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Archives
- February, 2005
Too Young to be Seen in
Public – February 22, 2005
When my I clear out my in-box and find more than two references to the
same topic, my curiosity is aroused (it doesn’t take much!). Today,
the subject of homeschool ID cards has risen to the top of the pile.
Homeschool organizations and individuals have, for years, been creating
little cards to carry in their wallets to prove their kids are involved
in a home-based education program and to allow them to get educational discounts in local curriculum and art supply stores.
Companies are now
sprouting up to negotiate such discounts and to sell a slicker version
of these ID cards to consumers. My experience with self-educating
families tells me they will be wary of such schemes for a variety of
reasons, but it is a testimony of the size and maturity of the
homeschool movement that such efforts are underway.
However,
there is a much darker side to the issue. Dig a bit deeper on the
websites of such companies and you will be able to purchase an ID card
for your kid too. These cards aren’t designed to make your kid feel
part of a peer group or to get them discounts in stores. They are to
keep your kid out of the hands of the police when they are outside
during school hours. Since the mid to late 1990s, an increasing number
of cities have been making it illegal for people under 18 to be outside
during school hours unless accompanied by an adult or in possession of a
permission slip from a parent or guardian. These municipal curfew laws
allow police to stop and question someone just because they look young.
What a gargantuan assault on the rights of young people! As an attempt to control
truancy and juvenile crime, such laws are a failure, according to a 1998
study by San Francisco’s Justice Policy Institute, possibly since most
crime simply isn’t committed during the day by kids between 5 and 18.
Instead, they waste the time of police officers who could be doing
something useful to fight crime and they promote negative feelings in young
people about law enforcement agencies. Additionally, they make the
archaic assumption that education only happens between certain hours
in certain locations. In addition to self-educated young people whose
education takes place primarily in the community, students in year-round
schools or who attend schools with unusual days off or otherwise
flexible schedules can also run afoul of these scandalously stupid
curfew laws.
I haven’t been able to
find statistics for the number of cities that have enacted daytime
curfews in the U.S. and Canada. But I was amazed to learn that in 1997, the United States Conference
of Mayors identified 72 cities across the U.S. with daytime curfews; the
momentum seems to be increasing and a quick Internet search uncovered a
dozen or so that have enacted them over the past few months alone, plus
two states – Illinois and Hawaii – that are considering state-wide daytime curfews.
Curfews – even of the more common overnight
variety – have had less success in Canada; last summer, the Quebec
Human Rights commission overturned one enacted by the town of
Huntingdon (just north of the New York State border). But that’s
not to say it couldn’t happen in this country. Some groups, like the Home Educators
Association of Virginia (HEAV), have been battling daytime curfew laws.
But it’s an uphill battle because the post-9/11 climate of fear is encouraging
the erosion of human rights. And I don’t think most people like kids
enough to tolerate their presence except in specialized holding
facilities like schools. Nevertheless, I hope
that all families who live in areas with daytime curfews – whether or
not their kids attend school or learn elsewhere – will work to get
them revoked. I also hope families who live in cities without them will
make sure they never pass.
Posted: 2005/02/22 12:47 PM
Nurturing Instead of Labeling – February 18, 2005
“A Terror in the
Classroom” screams today’s headline on the website of the
Hamilton Spectator. The story is about a five-year-old boy who has been
kicked out of seven
day cares and suspended twice from junior kindergarten. Now, they
don’t want him in kindergarten either, unless he goes on medication,
which his parents don’t want. He has been diagnosed with Oppositional
Defiant Disorder (ODD). And according to the article – which is really
about government not providing enough resources to schools – the
school board apparently cannot afford his own personal
teaching assistant to help him fit into the classroom satisfactorily.
