Challenging Assumptions blog by Wendy Priesnitz

 

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Musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings about unschooling, natural  parenting, green living, social justice and more by writer, author and Natural Life magazine editor Wendy Priesnitz. 

Learning to Write Without Being Taught – July 1, 2009
I’ve been busy working on a wonderful new natural parenting and radical unschooling book that we’ll be publishing in the fall. It goes to the printer in two days. The title is For the Sake of Our Children and the author is Léandre Bergeron, a well-known Canadian author and social activist who originally wrote it in French. As I was finishing up the fiddly bits of formatting and tedious final proofing, I reached into my briefcase and found a sweet little note from my daughter Melanie. I wonder if it’s the last one I’ll find of the many she stuffed into nooks in my suitcases and bags and pockets just before I left her ocean-side home after a visit last month. She and her sister wrote many notes thirty-or-so years ago, although not to say they’d miss me when I went home. Those notes were a way to get my attention – “Will you play a game with me?” They were about learning to spell – “What is this word?: M _ _ A N _ E.” And they were about using language to communicate – “Heidi loves Wendy.” Slowly, but surely, their simple little notes became longer letters and even stories. Reading and writing were learned as effortlessly as was the art of speaking just a few years earlier. And now, writing – novels, funding proposals, public presentations, how-to books – is a part of their lives. Léandre’s three daughters learned the same way, first asking how to spell every second word in their little notes, then eagerly moving on to composing letters to their schooled friends…who, ironically, were too busy being taught how to write to have time to respond.
Posted: 2009/07/01 9:44 PM

School Districts Making Money on Homeschooling – June 22, 2009
A study into the financial effects of homeschooling on schools has found – contrary to conventional wisdom (which often isn’t particularly wise) – a net benefit to their bottom lines. A story in yesterday’s Washington Times quotes John Wenders and Andrea Clements and their research report “Homeschooling in Nevada: The Budgetary Impact.” The conclusions are interesting and the principles can be applied to other school jurisdictions. Another myth busted, assumption challenged.
Posted: 2009/06/22 3:29 PM

Who is the Abuser in the UK? – June 20, 2009
Every once in awhile, there are suggestions from critics (and occasionally in a court of law, most often in relation to divorce proceedings) of home-based learning that keeping kids from attending school either facilitates situations that could lead to child abuse, or is, in itself, child abuse. Since home-based learning is undertaken by caring and conscientious parents with major commitments to the well-being and safety of their children, it is ludicrous to suggest that it fosters abuse. I actually believe that schools abuse children all the time by bullying them (or creating the circumstances where bullying thrives), forcing them to study things in which they are not interested and which often have questionable validity and generally trouncing on their human rights. (See my books and those of John Taylor Gatto, John Holt, Alice Miller for starters.) Don’t even get me started on a rant about daycare workers who use children to make pornography, teachers who date their teenaged students….and other abuses. At any rate, child welfare and education are not the same thing, and governments already have adequate powers to protect abused children under current laws…and, sadly, often bungle the job anyway. At the very least, there is simply no logic in the idea that children who are safe with their parents during school hours suddenly are just fine during holidays, at night or at other times.

However, I have found it rather useless to argue. Instead, I work towards positive change and tolerate the allegations as brayings of the ignorant or death moans of the warehouse model of education to which we still, unfortunately, subject so many children. However, there is a situation developing in the UK that I cannot ignore. English law has, since the 1940s, allowed parents to educate their children at home without any state interference. However, seemingly out of the blue, allegations began to be made of a link between autonomous learning as it tends be called in the UK and child abuse. The government commissioned a controversial report, as I wrote about here back in January. The Badman Report into Home Education (named after its writer, giving its opposition a much-needed chuckle) was published on June 11. The review moved far from its questionable mandate of investigating whether or not homeschooling could be a cover for abuse. As a result, its statements and recommendations are very worrying for those of us who care about civil liberties and family rights, let alone the paranoid over-regulation of home-based learning and especially unschooling. For instance, autonomous education is described as “little better than child-minding.” So it’s no surprise that the recommendations include compulsory registration of home educators and the issuing of “School Attendance Orders” with non-compliance to be a criminal offense. On the child abuse front, it recommends giving the government the right to inspect the “premises of education” without suspicion of abuse and the right to interview home educated children without adult support and without suspicion of abuse. Interesting, isn’t it, that parents are not allowed to inspect schools whenever they want and to quiz school children to see if they’re happy, healthy and learning, and that kids who do poorly in school aren’t thrown out of school to learn at home. (Well, often schools are quick to suspend students who are labeled “troublemakers,” but helping them learn at home isn’t the goal) and that governments continue to tolerate an appalling low standard of education in our schools.

This clearly is a whitewash, a ham-fisted attempt to assert control where control isn’t needed and an abuse of power under the guide of protecting children’s rights. But it needs to be taken seriously. There is a groundswell of anger arising. Even the Church of England has weighed in with this succinct statement: “Prevention of abuse under the cover of home education seems to be the main reason for this review, and in making it so, has the effect of tarnishing the reputation of the many parents who choose to home educate their children from the best of motives.” Home educators have been organizing against the implementation of the recommendations, a task that involves raising large amount of money. If you want to learn more or contribute, there are a number of groups and websites to visit. The Homeschooler website is a good place to begin. And here is a facebook page about fundraising and lobbying.
Posted: 2009/06/20 2:57 PM

Telling Our Own Stories – June 17, 2009
In the next few days, Jerry Mintz’s Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) will be publishing a new book called Turning Points: 27 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Stories. I am one of the “visionaries” who has dared to think about education in different ways, along with Riane Eisler, John Taylor Gatto, Matt Hern, Herbert Kohl, Deborah Meier, Ron Miller, Pat Montgomery, Zoe Weil and others. Alfie Kohn wrote the foreword. We were all asked to answer the following questions: What was your schooling like? When did you realize that there is a need for an alternative approach? What have you done since to help realize that vision? What are you doing now? The common theme behind all of our stories is the need for change in how we think about and implement education, learning and teaching.

Editors Jerry Mintz and Carlo Ricci say, “This book is about celebrating and understanding the diversity of possibilities in the hopes that people will be inspired to act. It’s about showing what can be done. By bringing together a wide range of alternative mainstream schoolers, homeschoolers/unschoolers/life learners, free and democratic schoolers, Montessori and Waldorf schoolers, we hope that we can learn from each other, and that readers will be inspired enough to join in.” I have yet to see a copy myself, but I am looking forward to it with anticipation.
Posted: 2009/06/17 10:20 AM

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copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2009

Topics & Passions

life learning / unschooling
simplicity
environment
natural parenting
creativity / writing
books

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Monthly Archives

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What I'm Reading

Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World by Andrew Weaver (Viking Canada, 2008)
Attached at the Heart by Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker (iUniverse Inc, 2009)
Tangled Lives: Daughters, Mothers, and the Crucible of Aging by Lillian B. Rubin (Beacon Press, 2001)

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What I'm Listening To

Live in London by Leonard Cohen (Sony Music, 2009)
Bare Bones by Madeleine Peyroux (Rounder Records, 2009)
Messin' Around by Molly Johnson (Anthem, 2006)

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Fav Bookmarks

Daughter Blog
The Mother/Daughter Project
TED: Ideas Worth Spreading
Organic Consumers Association
Grist
We Are What We Do
Free Rice
Mothers Movement Online
Personalised Education Now
Foundation for a Better Life
Learning Freely Network
What's On My Food?

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Fav Quotes

Art, Writing, Creativity
Life and Living
Men and Women
Learning
Environment and Peace