Deschooling Your Life
I’ve been doing quite a bit of research for my upcoming newspaper column on education or rather what we call education — it’s really schooling. Two very different concepts. Didn’t even know there was a difference until six years ago when I stumbled on my first book by John Taylor Gatto, “Dumbing Us Down.” Since then I’ve read tens more.
Like everyone else, I’d been schooled into believing we exist on a linear trajectory, that we must proceed through life in this straight line doing x, y and z, that we only learn with our fannies in a seat facing the back of someone else’s head.
Has my thinking changed. Learning happens all the time. Children come into the world wanting to soak everything up. If we let children follow their curiosity and interests, they will be alive in their later years. A lot of the “living dead” I see in my travels had their curiosity stamped out and redirected to what others thought they should learn. We create unhappy people when we insist they learn things that do not interest them.
I now see the teacher’s role as that of a guide, to encourage children (and adults) to follow their interests, their hearts, their desires. Some schools like that do exist – like Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, MA.
When I first got out of college, my critical thinking abilities were almost non-existent. For most of my schooling years, I didn’t need to think. Just memorize the material and parrot it back. There’s a reason we remember very little what we learn in school — we’re not connected to most of it. Someone else in some corner office in the government decided what I should learn and what teachers should teach.
In one of the essays I’ve just read, John Holt (1923-1985) defines what we call education like this: “Something that some people do to others for their own good, molding and shaping them, and trying to make them learn what they think they ought to know.” John goes on to say that one of our most fundamental rights is “the right to control our own minds and thoughts.”
I recall my own schools days. The bells ring and you get in your seats. You sit there for 45 minutes or so until another little bell rings. You have five minutes to get to your next seat and so on and so forth. They stop you in the middle of whatever you’re doing and off you go to the next seat. None of my subjects seemed connected to each other or anything greater. Carrots and sticks prodded us to get high marks, diplomas, degrees, credentials.
I know I hid behind my credentials. I believed for the longest time that a higher degree made me smarter than someone who had a lower one. Yet, once my beliefs were challenged by these voices in the educational wilderness I realized it couldn’t be true.
John believed it was all training for the modern and worldwide slave state where “folks see themselves as producers, consumers, spectators and fans that are driven by envy, greed and fear.” He wanted to end people shaping and let people shape themselves.
This can be radical, if not blasphemous stuff for folks who’ve never read any deschooling materials.
I’d love to hear opinions from all sides of this issue. Do we need to be shaped by others? If so, how much? If not, why not?
RSS
One of the best instructors I had in college gave me feedback after a paper which said, “I don’t want to hear my ideas parroted back to me. I want to know your opinion.” This was the first person to give me permission to share my thoughts and it didn’t happen until I was in my early 20s.
In many ways, thank goodness it happened that soon! However, I think it illustrates your point that by that time, we have been conditioned not to share our opinion or unique view of the world.
What a loss.
Hi Teri,
Glad to hear from you! Will check out your blog. Hope it’s going well. A great professor does want to hear your thoughts. Like you, I’m happy to hear it happened at any point. One of my best professors taught my theater class. He encouraged us to be wild and free. Naturally, they fired him. Unfortunate, because that class changed my life for the better. Thanks! G.
Giulietta – I can’t believe how much emotion this post evoked for me!!
I love John Holt and John Taylor Gatto’s writings – and any writing where we’re encouraged to LEARN, to trust our own path, and to trust that our kids WANT to learn.
My 3 (now adult) kids were unschooled (my son for his whole life – my dtrs, who are significantly older than him – for significant amounts of time – but we started after they’d been in school) – and I was so inspired by these guys’ books –
and also Grace Llewelyn’s The Teenage Liberation Handbook;
Better Than School: One Family’s Declaration of Independence
and
Child’s Work: Taking children’s choices seriously by Nancy Wallace
and
Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society.
Can’t wait to see the responses you get here!
Hi Karen,
I just ordered Grace’s book from the library! Read a short essay of hers and loved it.
Just love what you say about learning to trust our own path. If no one lets you make your own decisions until you’re 22, it’s going to present a big problem.
The most depressing time of my life was the five years post college. I was on someone else’s path and didn’t even know how to find my own. Some accidental conversations with “liberation angels” helped me find the courage to look for my own way. I want to kiss the ground every day in thanks for meeting those folks.
