He's not a grown unschooler himself, but Blake Boles of www.unschooladventures.com works closely with the unschooling community and has written a book called College Without High School: A Teenager Guide to Skipping High school and going to College. In this interview, Boles shares about how he got interested in unschooling in the first place.

 














How did you get interested in unschooling and alternative education?

I discovered unschooling in 2003 as a sophomore at UC Berkeley after 12 years of California public school. I was majoring in astrophysics, which I initially found fascinating, but then I hit quantum mechanics and suddenly realized that real-life physics research required a ton of weird math that didn't stoke my curiosity.

Did I really love astrophysics, or did I just want to be the Dr. Arroway character from Carl Sagan's "Contact"? As I sweated over this problem, a friend handed me a John Taylor Gatto book. I devoured it in three days and immediately delved into whatever "recommended books" that Amazon suggested. A few weeks later, after discovering Grace Llewellyn, The Sudbury Valley School, John Holt, and Summerhill, I decided that I had to study this stuff full-time. It was just too fascinating.

Initially Berkeley gave me trouble--they wanted to shoehorn me in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department, which wouldn't accept most of my astrophysics units--but I was persistent and they eventually pointed me to the hidden "Independent Major" program, where I could design my curriculum from the absolute ground-up.

With the sponsorship of two professors, I designed my own program in alternative education, and in the process learned about all these tricks for individualizing my college experience like independent study, interning, senior thesis, teaching my own class, and exploiting pass/no pass units. Those two years were an intellectual feast that gave me a strong theoretical foundation for understanding alternative education and fueled my passion for unschooling (largely because I got to "unschool" myself while in college).

What's the connection with the Not back to school Camp?

My relationship with unschooling remained rather theory-based until I applied to work as a staff member at Not Back to School Camp in 2006. Grace Llewellyn, the director, accepted my application (you don't have to be a former unschooler or camper to work there), and I was suddenly face-to-face with 100 real-life teen unschoolers.

This is where I made most of my connections in the unschooling community, and campers were the first participants on my inaugural Unschool Adventures trip to Argentina (more on that below). The following year I began every session of camp (in both Oregon and Vermont), and today I continue work at as many sessions of camp as I can each year.

Not Back to School Camp is an incredibly supportive social environment for teen unschoolers, both new and old. I give it my highest recommendation for any teens who want to bolster their tribe of friends.

Where do you see the unschooling movement heading and what is the significance of this type of education on mainstream schooling models?

Unschooling seems to be getting bigger and bigger. The selection of conferences, camps, and other support programs expand each year. And media mentions, while typically slanted (see the recent Good Morning America piece), continue to appear. So "big" is one direction that the movement is heading.

Despite this trend, I don't see unschooling exerting any significant influence in changing mainstream schooling. Unschooling's power is in providing a positive alternative to school, but as a movement it holds no unified approach to breaking the school monopoly. I see lots of room for growth in that area.

Now for your book:Why did you write this book and who is the target audience?

My primary audience is disaffected high school students who, while bright and desiring to learn, feel squashed by school politics, social scenes, poor classes, or the simple restriction of freedom. I wanted to show them that a viable alternative--unschooling--is possible, and it doesn't require that your mortgage your future--especially in the realm of college.

As I saw it, the ability to get into a decent college seems to be one of the largest factor preventing many families from choosing homeschooling or unschooling. And as I learned through the NBTSC community and various interviews and research, the assumption that unschoolers (as opposed to rigorously parent-directed homeschoolers) can't get into decent colleges is totally unfounded. That's why the book needed to be written.

Thus far, it doesn't seem that the book has penetrated very far into the mainstream market (e.g. it's not in Barnes & Noble). Lots of home/unschooling families are reading and enjoying it, and I'm glad for that. I'm still figuring out how to reach a larger audience.

Lastly, a little bit about what you are doing these days (besides writing the book). Any parting words?

Since 2008 I've been leading international travel adventures through my company Unschool Adventures. Lots of Not Back to School Campers expressed desires for travel and adventure opportunities outside of camp, so I obliged them by organizing a 6-week unschooler's Argentina trip. The trip was a hit, so I ran a few more in 2009 (a Novel-Writing Retreat and Australia adventure). The next trip, a 7-week South America adventure, filled to capacity within one month of its debut, so I think we're onto something good.

Last month I ran my first leadership program (through my other company, Homeschool Leadership Retreats, which I plan to fold into Unschool Adventures). During this 2-week program based in Ashland, Oregon, I challenged our group of seven teens to go out and create short-term internships, mentorships, and job shadows based on their interests.

In the evenings, the other staff and I would run workshops on topics like communication, personality psychology, goal-setting, and learning theory, all tailored to the needs of teen unschoolers. The hope was that they would employ these workshop tools in the internship challenge.