As Jan Fortune-Wood writes in her column in the March/April issue of Life
Learning magazine, ODD is the latest in a long list of non-existent
“disorders” that adults use to label kids who don’t do what they
want. The
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry says that although all children are
“oppositional” to “authority figures” from time to time, it
becomes a serious concern “when it affects the child’s social,
family and academic life.” According
to W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, Director, Disruptive Behavior Clinic, Department of Pediatrics, Division of
Behavioral Health (yes, there is such a thing!), AI DuPont Children’s Hospital, “The primary
behavioral difficulty is the consistent pattern of refusing to follow
commands…” Psychiatric associations claim that between five
and 15 percent of all school-age children have ODD!
So instead of stopping with the commands and
treating children like human beings, parents, doctors and schools decide
they are sick and want to medicate them. Instead of taking their cue
from life learners and providing children with the trusting learning
environment they need, our society continues to warehouse them all day,
require them to follow commands and otherwise not respect their
needs…and when the kids don’t function well, we blame them. Aside
from the fact that school is the only method of education most people
have known, most adults believe they know what is best for children –
theirs’ and other people’s. Plus, many adults “need” the structure of school
in their lives so they can have jobs. And certainly, the education
industry “needs” to maintain these non-nurturing environments so
that teachers and administrators can have their jobs, text book
publishers can make money, and so on. Or do they?? If our society really
liked children, wouldn’t we look at other ways for families to live
and learn instead of requiring children to serve our needs and call them
ill if they don’t?
This particular newspaper reporter seems to suggest
that more money is the answer, quoting a report
by the Human Rights Commissioner, which said
the school system “isn’t well-equipped to deal with
students whose disabilities cause disruptive behavior.” But what about
the rights of children to live in environments that don’t provoke an
oppositional or defiant reaction? The little boy’s mother is quoted in
the article as saying this five-year-old is “a wonderful little kid”
until he is faced with rules or is under stress. My heart goes out to
her and I hope she will realize that most of us have problems dealing
with rules and stress, and aren’t labeled with a disability because of
it. I also hope that she will find a different way of helping her
child to learn than in this obviously dysfunctional system.
Posted: 2005/02/18 4:50 PM
Learning in Nature – February 16, 2005
I’m reading an advance proof of a book slated entitled Last Child in
the Woods – Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. The
author is journalist Richard Louv and the book is scheduled for May
publication by Algonquin Books. While I dislike the idea of labeling
kids as having “disorders”, Louv uses the term as an apt description for
a worrisome phenomenon. His premise is that for the first time in
history, our children’s direct experience in Nature is disappearing
– with disastrous results for the future of our children and the
future of our planet. I will likely choose a piece from it for
excerption in Natural Life magazine. But for now, it
has reminded me of my
own early direct experience in Nature, in a tiny corner of the inner
city neighborhood where I grew up.
There was a piece at the back of our backyard that
was bordered on one side by the green wooden wall of a ramshackle garage
and on the opposite side and back by a high (or so it seemed to me at the
time) unpainted wooden fence. Dense foliage from a big, old elm tree
located just beyond the fence in the neighbor’s yard created a
summertime roof. It also meant that the corner was dark and a bit damp,
making it useless for growing grass, roses or petunias, which
constituted my parents’ definition of gardening. So they dumped grass
and hedge clippings there, along with end-of-season annuals, dead roses
and petunias. There were also a couple of fairly large rocks.
Going there was forbidden due to mosquitoes, thorns and lots of other potential dangers...and some imagined ones
too. When I was young, I obeyed the rule. I am not sure whether the hype
convinced me of the danger or I just hadn’t learned to question
authority. But I remember standing on the grass looking longingly – or
perhaps just curiously – into its shady depths and inhaling the dank
smell of composting greenery.
I also remember the day when I ventured in and sat
down on one of the rocks. It felt wonderful. That feeling was, I suppose, a
combination of rebellious adrenaline and enjoyment of the space. It
seemed protected and cozy, yet retained a hint of danger due to its
“wildness” and forbidden status. Having crossed the barrier, I
subsequently went there often on hot summer days, taking a book and my
day dreams. Sometimes my feelings of anger or frustration also
accompanied me, to be left buried under the decaying grass. It was a
deliciously private place, and a healing one too. Eventually, as I got
too big to sit comfortably on the rock, I dragged a lawn chair there.
