Unschooled Teens Are Different
There has been some discussion lately about (and by!) teenaged life learners. All too often, teens are collectively discriminated against or looked down upon due to their supposed bad behavior, moodiness, etc., etc. However, I think much of that is due to the way they are treated in our society…and people’s expecta…tions of and respect for (or lack of) them. So we went digging in the archives to find this article from Life Learning’s September/October 2007 issue by the mother of two unschooled teens.
Ann Leadbetter had written a couple of previous articles in Life Learning about her unschooled daughters Kate and Molly. And when the decided to go to college, she updated us. In this article, she describes how they prepared for, applied to, got accepted by, and began to thrive at college…without having attended school.
And, in a sidebar, she comments on the myth that the teen years have to be unpleasant for families, with surly, rebellious young people straining to get away from parental influence. And she describes what many other life learning families have experienced (mine included): What we, in North America, experience as adolescence is quite different when young people are used to interacting with and being respected by adults, rather than being age-segregated in disrespectful, coercive environments like schools.
What’s Wrong With the Schooling Mentality
The marketplace of ideas has become monopolized by corporations and institutions, and our coercion-based education system is used to create a society of consumers rather than one of thinkers.
For almost twenty years (since he resigned from teaching while he was New York State Teacher of the Year), John Taylor Gatto has been writing and speaking to anyone who will listen about how this “mass child indoctrination by force” came about and why it continues in our schools.
In a new article published in the current March/April 2010 issue of Life Learning Magazine, he elaborates on that process and suggests way to resist it. Here’s a link to a short excerpt from the article.
John is now almost 75 years of age, has a new book in process and maintains an active speaking schedule. His politics and his outspoken nature make his work controversial – even among homeschoolers and life learners. But his anti-compulsory school and pro-self-directed learning message is an important one and I am happy to have been able to disccuss the issues with him over the years, and to publish some of his work.
There are links here to some of his articles published in Life Learning Magazine. And go here (scroll down to his profile) for links to some of his earlier articles published in Natural Life Magazine. He also wrote the foreword to this book, which we recently published.
The Dark Side of Influence
A recent blog post by a dad with kids enrolled in a Sudbury Valley type school (SVS) has prompted me to think once again about how life learning parents relate to their children in a unique way. The blogger was comparing unschooling to the SVS model because someone had once used the oxymoron “unschooling school” to describe a SVS. He came up with two differences between the two: SVS students can “pursue their interests in a context that’s free from any form of (subtle or overt) parental influence” and the SVS structure is democratic in a way that families presumably aren’t.
I should note that I’ve challenged the writer on both points, which I believe are inversely related, but the discussion has yet to unfold. Aside from the jaw-dropping, head-shaking notion of kids needing to be free of (subtle or overt) parental influence, I don’t mean to pick on SVS, since there is much to admire in this school model. However, attendance is compulsory at these schools, which seems to contradict the notion of democracy. In fact, it is a faux-democracy where children have the democratic experience of organizing their school and their school days, but within the broader context of coercion. How can one understand freedom unless one is free? I learned (with disappointment) about this idea of required attendance from one of the founders of the original SVS Mimsy Sadofsky when I interviewed her in 2004 for what was to be a feature article about SVS in Life Learning Magazine (but turned, instead, into an ironic sidebar to an article about this very topic.) The idea is noble: to help the kids make a commitment, to foster cooperation and relationships, and to help them learn about consequences. But, in short, it’s about adults enforcing something on kids because it’s assumed they won’t learn the stuff on their own, that they don’t know what’s in their own best interest, that we have to make them do stuff “for their own good.”
And that brings me to the idea of “influence” and its relationship to democracy, coercion, and freedom. The foundation of life learning (or wholistic unschooling, or radical unschooling, or whatever label-of-the-day you wish to give it) is respect for and the empowerment of children. We aim to nurture and, ultimately, to trust in children’s ability to make their own learning and other life decisions, to be competent human beings. SVS, on the other hand, by requiring attendance, aims to influence children while removing parental influence. Either way, we’re substituting adults’ choices for children’s choices.