And the trip was a total success--our teens mentored with university professors, got short- and long-term work internships (one turned into a paid employment opportunity), and interviewed local artists, among other pursuits. More importantly, they experienced a lot of failure and rejection and learned to deal with that in a constructive way. This was the real skill that I wanted them to get out of the program.

For more information:
www.unschooladventures.com
www.collegewithouthighschool.com
www.blakeboles.com

Approaching the thing with lightness

I was thinking about how when you go to a thing in a really serious way, much is lost. The edge is missing. The mystery waiting to reveal itself, never will. The chance at discovery vanishes.

It's like if you're doing a painting and you absolutely have this image in mind and you won't deviate or allow for surprises, you'll end up with a less interesting piece. That's my experience anyway.

I think that its got to do with playfulness. So when you get all serious and grim about something, say education, or changing the world, it gets really boring for you and everyone involved.

And as Karlsson on the Roof (Astrid Lindgren) has been known to say, "If there's no fun, I won't stay." Something like that. It's my motto for this week. And that goes with my idea of not taking myself so seriously.

What do schools do? They make learning dull.

Now look at how my daughter learns about the axis powers without ever having being bored in a history lesson- she watches Hetalia!
http://www.tegmentum.net/hetaliaeps.html
Here's a short description from Wiki:
Axis Powers Hetalia (ヘタリア Axis Powers Hetaria Akushisu Pawāzu) is a webcomic, later adapted as a manga and an anime series, by Hidekaz Himaruya (日丸屋秀和 Himaruya Hidekazu). The series presents an allegorical interpretation of political and historic events, particularly of the World War II era, in which the various countries are represented by anthropomorphic characters. Hetalia (ヘタリア) is a portmanteau combining hetare (へタレ, Japanese for "unreliable") and Italia (イタリア). This is to make light of Italy's apparent cowardice during World War II.

So in grade 10 history at the high-school she goes to- who has the highest mark in the class? She does with a 97% average.

I like to think of it as approaching what we do with lightness rather than heavy handedly. To quote again and this time accurately from that fat, chubby, man Karlsson, "Easy, just easy now."

Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw: "We just Played."

Elizabeth Bagshaw (October 1881-January 1982) was one of Canada's first female doctors and the director of the first birth control clinic in Canada.
She was also made a member of the highest order you can get here- the Order of Canada.

In a little book for kids on Elizabeth Bagshaw we picked up at a used store by Marjorie Wild, I read the following about her early childhood:

Winter on the farm was an enemy to a child's schooling. The Bagshaw farm was in a snow belt, and in winter the side road to school was blocked. From the first heavy snowfall, usually the first week in December, until after Easter, Annie and Elizabeth stayed at home. They had no schoolwork. There were no lessons by correspondence, and the days of lessons by radio were yet to come. "We just played," Elizabeth recalled much later. "I didn't mind."
When she started school again in the spring, Elizabeth had to learn and remember what the other children had studied during the winter. Her retentive memory helped her bridge the gaps in her education.

Clearly, in Bagshaw's early childhood years, she was unschooled.

It seems that her life was a simple one on the farm, with little distractions, time to observe and discover, and little 'peer' association apart from her sister Anne.

She had strong roots in her community and was allowed and encouraged to follow her interests and be herself, no matter the conventions of the day.

The story continues;

Although the side road which led to the school was closed in the winter, the main road was kept open. The Bagshaw family could go into town and to church....Church going took up a large part of any Sunday, but as Elizabeth once pointed out, it was one of the few real social events they had at that time. Some Sundays, relatives came to dinner and visited with the Bagshaws in the afternoon....

Other highlights of rural life were the annual fairs,,,Sometimes John Bagshaw took Elizabeth with him to the political meetings that were also and important part of the country life. She would be the only girl there. She once heard Willfred Laurier speak.

Elizabeth Bagshaw always had a strong attachment to her family, their farm and the part of Ontario where she grew up.

Secure Schools? Ultimate School Randomness

I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to write anything about schools today but then I just had to. Secure Schools is the heading to the letter I recently received from my middle school daughter's middle school; 'Safe and Caring Schools.'
What happened to plain old school?

I mean, if I were a parent starting my kids out with public school and I got that letter-it would start warning bells ringing in my head. It would imply to me that school are not safe-otherwise why have to define them as 'secure' in the first place?

The letter went on to explain that schools in the Hamilton- Wentworth District have a new policy in place.
Schools love school words. The latest on that piece of paper "being used by schools, police and members of the media across Ontario when there is a situation that impacts the safety of students" are these three "terms":

Lockdown: Potentially violent situation at the school
Hold and Secure: Safety situation in the neighbourhood external to the school
Shelter in Place: Potentially environmental hazard outside the school.

In addition to these charming terms I, and other parents are now supposed to familiarize ourselves with, (I feel really reassured now!! Not!) we were each given a card that will fit in our wallets with the terms on it as well as instructions "where to go for info when your child is in a secure schools situation... and a secure schools HOTLINE.
"When your child is in a secure schools situation"????? What does that mean?