Appreciate all the book titles and will check them out! G.
Giulietta,
Wow, so glad I followed your link from Story Circle Network! This subject is near and dear to my heart. Even though my son (now 25) went through a very good public school system, if I had to do it over again, I’d choose homeschooling or unschooling, if for no other reason than this: The practice of teaching to the test, especially the standardized tests that are now the litmus test of “success” in our schools.
These tests strip our kids of the critical and creative skill of THINKING! But, boy, do they know how to take tests!
People need to be able to think in a creative manner to solve problems of society, come up with new inventions, finally figure out the “Theory of Everything,” create and market new products and if nothing else, to be able to decorate their living space in a way that pleases their senses.
And, they need to be able to trust themselves. I can’t tell you how many women in my coaching practice want me to give them rules for everything, from what to eat to how much to exercise to finding a satisfying career. Did the education/schooling they received cause this addiction to external cues? I have no idea, but I try to foster in my clients a connection to nature and to their inner selves so they can begin to pay attention to the internal cues, trust those cues and live a more authentic life.
One more thing that is disconcerting to me about our education system is that when one chooses not to participate in it, it can be seen as a criminal activity. In my own exploration of unschooling, one parent told me that her state doesn’t even recognize homeschooling as legal, let alone unschooling! So, these parents who choose to homeschool or unschool their kids face that issue as well…
Oops, I’ll get down off my soapbox now.
Thanks for writing about this subject – it definitely needs to be in the public arena with a big, bright spotlight shining on it!
I can relate to the linear thinking, and how liberating (by way of scary and depressing) it was to break free from that mentality. On one hand, I think school serves a purpose to teach us the basis: reading, writing and arithmetic. But I draw the line at adults using scare tactic to shape children into who they think those children should become.
Hi Angie, I’ve been appalled at my own typos as well. It’s been “schooled” into me, so yes, it’s amusing in light of the topic!
In Dumbing Us Down or Weapons of Mass Instruction, Mr. Gatto say that it only takes something like 120 hours to learn to read and write. I am going to verify that by thumbing through the books. Will return with the real numbers! (need to find for my article anyway.)
thx for reminding me of that, G.
I caught the typos too late: teach us the “basics” and “scare tactics.” Ah, the perfectionist rears its ugly head. 🙂 In light of this post, I find it amusing.
Giulietta, Wish there were more people like you to raise awareness of what appears to be a major problem in the U.S. The schooling that kids receive often results in what you so aptly describe as the “walking dead.” It can’t be far removed from schooling in countries such as North Korea or even in madrassas where schooling is not aimed at making kids think, let alone form opinions of their own, but rather parroting back whatever is in the schoolbooks. Thanks to a deficient educational system, kids here learn little of value except maybe a sense of entitlement because they are American and therefore, superior. An example is the ongoing battle to teach creationism vs. evolution. This would be laughable if it weren’t such a howling example of where so-called education is headed. Displays of ignorance and verbal/grammatical misuse from political figures and pundits add to this dumbing down of America. I can only conclude that it’s to the advantage of the powers that be to keep most of the population ignorant, unquestioning and therefore, controlled, rather than alert and curious about who is really wielding their puppet strings.
Hi Penelope,
It certainly feels like a dumbing down of critical thinking ability. That’s where the deficiency arises. And I believe it’s intentional. People that can think critically post a danger to the status quo or wherever this ship is being directed. My entire life I’ve been punished so-to-speak in school and at work and if in my civics engagements for not towing the existing line.
Of course, that makes me believe I need to go even further into the areas that make folks lash out. What don’t they want you, me, anyone to see?
Thx, as always!
P.S. How can my latest blog post info be included with my comment? Posted “A Labyrinth of Echoes” on http://www.donthangupbook.com/blog
Hi Penelope,
I’m not sure why your post isn’t showing up. My only suggestion would be to register your site at comment luv. See if that works. Does it appear anywhere or just not here? I am registered at CL.
g.
Giulietta,
A song came to me while reading through your post; it kind of personifies modern day education to me… I wonder if you’ve heard it…Little Boxes
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONEYGU_7EqU
Yes, today’s schools are like soap factories, they yearn to churn out identical pieces in bulk. Now if one of those soaps looks different, it would be considered a defective one in the batch and would go on to be rejected.