But I never felt that the chair belonged; it was too much civilization
in my wilderness. My mother must have noticed the chair but, oddly, I
don’t recall if she put an end to my visits or not. Perhaps I outgrew
that private place, replacing solitude with boys and broader horizons.
But as my first taste of Nature amid asphalt and stucco, it was the
beginning of a life-long reverence for that which is wild, green and
living...and of an understanding of the healing powers of Nature.
Posted: 2005/02/16 11:57 AM
Children Aren’t
Like Horses – February 12, 2005
Canada’s national broadcaster CBC has introduced a new column on its website. It’s about education – er,
schooling. In the first installment, Mary Ellen Lang – who describes
herself as a mom, grandma, writer, teacher, gardener, and equestrian – says that “Teaching
kids is like training horses”. Well, maybe. But does that mean that
kids learn in the same way as
horses do? I know nothing about horses, although I’ve spent 30 years
thinking about kids. But Lang must know something I don’t because that
sentiment nailed her first job teaching teens in British Columbia
two decades ago. And apparently, she still believes that what works for horses
works as well for kids.
First of all, she says, like horses, a kid has to trust you or
“they can’t or won’t learn what you want them to”. Both also
have to understand what you want so you have to “communicate
clearly”. Perhaps Lang has been successful imparting her agenda to
both horses and kids so that they will perform well in the riding ring
or on an exam. But the truth is that no matter how well you communicate
it, no kid will learn what “you” want them to unless “they” want
to learn it, no matter how much they trust you or how well you
communicate your desire for them to learn…unless, of course, you
brainwash them. She goes on to say that if horses and kids are
frightened, angry, confused, humiliated or bored, “they won't invest
themselves honestly in what you're trying to teach them”. Probably
true. But a kid who is allowed to pursue their own interests, needs and
wants will learn without being frightened, angry, confused, humiliated
or bored.
Trust and
self-discipline are crucial, says Lang, so that horses can stand still
while their keepers tie them up as a prelude to new shoes and baths. And
kids? Well, they need to be able “to tolerate periodic stretches of
quiet stillness” in order to reap the rewards of naps, cookies and the
development of listening skills. How many kids do you know who consider
naps a reward? Cookies, maybe. But the development of listening skills
is definitely an adult need, not a kid one. I don’t know how many
horses care about getting new shoes. And if those bribes aren’t
enough, a dose of reality will get their attention and help them learn
to do what they’re told. In the case of a “rebellious” horse, that
means helping them understand that they must be "schooled in
enclosures” so they won’t hurt themselves. Requiring a horse or a
kid to do as they are told is “not some horrible assault on their
self-esteem or self-determination” but a necessary component of
learning. This, my dear Ms. Lang, isn’t education; it is classroom
management.
I don’t want to be
too hard on this obviously well-intentioned writer, because her views
are typical of the child education
industry. It’s just that her attitude is one of a benevolent dictator
rather than the partnership she describes having with her horse. And
this attitude fails to reach its intended
goal, which in Lang’s words is to “foster independent and competent
thinking.” In the same way that one doesn’t learn how to live
democratically unless one lives in a democracy (and most schools
aren’t democracies), doing what one is told and trusting that someone
else knows what is best for you doesn’t foster independent thinking.
Sorry,
Mary Ellen. Horses may be lovely animals...and highly trainable, given
the right treatment. But they are not children.
Posted: 2005/02/13 10:53 AM
Teaching Kids to Talk, Walk and Other Adult
Silliness – February 6, 2005
I have in front of me a press release for Baby Berlitz, a just-launched
series of books and CDs “especially designed to stimulate language
learning in infants up to three years old”. They’re published by the
venerable
Berlitz company that has decades of experience helping adults learn
foreign languages. So once again, we have a company trying to capitalize
on parents’ urge to give their kids an edge. A writer for the Boston Globe also apparently received the press release, and wrote
an article about it last week. She summed up her response by quoting a
leading researcher on language acquisition who said, “This is just a
bunch of hype.”