Oh! Stupid me! Now I get it. What they really mean to say masked behind this twisted lingo, is should one of these horrible scenarios arise, we will make everyone feel better; rather than being honest and saying 'unsafe, insecure' school, we will say that they are in a 'secure school situation." Brilliant. Makes us feel we really are in safe hands.

How To Be Alone

I knew there was a reason I subscribed to this Youtube channel...

Math is a creative and messy human art

Paul Lockhart is a mathematics teacher at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, New York. He writes:

What I find so pathetic about our math education system is that it reduces a lively, creative, and messy human art form to a sterile set of notations and procedures, then attempts to train students to master them and become "technically skilled." Of course it fails even on its own terms because there is no coherent narrative - the teacher doesn't know where the natural logarithm came from, what its problem history is, what it means within the context of modern mathematics, only that it's on the test and the students need to "know" it. So the students cram some formulas into their heads for a day or two, pass a test, and promptly forget them. Of course most people can't retain dry, meaningless hieroglyphic information that they had no role in creating or contextualizing, so they get classified by the teacher (and by themselves) as "bad at math." (I worry that the most talented mathematician of our time may be a waitress in Tulsa, Oklahoma who considers herself bad at math.

http://radiofreeschool.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-laments-about-math.html

Even more school randomness-Healthy on OUR terms!

Proud of his mother's fine baking, my friend's son wanted to bring in brownies to celebrate his 13th birthday with his class. Turns out that with the new School Board's Nutrition Policy (based on the Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide and the Ontario Ministry of Education’s nutrition guidelines), this is now forbidden.

Never mind that Mom uses only the best: whole butter churned by her own two hands, 'free-run' eggs from the local farmer, and fresh ground organic flour. Sorry, but the ingredients are simply not in keeping with the nutritional guidelines outlined in the policy. There is too much fat, not enough fiber..... blah, blah booorring.

To permit or not to permit?

"To determine whether a specific product may be sold in schools, it is necessary to read the information on the food label (dead give away here-the brownies are homemade and they don't even have a label. Fail!)– particularly the Nutrition Facts table and the ingredient list – and compare this information with the nutrition criteria." Policy No. 7.20

So basically 'dead food,' processed packaged food is okay as long as the ingredients of the 'food' meets the nutritional criteria that the school as implemented. 'Diet Pepsi' is okay because there's no sugar in it-(never mind the harmful effects of the aspartame it contains).

The irony to me is that this is exactly how education is delivered at school.

Here is an apt metaphor: a 'balanced' diet to be administered in quantities and in content according to ministry approved curriculum. You can't have too much of this - or too little of that.

And most of all, there must be no chance at enjoyment. No FUN allowed.

too late for some of us, but the future of math is here!

Boing Boing Founder Mark Frauenfelder on DIY, Mistakes, and Unschooling

More School Randomness

"So what do you do in school?" I asked my little niece who is going to be 5 next month and who has started going to school 3 times a week, for half days.

She looked down at her hands; "We colour." "Really?" I said turning to her mother who said enthusiastically,"Tell Auntie about the Beech leaves you learned about."

Oh you went on a hike?" I asked excited for her. "No.The teacher showed us a picture of the leaf in a book."
My sister and I looked at each other. It's fall outside for goodness sake! And the leaves swirl gracefully, dropped down from tree heights, grazing the pavement and the road; auburn, flashy red, umbra and topaz.
And out on the trails, it's a magical carpet to take you on a wondrous adventure.

The well intentioned teacher and her little book can never provide the authenticity of an outdoor experience of being immersed in the real thing.

I watched my sister's face fall in disappointment. For her, unschooling is not an option.

But I can't help wondering if whatever money she needs to have is really worth leaving a child's imagination/development at the mercy of a system that is not capable of anything more than the superficial experience.

School Randomness

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Goethe (If indeed it really was his quote-which is still being debated).

Nice quote. A weird place to deliver it though -at a high-school 'Salute to Excellence' where, lets be honest, you are getting an award because you jumped through the hoops.
Not exactly a measure of genius and boldness and all that brilliant stuff.


I was at this school at the awful hour of 8.30 am to see my daughter receive her award of excellence along with at least 300 other kids.

"You're good at school. You hand in your work on time. But will you be good at life? "

This was a question asked by a trustee of the Hamilton- Wentworth District School board at the opening ceremony  to the grades 9, 10 ,11 students receiving their awards.

It was a good question to ask but to me at least, ironic in many ways. It sounded like the case of "those who have put out their eyes now blame them for their blindness."

What can we understand by that?  Only that the school doesn't prepare you to be good at life-but to be good at school.

What an exercise in contradiction because seriously, who believes that school prepares you to be good in life? Nobody, even the school people. So why ask? 

