|
By Gea D’Marea Bassett
Alternative Schools
Last week I visited a very liberal classroom. The school day is set up to be similar to a ‘normal’ day outside the classroom where learning experiences happen as a result of interaction with the environment. Book learning is intertwined with experiential learning. The lesson might be cooking. While the children are physically taking part in the cooking process, they are also learning math (measuring ingredients and figuring out how many ounces are in a cup), logic (following the correct order of the recipe), and spelling/reading (reading and following recipes). A typical day at the school starts with circle time on the couches where reading and announcements (by the teacher and students) takes place. Then comes journal time, snack time, free (play) time, a Spanish or cooking class, lunchtime, math time, and more free time. Even during math time the kids do not neatly line up in rows of desks – there are no rows of desks at this school. And the ratio of teacher to child is 2:18 – an amazingly good ratio considering that the average public school ratio in Washington State is 1:19 (“NCES,” 2005)! At the core, what is it that makes home schooling better than a holistic school, a Montessori or Waldorf school, a school that doesn’t grade, or a democratic and integrated free-school, such as a Sudbury school? When I explore these schools I start to feel the boundaries between home schooling and alternative schools start to blend. I have, after all, come across schools that use very similar learning methods as those used by un-schoolers and home schoolers. So what makes home schooling better than a school that can offer all these things?
This school was, I do believe, one of the best out there. So why do I still feel like the kids are missing out on something? There are a few things come to mind. The first thing that I noticed was the impinging structure of having to manage so many kids. Despite the fantastic-in-comparison-to-public-schools teacher to student ratio, the students didn’t – couldn’t possibly – get as much one-on-one time as they needed or would have liked. I found myself feeling cut short because I was cutting the kids short. As soon as I started to get involved with helping a child learn, as soon as we both engaged in what we were doing, it was time to move on. After all, there were seventeen other children that needed attention too. In some ways this lack of instruction makes kids try to figure things out for themselves, but if the kids need to figure out so many things for themselves, then why do we place so much value on teachers and schools to begin with? The other problem with the school schedule is that, no matter how casual or child respecting the schedule is, it is still structured by someone other than the child. I felt sorry for the kids. There is no time or place to be an individual in the school - there are only times and places for the group. Although the school was comfortable place – there were lots of toys and couches - the kids still had to follow the schedule of the school (which exists in order to manage so many kids). What if a child wanted to take a nap? What if he wanted to be alone? What if he wanted to call his parents? What if he wanted his parents to hold him and read him a book? What if he wanted to feel the comfort of being at home? What if he just wanted to be left alone for a couple of hours to play a game or read some books of his choice? What if he didn’t want to be constantly watched and surveyed and monitored? Well, too bad. Sorry. In even the most holistic, free-school there is no special time or place for the individual child. Even holistic free-schools have schedules and rules that all the kids have to obey. Even in the most democratic school, such as Sudbury, the children still have to be democratic! They still have to take part in the daily meetings that determine what they will or will not do for the day and they still have to spend their entire day in a building full of other students who are in the same predicament. The children are free only to the extent of the school philosophy and the school walls: although called ‘free-schools’, children still have to follow the ‘free-rules.’ Even in the freest school, attendance is expected and is usually compulsory. Although the freedom to learn and grow is certainly more present in liberal schools than in traditional schools, there are still many limits to the learning and experiences that can happen in school. Schools limit learning and development because schools are not capable of providing individual children with all of the attention they need and deserve; schools limit learning and development because schools force their predetermined structure, values, and ideas on children before children have a chance to develop their own sense self and their own ideas. Schools manage children and schools stage learning. Most liberal educators would consider a school ‘good’ if it simulated a natural environment; a good liberal school is a place where children can feel safe and can understand how what they are learning applies to real life experiences: experiences they encounter when they exit the school and go out into the larger world. But if schools are trying to teach children how to feel safe, why aren’t the kids allowed to be in the comfort of their own home and with their own families? If schools are trying to teach children how to live outside of school, why is there school to begin with? Do we really need the school middleman? Doesn’t first hand, in-context learning make more sense?
Learning or Schools: Which do you Choose?
