Before I get started... this topic runs so deep, and is so complex historically and otherwise, that I think anyone who reads my blog entry will understand much better if he/she first reads this essay, written by a former (1991) New York State Teacher of the Year: http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
and a quote:
"Education... now seems to me perhaps the most authoritarian and dangerous of all the social inventions of mankind. It is the deepest foundation of the modern slave state, in which most people feel themselves to be nothing but producers, consumers, spectators, and fans, driven more and more, in all parts of their lives, by greed, envy, and fear. My concern is not to improve 'education' but to do away with it, to end the ugly and antihuman business of people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves." - John Holt
I know this quote is a bit frightening at first read...but Holt isn't suggesting that we abolish education as a whole - just the institution we know as school.
I really sympathize with what John Holt says about education - that it's authoritarian in nature, against the instinct of children (and adults!), and often educational progress is measured in the worst way. I didn't know that I felt this way about school, though, until about two years ago. I was a month into my senior year of high school, and I became enveloped in several books* about Unschooling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling). I started reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook during the summer, and that book had already settled into my brain and refused to move. I could not stay in school and enjoy myself. I'd always been dissatisfied with the system, but it grew to the point where I could not stand the thought of having to return to school every day until the end of May.
I guess I'll stop here and explain more clearly exactly what unschooling is. It's a lot like homeschooling, but with the absence of teachers and/or a curriculum. The whole philosophy is that children can be trusted to have a desire for knowledge; that they want to know things and they want to "learn what is necessary to become an adult" (from Wikipedia). The biggest difference between unschooling and traditional schooling is that traditional schools do not place any trust in children, and unschooling requires complete trust in children.
It's not too hard to believe -- as kids, we're all naturally curious about the world. For most of us, though, once we start school, all of that force-fed knowledge slowly erodes our curiosity. Learning becomes all about grades and tests and ranking - which is what the school system wants it to be about. Until I read more about the subject, I didn't realize to what extent my freedom was withheld by the schools I'd attended. Would you like to hear a story?
Beginning in Kindergarten, my experiences at school had been fraught with disaster. In my first year at school, I told my teacher that she yelled too much and she scared me. My parents were proud of me for voicing my opinion, even if it was somewhat rude. From then on I was treated by my teacher as a "troublemaker," and eventually she convinced the school officials that I was "slow" and needed to be put in a special reading program. So a few days a week through Kindergarten I had to leave my class to go sit in a room with a "special" teacher and talk about my feelings with other children who actually were in need of help. In that room one day, the teacher asked us to share a story about our families, so I told a story about how my dad would tuck me in every night and "snuggle" with me. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, the special ed teacher met with my classroom teacher, shared my story with her, and together they decided that I had been molested by my father - that's why I was such a troublemaker. OF COURSE. The rest of it was just a huge mess - the police came to my house and took my dad away; threatened that my parents could lose custody of my sister and I. Then they actually took my sister and I to some social worker's office where we were endlessly questioned and fed Oreos every time we satisfied their questions. After a few days of that, the police figured there was no way my dad was a child molester, and they left our family alone. But I still had to go to class with that teacher.
Obviously I don't have many good memories of public schools. I can't say that I never enjoyed myself in school, but incidents like the one above are what really fed my hatred for it. It really scares me to think that my kindergarten teacher not only had the power to hold me back from learning at proper grade level, but to nearly have my father arrested for molestation, with barely any evidence of such a thing happening. Of course this isn't the fault of the school administrators, or even my teacher. I'm sure either she or the special ed teacher was geniunely concerned about what I had said; it is simply the nature of the school system to invest such authoritarian power in those running the schools.
Knowing this, I think you can imagine why I'd be so excited to learn about unschooling. I can learn without being told what to learn? At my own pace? In my chosen setting? And I can go to the bathroom whenever I want? Imagine that. It seems natural when you think about it in the most simplistic way. Kids like to learn, they want to learn, so why not let them learn about what they want, in the way they want to learn it? What is so bad about that?
OH. Now I am reminded of why public school became an institution in the first place: to control the masses and enforce conformity. (for more about that, read this EXCELLENT article: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm) Of course we can't learn about whatever we want - it would be dangerous.
Enough about all that, though. At least for now. Maybe you're wondering if I stayed in school for my senior year and just gutted it out. I'm proud to say that I certainly did NOT! It took a month to convince my parents to let me unschool, but eventually they let me try it, even though they still didn't totally understand why I wanted to do it. I am so grateful that they let me withdraw from my old high school. I know not everyone can afford to do that, and that's why I really treasure the opportunity I have had. From September 2005 through August 2006, I was a free learner (and still am!). To make sure that I could still attend college, I enrolled in an umbrella school (http://www.clonlara.org/) which let me design my own courses and took care of credits and transcripts and all that. So I wasn't entirely school-free, but I had all the freedom in the world to study what I wanted at my own pace. My social life didn't suffer one bit. In fact, it was much better, because I learned to make the most of the time I had with my best friends. And I got closer to my parents. I started to spend time with my little sister. Through designing my own courses and going out into the world to learn about the subjects I'd chosen, I made friends with people of all different ages and backgrounds. Overall, my social life improved by a million percent and even became more diverse.
Now that I am graduated, I'm working for a year and saving up money for college. That in itself was a huge battle - I couldn't decide if college was right for me. But I put so much thought into it, and now I am applying to The Evergreen State College (http://www.evergreen.edu/), a great school with an alternative program that's very similar to the way I approached unschooling. I hope I get in so I can continue my little adventure in education...
I believe I've covered all the bases I was aiming for... if you have any more questions about unschooling, or any critique in general, please don't hesitate to comment! I'm really passionate about this subject and I'd love to be your information dispenser.=]
*books I read: The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Grace Llewellyn (http://www.lowryhousepublishers.com/TeenageLiberationHandbook.htm)
Teach Your Own, John Holt (http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Own-John-Homeschooling/dp/0738206946)
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, John Taylor Gatto (http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Schooling/dp/0865714487/sr=1-1/qid=1170197013/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-4574664-6203654?ie=UTF8&s=books)
Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich (http://www.amazon.com/Deschooling-Society-Open-Forum-Illich/dp/0714508799/sr=1-1/qid=1170197063/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-4574664-6203654?ie=UTF8&s=books)
Other resources:
This is a really interesting article on homeschooling vs. public schools: http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/stopeds/edsa090600.htm
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