She went on to ask that they "question society, ask the bigger ideas." And I thought, why not start by questioning the institution of schooling?

On the stage stood the banner of the school, awkward, archaic, Alius Alia Via Ad Astra Ascendit- Each Reach For The Stars In Their Own Way (but we only honour the ones who have 80% or higher).

All the time, "our talented school orchestra" (comprised of mostly kids that can afford private strings lessons) played Handel and in the aisles the students, sweating and standing waiting to receive their bits of paper, cursed and swore, and as my daughter reported, called one another 'fag' and 'homo.'

These uninterested, bored, teenagers were told by principal, school trustee and other school folks alike that they "will change the world to a world of equality, equity, tolerance, love" and what have you.

  Ironic that an a salute to excellence where the emphasis is as usual placed on the academic who are still lets face it, considered better and smarter than so called 'non academics' that they kept talking about a place of excellence "where you know who you are and have a strong sense of self-a place that speaks to your inner self."

What were they trying to say? That you've got school smarts-but that you need to use these smarts to make a better place.

Did I need to wake up early to hear this?

And really, is it only the ones with school smarts who can make this world a better place?

Fact is....

It's funny about facts. I mean, just the other day, my daughter was researching continents.
"How many are there?" she wanted to know.

We googled and found that some people go by 6 (Europeans- that is) while others (North Americans) say 7 (North America and South America-but what about Central America?).

We read on to find out that most geographers don't even bother with continents -preferring to use 'regions' of the world.
"I just want to know how many continents there are!" my daughter sighed in frustration.

Fact is, facts change. A fact today might not necessarily be a fact tomorrow.

Darn fickle humans! It makes it so difficult for the ones who insist that knowledge be neatly parceled,tidily compartmentalized.

How annoying that there is more than one answer to a question;that there is more than one way to solve a problem. What a nuisance it is that there are multiple points of view and that the world is a very,very complex place to be in.

To make things worse, why must facts and imagination mix? It would be so much easier if imagination, creativity would be separate.

Take this excerpt from Charles Dicken's Hard Times.

'Girl number twenty,' said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.

Sissy blushed, and stood up.

'So you would carpet your room -- or your husband's room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband -- with representations of flowers, would you,' said the gentleman. 'Why would you?'

'If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,' returned the girl.

'And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?'

'It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy --'

'Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy,' cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. 'That's it! You are never to fancy.'

'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, 'to do anything of that kind.'

'Fact, fact, fact!' said the gentleman. And 'Fact, fact, fact!' repeated Thomas Gradgrind.

'You are to be in all things regulated and governed,' said the gentleman, 'by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether.

You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use of ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery.
You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,' said the gentleman, 'for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste.'

The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the matter of fact prospect the world afforded.

'Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild,' said the gentleman, 'will proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request, to observe his mode of procedure.'

Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. 'Mr. M'Choakumchild, we only wait for you.'

So, Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs.

He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of headbreaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers.

He had worked his stony way into Her Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council's Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, Mr. M'Choakumchild.

If he had only leant a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by and by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within -- or sometimes only maim him and distort him!

An open letter to educators

This is an entertaining watch (although a little obnoxious) and certainly telling of how things need to change in the way education is traditionally delivered.

University Students Get Unschooled.

I had a super time speaking about unschooling/open source learning to a classroom full of engineering in society students (third year university). These McMaster students were the perfect students -honestly. They were completely engaged, interested and asked a pile of questions.

There was a lot of concern around motivation-many of the students wondered about what happens if kids don't get forced to do things they don't necessarily want to do, then how will they ever learn the skill of perseverance? What happens when they grow up and don't feel like going to work?

One student came up during the break and told me that he was tired and didn't want to come in today but he forced himself and "Now I feel fine. I'm awake." To which I replied in jest, "What's wrong with sleeping? You probably needed it."
But seriously, do you need that much practice to prepare to do something you're not keen on doing that is decades down the road?

The presentation about 2 hours long consisted of me, introducing unschooling by reading a chapter from Skellig (by David Almond) where ironically it's school that is put into question for a change. Mina is an unschooled girl who meets a school boy Michael.

In the chapter, Michael who is taking a break from school because of family problems, is doing his school work and Mina is curious. Leafing through pages of questions that have blank after blank spaces to fill in she asks in mockery,"Is this really the kind of thing you do all day?"

When she flicks through the book that Michael and his class are reading she asks about the red sticker.
"It's for confident readers," Michael says. "It's to do with reading age."

"And what if other readers want to read it? And where would William Blake fit in?" asks Mina. "Tyger! Tyger! burning bright/In the forests of the night." Is that for the best reader of the worst readers? Does that need a good reading age?"..."and if it were for the worst readers would the best readers not bother with it because it would be too stupid for them?"