The purpose of education is not to impose the values of the adult world onto children but to help them to grow toward their own personal potential (Miller, 1997). If we agree with this statement then we must allow children to deeply explore themselves, to feel comfortable and safe, and to have the time and space to develop and to engage in the world. Forcing our ideas, our philosophies, and our style on our children, even with the best intentions, can hinder their unique development. Even those of us who know this tend to occasionally forget that even the best school we can find is merely one model, one perspective, one philosophy, one way to learn, one way to carry out the day. There are many other ways and many other perspectives that will be left out when one way of learning is chosen. Even the best school we can find will impose the values of the adult world onto the children who attend it. Therefore, it is not learning, per say, that schools do best (as life learners, we know that we can get our hands on learning every step of the way). Rather, the primary purposes of school are to provide daycare and to coach children to become used to being guided by external power structures. Even the best alternative and liberal schools are really just daycares and power structures that teach children to obey hierarchies, to follow certain rules, schedules, and philosophies. Schools – no matter what their style is - enforce a certain structure and expect children to obey and go along with the structure they have established. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that kids should be ignored, unguided, and unassisted. I am not saying that children should be left in the dark, to fend for themselves. There is a very large difference between what John Holt called ‘natural authority’ vs. having to unquestionably swallow and accept the power structure of an institution. Authority in and of itself is not a bad thing. Rather, it is the kind of authority that is being used which may be a bad thing. Natural authority, such as when a parent prevents a child from touching the burner of a hot stove or when a parent tells a child how to pronounce a word correctly, is good authority. Manipulative authority, on the other hand, such as when a teacher tells a child to sit down for circle time because it is circle time, is not so good of an authority. The former is obviously right and in the best interest of the individual child, the latter is merely unquestioned and for the sole purpose of management.
School as a Power Structure
The issue of socialization comes up a lot amongst individuals and groups that do not have a lot of experience with the notion of learning outside of traditional institutions. But it also comes up in liberal circles and relates to the possible conflict between community/society interests vs. individual/family interests. In liberal circles the question of socialization is usually asked in this context: how will a child, who is not regularly in school, learn the values of the community and how will a child, who is not regularly in school, learn how to compromise and accept the status quo? This question is not so simple as to whether or not the child will learn how to talk to or relate to other people, but rather is based on the concern (or fear) that the home school child may not be willing to compromise her values when her values are counter-hegemonic. When we break down the reasons that make us feel like school might be better than home schooling, we find that the reasons for going to school are rather contradictory to a liberal and explorative education. That is, the reasons for going to school are actually the opposite of liberating. In fact, the reason for going to school is to learn to fit in and obey the very same power structure that mainstream society (and public schooling) operates under. African American Educator and researcher, Lisa Delpit discusses the difference between what she calls the ‘culture of power’ and the ‘silenced dialogue.’ She highlights that there are two main cultures in society: those in power (the culture of power) and those not in power (the silenced dialogue). A big fear regarding home schooling and what children ‘should’ know is based on the worry that home schooled kids will not be able to ‘make it’ in society – that is, they won’t figure out how to be a part of the culture of power and instead they will be a part of the silenced dialogue. Delpit believes that there are codes and rules one must follow to participate in the culture of power and learning these codes and rules should happen in schools. It is here that Delpit acknowledges that schools are transmitters of culture and ‘good’ schools train individuals to work well in society. This fact may be understatedly obvious, but it is important. When we break down the ultimate purpose of schools to be the transmitters of culture, and when we explore how schools transmit this culture, it becomes clear that we are dealing with a very invisible, yet very powerful and active structure. Even the most liberal schools are perpetuating a system that takes power out of the hands of the individual and family and transfers the power into the hands of an entity - an institution - and the culture of power. By using this system as the sole means for learning and education, we are surrendering our inherent ability to be the leaders of our own learning, education, and future. According to Delpit, if the silenced culture wants to be heard, it must fuse into and become part of the culture of power. However, the problem with doing this is that if we only concern ourselves with adding to the culture of power, we will actually never be able to fully dissemble it and reshape it. By adding to the system that we are skeptical of, we are in fact making it larger, not changing it into something truly liberal and equal. Until we can see the true purpose and power structures behind school, and disassemble the power structures that are at its core, there will be no such thing as truly liberating schooling. Until then, even the ‘best’ liberal and alternative schools will be, ever so disguised, perpetuating the very same system that the public schools operate on.
What makes home schooling better than school?