Now, clearly, a child’s “choice” to run in front of a truck should not be honored. Preventing that has to be part of the custodial responsibility of parents – and teachers, if/when parents give them that substitute role. We must (and most willingly do) provide shelter, food, safety, love, education (or at least support for development) and so much more. Adults need to protect children, right? Maybe sometimes, but protection can be disempowering and counterproductive if it’s restrictive and paternalistic. Life learning parents try to balance the protection and provision of needs with recognizing their children’s rights, abilities and responsibilities.
That’s not easy in our society, because we tend to drastically under-estimate the level of decision making and responsibility that our children are capable of. And so we think they won’t learn to make commitments, to cooperate with others, or to learn about consequences – much less to keep themselves safe or learn to read – unless we force them into situations designed to create those outcomes. We think we need to influence them (and argue about whether parental or school influence is better). Influence seems like a relatively benign and gentle act. But most definitions of the word “influence” include the idea of power over someone else. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, for instance, defines influence as “the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command; the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.” Sounds creepy to me!
We all have our own expectations of ourselves and our kids; we all have our own hang-ups, boundaries, and comfort levels in terms of how our kids interact with each other, their surroundings, and society. But I think there is a better way to conceptualize the relationship between members of an unschooling family than “parental influence.” And it revolves around those words I keep using: respect and trust. They’re not easy to actualize, but they’re crucial for those of us who are committed to a style of non-coercive parenting that allows children their right to authenticity and autonomy, as well as safety and education.
Five Requirements for Effective Parenting
In an interview this morning, I was asked to name the five things that I think are crucial for effective parenting. Respect and trust were the first to come to mind; I’ve been talking about them forever as prerequisites for creating an environment in which kids can develop and learn. It took me a little while longer to distill everything else into three words. But I eventually came up with open-mindedness, experimentation, and communication. Parents need to be open-minded and willing to experiment with ways to live with children, rather than blindly following rules provided by other parents, books by “experts,” or variously defined parenting or educating “styles.” And communication is the key to creating an environment of respect, trust, open-mindedness and experimentation.
(A word about terminology: The words used in the interview were actually “radical unschooling;” “life learning;” and “natural, non-coercive parenting.” I just removed them from the above paragraph because I’m tired of conceptualizing those terms as alternative. It’s time that non-coercion of kids by adults, respect for and trust in kids, and all the rest of the non-domination sorts of behaviors, define how the two generations interact, rather than being some newfangled, utopian alternative. Obviously, we’re not there yet, and conversation would dry up without those short-form words to describe a new way of living, but we need to keep moving these ideas from the sidelines to the mainstream.)
March/April 2010 Issue Now Published
Subscribers to Life Learning Magazine have just been notified that the password-protected March/April 2010 issue is now available for them to download.
You can view the table of contents here and you can subscribe here.
We’ve also posted a short sample article from the issue on the Life Learning Magazine website.
Drop by the website and check out our new and fast-growing index of articles that are archived there.
Unschooling, Radical Unschooling, or Something Else?
Most life learners don’t like to label their children – whether it’s using the alphabet soup provided by those who would drug children into submissive behavior or by means of school-style grades. So I’m always amused and disturbed in equal parts when the debate begins about what to call this sort of child-led, non-coercive, lifestyle that also – obviously – includes learning. Is it simply “unschooling”? Or is it more radical than that? Do we avoid that discussion and find new terminology like “life learning”? We all have our favorite term and can passionately defend it and explain why it describes our family’s way. Of course, we all know there is no one right way to learn or to live…and, oh yes, we don’t like labels. Nevertheless, we – often unconsciously – end up with a label that describes a set of parameters. And we are quite certain of what “breaks” those “rules.” Sometimes this is a good thing. It helps us locate like-minded people to hang out with, which can be comforting when our views are far from the mainstream. It also allows us to describe and discuss this lifestyle with others, while continuing to clarify our philosophy. But our attachment to these labels can be counterproductive. Putting ourselves in boxes can be divisive, creating barriers and sometimes even hostility within a community of people who really would be better off working together – or at least keeping the lines of communication open – in the face of mainstream opposition.