Following this I presented the basic premises of unschooling/open source learning and then took questions and answers. We then watched these short videos on youtube.


Kate Cayley-grown unschooler
ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxYJZT5YTo

John Taylor Gatto-State Controlled Consciousness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8ObiwQ&feature=related

Al Gore Flunked out of college
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t0m0zxtuwQ&feature=related

A favourite with the students was Sir ken Robinson-changing educational paradigms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded

There was some discussion about the possibility of using unschooling ideas into the classroom situation that I found interesting-especially the idea of working collaboratively and in-depth on a topic that a group of students were motivated by.
Of course the catch to me is that the group of students/learners are doing this thing because they actually and authentically want to do it!

Why Don't Students Like School?

Why don't students like school? Seriously?

You'd think with a title like this, you're in for some juicy reading from a person who understands the kid's point of view.
But don't judge a book by its title. The author Daniel Willingham, a cognitive scientist is well meaning but falls short of the mark.

According to the research he quotes, humans might be curious but we don't like to think. Why? because it's hard.

And this basically is the reasoning behind why students don't like school.

So the point of the book?

It serves as a heavy duty 'how to' handbook for teachers and educators to give them tips on how to get their students to enjoy learning (since according to him, we humans avoid using our brains at all cost); to create, like a magician might, opportunities to "feel the rush" of a discovery more often.

It basically asks of teachers that they try to make schools "not a place of boredom and drudgery" but excitement and discovery (38).

Willingham says people need background knowledge in order to think critically but he also says "It's better to have a smattering of knowledge than no knowledge."(35). I'm not so sure. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, or so the saying goes.

An exhausting read.

To me, it seems absurd to first carve out specific places of learning and then proceed to create these expectations. What an incredible tall order to deliver. To have to take on such a responsibility seems daunting, unfair and even presumptuous.

Frankly if I were a teacher I would want to give up.

If you're authentically excited about something then that automatically generates enthusiasm in those others who resonant with what you're into-it will still do nothing for those who aren't interested.


Taking offense at the 'bright lights' that have 'denigrated school" the author simply fails to see the obvious; that the 'background' knowledge he insists develops critical thinking was an interference for these thinkers who wanted instead to pursue what they were passionate about.

Background knowledge comes after-as a result of following your interest and building on that solid foundation.

The book has merit only insofar as a platform in which to once more expose schooling strategies as fundamentally intrusive.

Teaching is an act of persuasion he says. And that to me says it all.

Unschooling is frightening

You want learning to be regulated. Standardized. Average. Leveled. Predictable. And frankly not that exciting.

So to have a movement where learning is unregulated, un-measured, unaccounted for is frightening. Nobody knows what they know except the learner- him or herself. Tests can't tell us because tests are not applicable in unschooling.

Because you basically have to trust; which seems a very poor thing to go on-doesn't it?

How else can you prove that learning is going on?

With government regulation you get a sense or general idea of what the person before you is bound to know so that you can guess at how to relate to that person.

And from there you can categorize him or her.

It's safe this way; you know what is expected of you and most of all, you can fit in. Everybody is on the same safe, page.
Do you see what is wrong with this picture? Someone creates the agenda. Someone has the power to decide what you should know and what should be omitted. Ask yourself, why is this be allowed to happen?

Where what might have started out as a good intention, (namely giving kids the opportunity 'to get an education') what we have in place is a system that denies self autonomy to every single school child.

The excuse is that there would be chaos and ignorance if schooling were not compulsory. I say that we already have ignorance aplenty (thanks to schooling) and that the way humans learn is actually chaotic-not in a linear fashion at all.

wkng clss hero

Blog-spiration: 5 blogs that rock!

Blogs are great. That's why I had the idea of sharing with you some really cool blogs I've been inspired by in the last little while.
Starting with Crunchy Chicken, (putting the mental in environmental) this blog is about how you can live in the 21st century as harmlessly to the planet as possible-as well as reduce toxic chemical exposure in our environment.

Crunchy is this witty lady from Seattle who is at her best when she's giving you a challenge-whether it's the 'Hang em out to dry in October,' or it's using cloth instead of toilet paper to wipe, Crunchy has even the most strident of environmentalists squirming!!

On the unschooling front I've been enjoying Idzie Desmarais I'm unschooled. Yes I can write. Idzie is an unschooled Montreal youth who writes bravely and articulately about unschooling and living her life close to her ideals. Always a refreshing read.

Wendy Priesnitz is a pioneer and elder in the home education community in Canada and her many wonderful books and magazines are some of the most inspirational reads around if you want to get into the real life, day to day of unschooled living. Her blog is Life Learning and you'll find a clear, 'deep digging' thinking that will help you on your unschooling adventure.

Next on my short list this morning is Marcia's Child in Harmony (for the child within all of us) for its sheer beauty and simplicity. This blog is a delight to look at and the many quotes give instant satisfaction. Just a nice balm for those tired days.