But there’s still hope for independent strong minded individuals to exist in the worlds, coz many survive and beat the system….the process takes time, but it happens.
I’ve really been enjoying your pieces on educations…. 🙂
Love,
Chaitra
Hey Chaitra,
I appreciate your teacher’s perspective here at Take Back Your Life. You are right that the strong-minded can survive the clonification process. Almost like a bizarre Survival of the Fittest.
It amazes me that my curiosity did not die — it withered but I had enough fight in me to revive it. Am concerned about those who are not fighters by nature.
Super video on the little boxes. I posted it on my FB page. It’s exemplifies the “one-size-fits-all” lifestyle our schools groom us for.
How can everyone want the same thing? It’s not possible. Yet, it happens. The cruel part is that folks buy into all of that and if they have the opportunity to “wake up” around 40+ they’re so deep in hock, it can be difficult to get out of it.
Many thanks! G.
Well, we know you are a radical, G, so who better to bring us this thought-provoking post? I think I was lucky. My high school was one of the early ones to try alternative scheduling – called “mods” back then – so we didn’t have to keep getting up just when the learning got good. And I think I had some very progressive teachers. But then it was the 1970’s, and things were different, especially in California. Then in college I studied theatre, and so much of it was experiential. Even years later when I got my grad degree in counseling, it was a subject that required participation and engagement.
Sometimes now though, going through this licensing phase I’m in, I wonder why I’m doing it and if I am hiding behind another credential, or trying to fill some need to legitimize myself. And yet, at the end of the day (or more to the point at the end of the first 8 months of this journey) I look back and say, “Whoa, I have learned so much.” I truly am back in my learning curve, and it is at once glorious and frustrating.
A very wise person once said to me that to be a learner is to be a beginner, and we humans don’t always do well with that. So while I agree with everything you say, I would also respectfully suggest that there is another side to it too. I think we’ve gotten to a place where we devalue traditional education not only because it’s been dumbed down, but also because we aren’t always willing to be the beginner again and make the commitment it requires. It’s something about attention spans and how we want things fast and easy. Or, dare I say it, we don’t want to work so hard? I know, I sound terminally old, but believe me this comes up for most of my clients no matter if they are 25 or 55.
In the end, I’m such a believer in (and beneficiary of) education that I will always root for it and perhaps naively hold a vision of it as a creative, transformational process.
Hi Patty,
Thanks for stopping in. I know you are really busy with your program.
I welcome all points of view and sides of the story here. Looking at an issue from all the different vantage points is important. I continue to read up on this subject and will offer more posts with additional ideas and even quotes.
Weapons of Mass Destruction continues to slap me awake. If anything, it has gotten my mind out of sleepwalking mode and into critical thinking mode.
What really fascinates me is that I only feel like I’m learning when I get exposed to the various views on a topic. That sparks me to life. When I thought back on my K-12 years and even much of college, most of it was a choice of one. It’s also a problem I face in my town, where the government seems to offer us a choice of one when there are a gazillion choices.
Appreciate hearing other sides to the story so readers have more choices. Thx.
G.
p.s. My sister went to a private school and also did the mods. She loved it. 6 weeks of one topic, then switch to another, so as you say it makes sense.
Hi Giulietta,
thanks for the article! It’s nice to see someone older (I’m in my early twenties) take on this perspective. Usually people play down the negative sides of the educational system after they have left school.
I see a lot of people without passion and purpose in their lives – I know where they lost it! When they were taught to stop dreaming and learn something “valuable” instead.
Do you know the TED-Talk of Sir Ken Robinson? I higly recommend it to you to watch: http://followtheredqueen.com/ken-robinson-says-schools-kill-creativity/
Alice
Hi Alice,
I will check out the TED talk. Many thanks for pointing it out. Part of the educational status-quo among older folks happens because so many of them they work for the schools. It’s the largest employer in the country, even larger than defense. The kids get pushed around for the sake of jobs, especially the high paid administrative jobs. Whenever they do cuts around here, they lay off the teachers and leave the big educational guns, which makes zero sense to me. That’s why “schooling” will never be reformed to become education. Your post intrigues, I’ll jump over there! Thx, G.
“because so many of them they work for the schools.” Ha, good point!