I don’t know what the solution is to this, except to continue to deschool ourselves, which should lessen our need for segmentation, ranking, labeling, and so on. We can also remember to be aware of how our use of these labels affects others with different beliefs and opinions, and to see the definitions as amorphous rather than rigid. Yes, that’s messy and can feel like we’re living with no boundaries, no assurances, no precedents, no guidance (and we are!). But it’s also exhilarating to know we’re at the leading edge of change – of progress – continually redefining how families can live together in a respectful manner. Best of all, it mimics how our children learn: experimenting, making mistakes, leaping forward, sitting back, redefining, locating their own unique path, and slowly finding the vocabulary to describe what went before.
Preview of March/April issue of Life Learning Magazine
We’re working hard on the March/April issue of Life Learning Magazine. Here’s a preview of the cover.
There will be a great new article by John Taylor Gatto; a brilliant piece by David Albert about sorting out our own philosophy of life, parenting and education; and lots more wonderful inspiration and reassurance for unschoolers. (Yes, I’m biased, and no, it’s not too late to subscribe and start your subscription with that issue!)
And stay tuned: We’ll be publishing David Albert’s latest book – written as a conversation with Joyce Reed – this Spring. It’s a compilation of their What Really Matters columns published in Life Learning Magazine.
Accessing Articles From Life Learning Magazine’s Archives
Although we charge for subscriptions to Life Learning Magazine, we aim to keep approximately 15% of the content from back issues available on the site for free.
We’ve recently made that simpler for you to find. Now, on every page of the website (left hand column, halfway down, is a link to the archive of articles that are on the site. We are just beginning to list them there, so keep checking back.
There are two particularly important columns by Naomi Aldort about the problems of labeling children and their so-called “disorders.” Naomi believes that instead of labeling, medicating or trying to change children, we should respond to who they are. And, in many cases, that means removing them from situations in which they aren’t functioning well – including school. We’ll be cataloging the rest of Naomi’s Life Learning columns in the near future.
Wanted: Unschooling Quotes by Women
A few years ago, I was approached by a woman who wanted to write my life history as a woman homeschooling advocate as her PhD thesis. While doing her MA research, she had been struck by the lack of women’s voices in the academic literature. She did write that thesis as a contribution to the literature, and there are now a number of other women choosing this topic for their research. There have also been many popular books written on the subject of home-based education / unschooling over the past five or ten years (not to mention a few going back twenty or thirty years, including my first book School Free).
So why, then, do those ubiquitious lists of quotations about the problems with schools and the benefits of self-directed education contain mostly male voices?
I have set out to remedy this. Already, on my main blog, there are a number of such quotes by both men and women. But I’d like to collect more. So please email me with your favorites. (I’ve closed comments on this blog due to an extremely high level of spam.) I will collate them and post the list on the Life Learning Magazine site.
Labels That Unschoolers Reject
Our school systems like to label children, then medicate them for these so-called problems. Kids are said to be ”learning disabled,” “hyperactive,” “oppositionally defiant,” and to have a variety of other “disorders.” I’ve written about this for years, preferring to think that the problem is with the schooling system rather than with the children. All too often, schools deflect blame onto the victim rather than owing the problem, which originates from a misalignment between children’s needs and the demands of an outdated, assembly line education system.
One of my articles appeared in Natural Life Magazine in 2006 and detailed how, in addition to the school problem, behaviors that are labeled as problematic can result from environmental and dietary issues.
Unschoolers and homeschoolers often reject these labels. And, often, when their children are removed from the school environment and allowed to learn at their own speed, based on their own interests, the so-called “symptoms” disappear.
Psychologist Naomi Aldort has written two important articles in Life Learning Magazine about this issue. She says, “Labels are the invention of the human mind when it believes that one way of being or learning is right and another is wrong.” The first of two columns is entitled The Einstein Syndrome and Other Labels. And the second one is linked from the bottom of that one.