Okay-I said 5 blogs didn't I? Well I'm going to ask readers to share with me their favourite blogs and from what you send me, I'll take a pick. Send 'em in!

We like our children

Someone mentioned in a comment (on the last blog post) that Western folks don't like their children. This is an extreme opinion, but it made me think. There really is an insistence on keeping kids away from grown ups' lives-their work, their fun.  Schools help perpetrate that belief.

A friend and her husband are on vacation again for the third time without their daughter- who is only 3 years old. They feel comfortable with an ocean and more distance between their selves and their child- convinced that they can't really enjoy themselves with a child in tow. To have a meaningful experience you can't have kids about.

But that isn't the case with most unschooling parents as far as I can tell.
It's what Kelly Green refers to in a chapter of her book (see review in last post) A Matter of Conscience: Education as a fundamental freedom, 'The real (secret) reason people choose to educate their own kids.
"We home educate not because we love our kids, but because we like them. It's time to make that a cause for celebration."
It is also not the case with kids in traditional societies.
Thanks to Laurence who sent on this link about what happens when western culture imposes modern style education on the world's indigenous cultures.
A lot of damage-that's what.

Check it out. It's called Schooling the World.


Schooling The World: The White Man's Last Burden trailer HD from lost people films on Vimeo.

A Matter of Conscience

There is no question that every child has the right to an education. There should also be no question that as a matter of conscience, parents have the freedom to educate their child at home. And up there with educational freedom should be the right to educational happiness.

Ideas too radical for the many and yet that is exactly what autonomous learning supports and must be prepared to fight for as documented in Kelly Green's latest book, A Matter of Conscience: Education as a fundamental freedom.

"...when we educate our children ourselves, we choose or create the educational program that we, as parents, believe is most likely to lead to that ineffable, indefinable, thing call the good, or flourishing, or virtuous, or productive, human life."

Reading these words by Green I thought immediately of the US Declaration of Independence of 1776-

"We hold these truths to be self-evident.....that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.".

Happiness, goodness, flourishing. As parents, it is for us to determine the education that will best meet these goals.

I felt like cheering for the logical and clear arguments Green presents in the collection in the defense of home education against any government who would tamper with this fundamental right-as has been the case in England and the reason for this collection in the first place.

We have this precious right that most people just give up; don't even know that it is their right to determine the best education for their children.

And so parents turn over their children to the state without a second thought. What am I saying? More often then not, they are eager to get them into the system the sooner the better.
So that state monitored education becomes the default position and any other setup becomes suspect.

"For the state to involve itself in or attempt to control our decisions about educational provision is a betrayal of our commitment to freedom of belief, conscience and self expression," Green writes.

Yes- betrayal. A strong word that gets straight to the heart of what is at stake if we are slack and do not support one another when these rights are threatened or violated.

Passionately written, this book is not only a call for constant vigilance against those who would take these rights from us, it is also an opportunity to re-examine our position on what we are doing.

We're normal in the sense that we are no more fundamentalist, hippies or other stereotypical depiction tied with home educators than the rest of the population.

Green reminds us that we are defining our own educational success, on our own terms and we must actively work towards educating others about home education without submitting to or cooperating with unhelpful home education research that has its own agenda on what we do.

Green's arguments against regulation of home-based education are compelling and useful for all of us should we ever need to stand up for what we are doing.

not equal, not average....

"Equal opportunity, yes. Equal results, impossible. The ones who're so upset about everybody not being the same, about competition, about standards of quality, about art object having 'auras' around them, they're usually people with average abilities, and average minds. And below average sense of humor. Whether it's a matter of lifting the deprived up or dragging the gifted down, they want everybody to function on their level. Some fun that would be."

Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All

Great Expectations

There's this issue with unschooling. Everybody expects BIG. Results I mean. "Okay so you're doing this different thing. Shouldn't you have something stunning to prove to me that it works? Convince me, other wise other why bother keeping your kid out of school?"

A whole world of self-determination, of the right to pursue one's interest, to live one's life now (not after graduation) eludes this type of thinking.
How unfair to demand that unschooled kids be exemplary of extreme achievement.

My unschooled 11 year old daughter often bursts out saying, "I love my life." Isn't that amazing as is? How many kids can say this? Most of her schooled friends lament that they wish their lives were other than they are.

Why isn't this enough?

Birke Baehr-Good Food's Future

Thank goodness for little boys like Birke Baehr who can see that what the world needs is farmers-organic farmers- and who is spreading the message and committing to being a farmer when he grows up. This little guy is homeschooled by the way. Way to go Birke! Love the audience too!

Think Differently. Be creative right now!