As life learner parents, we don’t spread our self thin by having to divide our time and instruction between a classroom of kids. As life learner parents, we don’t need to spend an entire day, week, or year scheduling subjects, organizing grades, managing a classroom of children, and trying buff over the emotions of twenty different kids. And as for life learning kids? They don’t get cut short. Life learner kids have the opportunity to learn much faster than their institutionalized peers because they get more one-on-one interaction and love, and far more learning experiences. The lessons I described at the beginning of this article, which happened at the liberal school I visited, are lessons that happen all of the time with life learners. Home schooling, unlike schooling, offers a lot for both parents and children. For example, as a parent, you can be washing dishes and talking to your daughter about how to spell a word; you can be pulling weeds in the garden and talking to her about what veggies are, what and how you grow them, how to clean and cook them; you can be reading a book to your daughter and simultaneously be referring to something that happened earlier in the day which corresponds to what you are reading in the book; etc. With home schooling there are constant ‘personalized’ opportunities that work out simultaneously (like quality multitasking), in a reciprocal way for both the parent and child. This kind of a learning situation does and can meet everyone’s needs simultaneously because it is about meeting the needs of two or three people at a time, not a classroom of twenty-some people. You can’t meet the needs of everyone in a classroom, but you can meet the needs of a family who works together.
Nel Noddings talks about the one-caring (who I consider to be the parent) and the cared-for (who I consider to be the child). Learning and development occur best when the one-caring has a displacement of motivation and is striving to be fully present with and truly meet the unique needs of the cared-for and when the cared-for is open to receive the one-caring (Noddings, 1986). This kind of relationship cannot be established by staging relationships, by force, or by pre-determined models. To fully embrace this idea of one-caring and cared-for, there needs to be an intimate understanding of each person involved and the time and space to embrace such a genuine and deep relationship. I do believe that, aside from the unlimited learning possibilities, this is the very real and very important difference between the very best liberal school and home schooling: the loving, personal, and close relationships within the life learning family. The home and family, when they are stable and compassionate sanctuaries, offer children and adults the most freedom to develop the individual and self within. The home and family has the ability to offer unlimited resources and individualized attention and to provide a safe place outside the box where actions to affect the larger society can be created. Geraldine and Gus Lyn-Piluso, Goddard College and Seneca College professors, note how committed individual families can begin to change the status quo and facilitate social change toward individual and social liberty: if the family is a powerful force, than a more communal and egalitarian child-rearing arrangement can act as a powerfully subversive force, challenging those institutions organized along lines of command and obedience – institutions which propagate the self-serving notion that egalitarian social organization is impractical, if not preposterous (Lyn-Piluso, 1996). As long as home schooling embraces a healthy understanding of the individual, an exploratory and challenging child-blossoming environment, and a steadily supportive family foundation, there is no school model that can compete. A home school ‘model’ that personifies these qualities contains the ingredients to affect change not only in the realm of developing healthy individuals and families, but also in the realm of genuine social change. As home schoolers we have the ability to break the cycle and de-school: we can relearn what learning is all about, shape our own learning, guide our own experiences, put schools in their proper place, and spread this knowledge into the larger society. When social reality is understood as constructed by society it suddenly becomes changeable; when learners develop metacognition – when they become conscious of their own learning and learn how to reflect on, understand, and intentionally shape their own learning - a vast array of possibilities suddenly open up: hindrances, fears, and insecurities begin to disappear and the shape of the future goes up for reconstruction. As home schoolers we are not confined to the walls and rules of a school. And as home schoolers we know how much more outside-of-school has to offer.
References:
Delpit, Lisa. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflicts in the classroom. New York: The New Press.
Lyn-Piluso, Geraldine & Gus. (1996). Challenging the popular wisdom: What can families do? In Matt Hern (Ed.), Deschooling our lives. BC & Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.
Miller, Ron. (1997). What are schools for? Holistic education in American culture. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press.
National Center or Educational Statistics (NCES). (2005). Retrieved on July 20, 2007, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/stateprofiles/sresult.asp?mode=short&s1=53
Noddings, Nel. (1986). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. University of California Press.
About the author:
Gea Bassett is currently working on her MA in Education at Goddard College. She was unschooled from birth until college and is an active promoter of life learning and learning outside of schools. She lives in Washington State with her partner, Doug, and their son, Zizi Cyril.
|
