Learning, learning everywhere! (Open source learning)

 Free online courses on computer science are being offered at Stanford. This, people is what I am talking about. The idea that education-higher education can be free is a reality. The face of education is changing and nothing, but nothing can stop the tide.
Here, I thought I'd include excerpts from a piece I wrote for this blog in 2009:

We have heard of the concept 'open source' in internet circles; anything can be learned over the internet. There is a new openness to educational resources; for example MIT (Open CourseWare) is now offering up to 1800 on line course materials for free - their motto being "unlocking knowledge, empowering minds."

Open source learning as coined by John Taylor Gatto is based on extending this idea to all learning, to everyone. The underlying premises of open source learning is that learning is available everywhere in life and not restricted to 'places of learning'-namely schools. Open source is happening everywhere. How can it not, with the internet as accessible as it is!

Resources of all kinds are every where to be found in the day to day world; people, art galleries and science centres, businesses, professional schools, museums, community centres, libraries.

Of course, much learning happens incidentally and by doing; through games, work, and living. You learn fractions by cooking, history by watching movies, writing by reading books.

Think of it as the newest, most cutting edge vision of the pursuit of knowledge and education. Much deeper than simply another novel way of doing business, it is a different business all together. Open source learning is a shift in consciousness- a fresh wind that is sweeping out the old ideas of what, how and when one should learn.

Questions arise that challenge the entire concept of education at it's roots; whose education anyway? Do we even have the right to impose on another human being our own ideas (the State's ideas, the religious establishments ideas...) of what another person should learn? Crazy? Going too far? Still it goes to the roots of freedom. And it's happening the world over.

As Gatto says, "Nobody can give you and education. You have to take an education." And that means taking here, there everywhere from the world around us, according to what we are interested in, passionate about and not what some one prescribes for us.

"We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves."Gatto

The Uncluttered Mind.

My mind, these days is like a sift.Forgotten appointments, half thought out plans, a gazillion 'to dos' racing around my brain and I wonder what it would be like to have a silent mind; to not always be thinking about this that and the other useless thought. I want to stop the internal talking to myself and suspend all interference with that inner knowledge; that wisdom that comes to us when we allow ourselves to stop. Just stop.

To unclutter my mind. It is a challenge I have set myself. Amidst my crazy busy-ness I will carve out tranquil moments- five minutes here, another ten there. I will pause and not. I will not reflect. I will not fret. I will not plan. I will not worry. I will not hurry. I will remain still. What can be more important to well being than conserving energy?

And so with kids who are growing up with out school, I see in many cases that they already have the upper hand on being closer to the 'uncluttered mindset.'  There is a clearness of intention because they are less encumbered by the thoughts and intentions of others. This means that they can get to their thing more smoothly; they can hear dissonance quicker; they can cut out the crap faster.
They can be who they are sooner
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Here's a nice quote from Elder's Meditation of the Day:

"Everything I know I learned by listening and watching." Vernon Cooper, LUMBEE

Great Spirit, help me this day to slow down. Help me to listen - quietly. Help me to watch carefully. Help me to listen to my inner voice. Let me listen and watch only the thing You would have me observe. Guide my eyes and my ears to be focused on You. Grandfather, love me today and teach me to be quiet.

Natural Hierarchy?

I'm watching a group of kids play. The older kids take the lead. They can do things better, more competently. The younger children look up to them, admire them and want to be like them.

I think of my four year old niece. She's in awe of her five year old cousin (another niece).  The five year old has excellent fine motor skills, can ride a bike, can read a little, can draw amazingly and can hula- hoop to boot. She's just... better as far as the four year old is concerned.

I notice the scorn displayed on a child's face when the younger, less competent kid "can't do it," or "doesn't get it."

I see the dismay, or the befuddlement but also the respect that the younger displays for the older.

Watching the interaction of the group of children, I start to wonder about natural hierarchy.

It is not that the more competent child (or adult for the matter) is a 'better person, or that he has some superior value as a person; it is simply that he can do things better at that time and is therefore the leader in that situation - as  that situation dictates.
At another time, in another situation someone else will be better, or more competent and then her leadership will be called upon-naturally.

So what I think I'm noticing and what I think I'm saying is that hierarchy is not necessarily a bad thing, nor wrong. It needs to be flexible and give way gracefully to the next person-as kids (and grown ups too!) become more competent; rather than hold on and become domination.

My daughter says, "Little kids should respect older ones."

"How do you figure?" I ask her (herself the youngest of three is eagerly moving into leadership roles in the family).
"Well, they shouldn't be coddled by their parents. They should be out there, trying to keep up with the older kids in the group. It keeps them in line."

She refers to an unschooling family we know of whom she approves of where the youngest- aged four-has more free range than most kids we know and who fiercely tries to be included and be part of his older siblings' action.

On a hike, the older kids will race ahead while he struggles to keep up. That's fine with the older kids. They don't tell him to go away but at the same time, aside from a backward glance or a "hurry up," it's up to him to keep up. Hard for him, but he wouldn't have it any other way. He is so proud when he manages to keep them in sight.
" It toughens him up," B insists.

Of course, I've seen it happen that when he needs help they will stop and help but as soon as he is okay they are back to their thing. These kids give no more help than is asked for. They do not try to control or belittle the younger kid, or boss him. They get annoyed only when the younger kid gets in the way of their activities-maybe because they just don't want to be interrupted.

"Otherwise they get too big for their britches and act like brats, " B says.

I find it fascinating. Maybe we all need another pair of eyes, someone we respect and who actually likes and respects us too, to slap us across the hand when we are 'out of order.' Even the thought of someone we respect and admire hearing or seeing us act a certain way isn't enough to stop us acting out and think twice before we let ourselves go.