Have you noticed? 'Think outside the box.'  'Think critically.' 'Be original.' 'Challenge me.' 'Innovative ideas needed.' Think Einstein, Picasso, Martin Luther King, Amelia Earhart.. Think differently. This is the message I'm seeing that has started popping up in local media, in ads and even school. Be creative. 
It's like someone sounded the alarm bell and now the push is to magically get people to 'be creative.'

Magazines like Newsweek warn that creativity in America is disappearing. They call it The Creativity Crisis, and say studies are reporting that creativity in America (and that probably means us Canadians too) is declining.
In a now well known TED talk featuring Sir Ken Robinson, the concern is that schools kills creativity.
So now we are seeing all kinds of training programs to teach creativity.
But can creativity be taught?
That's where the irony slips in; to my mind, creativity is a human trait. But we get it belittled out of us at an early age. School is the biggest culprit in many cases. Human self confidence and faith in oneself is a delicate matter-it can be easily damaged by those who have power over us and who we are dependent on (like teachers, parents,coaches).
So rather than coming at it with the usual heavy handed way, (You WILL be creative now!) we would do well to think about not destroying or stunting creativity in our charges and in our selves in the first place.
Here are some useful links that talk about where good ideas come from and how to nurture creativity. Your thoughts please!

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html

"You know, creative people clump together." Tom Stewart, Chief Marketing & Knowledge Officer, Booz & Company

The Power of Unschooling

Reading a post by Idzie Desmarais on her blog called Unschooling is Forever there was a comment in response to this post about a boy who resented his mum for not having prepared him for entry into high school.

I was reminded of a kid I know for whom something similar happened. Only after the shock of 10 pages of math homework at worn off and the realization that his spelling and note-taking was not at 'peer level,' this bright, motivated, very confident, very well loved young man took on the responsibility (with his dear mother's support) to tackle wholeheartedly these shortcomings- which he did not view as obstacle but instead as challenges.

He too, might have felt a little dismayed at his mother's not having prepared him for entry, but he got over it quickly because he realized that he had chosen to enter school. It was his decision and instead of feeling 'behind' in these areas and so disadvantaged some how, he drew upon the many wonderful and empowering skills and qualities he developed under that mother's thoughtful guidance, nurtured through unschooling.

These were qualities such as self directed learning, curiosity and perseverance which are far more important in the long run than learning a bunch of facts or even proper spelling. These later, as the young lad is finding are easily picked up; the other kind need plenty of time to grow.

In the end, the best thing that unschooled kids learn is that they are trusted to learn what they need to and want to-that they CAN learn, WHEN and IF they want to.

Education is

"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token to save it from that ruin, which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and the young, would be inevitable. An education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their choice of undertaking something new, something unforseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world."

Hannah Arendt, Teaching as Leading

Unschooling- Compassion for the schooled mind

It's an exciting time for unschooling. More and more people are getting to know about this strategy of learning/educating, as mainstream media begins to catch up with a movement that has for the most part, been underground.

But it is apparent that unschooling is a shock to the institutionalized mind. It really is. It's viewed by many as a fantasy, la-la land that only a kook would be fool enough to try. I mean, 'Saturday' every day?

You have only to read the comments in the Globe and Mail article to see how outraged people get over it. And I suspect that it might have something to do with the fear that if this works, then "why did I have to go through a system that might have turned me out the poorer for it? "

School and schooling have had such a fundamental hold on the unquestioning mind that to question that 'truth,' that 'given of the natural order of things' is akin to challenging the belief that the earth was the center of the whole universe back in the medieval age. You didn't.

But the wonderful thing about people is that we do question. We do challenge. We do try different ways to attain our goals. We do exercise our creativity and innovation. This unique quality is what makes us learning animals-human beings.
So you who are knew to unschooling, take heart. It might be difficult at first, but the more you read about unschooling, the more you talk to unschoolers, the easier it will get. I guarantee you, you will feel refreshed; surprised for certain.

Unschoolers are people who have the good fortune to explore what makes them tick. Perhaps this might make a 'school-dependent' mind cringe-and maybe feel a tad resentful.
But it is an approach to life that can easily be injected in any situation-so those of you who are 'unschooled challenged' fear not!
Unschooling is grand, and generous. It 'contains multitudes.' It accepts differences. Lighten up;  allow the wisdom of unschooling to come into your life.

Giving kids the support they need to be self-directed learners.

We are used to doing very little for ourselves.  Take sewing our clothes, baking our bread, making our own furniture, fixing our cars, our bikes, growing our food.. the list goes on.
While I am deeply thankful that I don't have to milk my own cow, or sew footwear for myself and the family, I can't help thinking that the less we have to do for ourselves the more we have developed dependent attitudes and  mindsets in all areas of being alive.

Perhaps this is why the idea of unschooling-of taking responsibility for educating ourselves- is unthinkable for so many. Not only is it unthinkable, it's challenging the status quo- and how dare one do this?
Besides, giving a kid that kind responsibility? Are you freaking crazy? It isn't fair for the kid.

I agree that it isn't fair to say to a child, "Off you go then! Carte blanche now. It's all up to you."
And that is hardly ever the case with unschoolers.

Here's an excerpt from an interview Radio Free School did with Susannah Sheffer who explains that the key to unschooling or self directed learning is support.

How can parents continue to support their home educated kids, find mentors, role models?

There’s a philosophical answer to that and a very practical answer. The philosophical one in a way, is embedded in that word “support.” Because all of us have been to school we are used to figuring out what kids need to do and then figuring out ways to get them to do it.
As colloquial as that might sound, that’s what much of the discussion on education really is about. You know, "what should kids be learning and how can we cleverly devise ways to get them to do it, and to get that knowledge in there?"
Then when people begin to critique that and question that model as many many people have, sometimes there’s a tendency to swing to a false other end of the spectrum where the assumption is that in that case you should just entirely leave kids alone.
That’s I think what a very, very superficial and ultimately false understanding of what sometimes homeschooling and some kinds of alternative schools is- you know that the alternative of making kids do things is nothing at all! And in fact there is such a profound third alternative.

And that alternative can really be summed up by the word “support” where there is quite a role for an adult in the life of a young person who is self directed and not forced to do things. There is after all a whole big world out there and helping young people to navigate through it, to understand what their options are, to figure out what they want and to know what’s available.
There’s so much that an adult can do.

And so, that gets into the very practical; example, a girl expresses a very general interest in working with animals, let’s say. She may not be at all sure what she means by that. She may not be sure what the options would be. One of the things an adult might do in that situation is first of all, let her know what the options are. Talk to her about how she could be reading about that sort of thing, she could be apprenticing, volunteering. What does she mean by animals? Does she mean training guard dogs for the blind, does she mean working in a veterinarian office.
There’s so many different things you can do and sometimes by throwing out those specific scenarios in the conversation with the girl or boy actually, that they figure out what it is that they really do want. An adult can offer very practical help like placing the phone call to the veterinarian to begin to explore those possibilities.

The easiest way to sum this up is by some very wise words of some friends of mine who run a resource center for young people and the way they would always pose a question both from little toddlers right up to teenagers; they would say, “what’s the part you can do and what’s the part you need help with?” Which really shows that it’s not an all or nothing kind of proposition. A young person might say, “I really need help with placing that phone call to the veterinarian because that’s a really scary thing to figure out as a thirteen year old. How to place that cold call to a stranger. But then once you place the call, Mom I would be comfortable going to the first appointment by myself,” or what ever it might be.

In other words there are parts that kids want our help with and parts that they feel able to do themselves.
It’s so important not to butt in and help with the parts that they don’t want, think of a toddler saying “No. I want to do it my self!” It’s so important not to interfere with that. But it’s so important to extend the help and support when young people do want it. That’s kind of an overview that I think really shows what kind of help we can offer. We give the help that’s asked for as John Holt but it and not the help that’s not asked for.

Responsibility

We were invited to write the weekly message for the Learning Revolution facebook group this week and this is what I wrote;

Dear Members,
with freedom in education comes responsibility.
We have to be responsible for our learning; we have to take responsibility for being in this world. That's my message to you. I think it is the most important message you can 'teach' a kid.

John Gatto has said it over and over; you don't get an education.
"Nobody can give you and education. Education must be taken by those who want one. The will and dogged persistence of the seeker are the only essential tools needed to become educated. Teachers, text, money play only minor roles and papers, pencils, tests play no role at all."

And that means taking here, there, everywhere from the world around us, according to what we are interested in and passionate about and not what some one prescribes for us.
Learning in this way -Gatto calls it 'open source learning'- "allows everything under the sun as a possible starting point on the road to self mastery."
If as parents, educators, people interested in learning revolution we can help a child or young person see that they have abilities, they have potential, so that they truly believe it, then they will take on that responsibility for themselves.
The challenge is one that they will want to accept.

Take very young kids; it's, "No. I do it," and "Let me!"
They want to do things; they want to challenge themselves. They are deeply insulted if you try and do it for them.

So in our commitment to revolution in education, let's nurture that compulsion for self autonomy. Let's not allow that urge for self sufficiency and inquiry be quelled or squished in our zeal to provide education.

I think we would do well to remember that when talking about autonomous, self- directed learning, our children are not the ones who need it the most. Our kids are perfect beings before the schooling mentality reaches them.
It is we, the adults, who need to divest ourselves of unexamined beliefs and the imprisoning expectations of society's well meaning people.
We who are heir to a schooling mentality that extends into all aspects of life (be it in the way we defer to' the experts' to tell us how to be in this world- from what to wear to how to the best way to spend your time) need to unschool ourselves.
So the battle to regain our own minds is top priority. And this group offers an opportunity to do just that.
What a wonderful group!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=130475496965114&ref=ts