Fortunately, not all hype is as dangerous or as
stupid as is this sort of hype. Kids learn to talk by interacting with
people in their lives who talk, and who are sensitive and responsive to
their desire to communicate...not by listening to recordings of
strangers talk! That observation of and encouragement by loving role
models is, by the way, also how they learn
how to walk.
In my presentations about deschooling over the past 25
years, I have often pointed out how absurd it would be for parents to
formally instruct their children in the fine art of, say, walking...by
means of chalkboard diagrams describing which brain waves command which
muscles to move which bones...and then to test their knowledge. Will I
soon need to revise my presentation because it no longer seems so
absurd?! In this context, a
reader has just reminded me about an essay written in 1967 by Jerry Farber
entitled “The Student as Nigger”. It was probably the first thing I
ever read that questioned the status quo of public education. Farber, who is a civil rights
activist, education critic and professor of English at San Diego State University, has said of his essay, “The article was an outgrowth of my attempts
to be a good teacher. After several years in the English department at
L.A. State College, I had decided that there were limits to how well you
could teach in an authoritarian and dehumanized school system. So I
thought I would do my bit to help change the system.” The highly
controversial essay was first published in the Los Angeles Free Press
and then in book form (1970, Pocket Books) and became an underground
classic that was reprinted and passed along on campuses across North America. It included the tongue-in-cheek “Teaching Johnny To Walk – an
ambulation-instruction program for the normal preschool child”.
I guess we haven’t come all that far since the mid 60s
when Farber wrote his essay and since I began pointing out in the mid
70s that
kids will learn if they are given the time and space and encouragement. How silly and how counterproductive to think
that books and recordings – no matter how technologically
sophisticated – can help kids learn to accomplish things they’ve
been learning on their own, with the help of loving families, since
humans began to walk upright and develop language. But that’s
business.
Posted: 2005/02/06 12:20 PM
The False Premise of Schooling
– February 1, 2005
I’ve been corresponding
with a journalist who plans an article on home-based learning. But she
is having a hard time understanding how people can learn outside of
schools. She believes, apparently based on her own school experience,
that a person won’t learn unless inspired by a teacher and that
children need some kind of mythical social stimulation that she thinks
happens in schools.
I’ve been telling her
that school is based on a false premise: that children do not want to
learn and will not learn if left to their own devices. So we force
children to gather together in one place for long hours with others of
the same age, so that we can teach them. We assume that children must be
manipulated to learn by enthusiastic adults, judged and processed in a
variety of ways, and diagnosed as having a problem if they don’t learn
what the adults want them to.
The comparison I used is
one that I wrote about in my book Challenging Assumptions in
Education:
the assumption that says wellness results from treatment by a hospital.
One may get well in a hospital and there are some situations where a
hospital stay may be the only way to get well. But there are also many
examples where a hospital has hindered the healing process or where
relatively well people have become ill in hospitals, either through
mistreatment or by catching other people’s diseases. Most people would
be healthier if they took responsibility for their own well-being,
rather than rushing off to be treated by an institution every time they
have a health problem.
Similarly, I told her,
schools are not the only – or for many people, the best –
environment for learning. And that is because they focus on teaching
rather than on learning. Human beings do not need to be taught in order
to learn. We are born interacting with and exploring our surroundings.
Babies are active learners, their burning curiosity motivating them to
learn how the world works. And if they are given a safe, supportive
environment, they will continue to learn hungrily and naturally – in
the manner and at the speed that suits them best. In fact, you cannot
stop young children learning from everything they experience. They are
always experimenting with cause and effect. And they are always soaking
up information from their environment. Speak a language in their
presence, and they will learn it. Perform a task near them, and they
will imitate you.
I told this journalist that I hope she loses her assumptions before writing her article. But, like in most of us, they are pretty deeply entrenched.
Posted: 2005/02/01 11:09 AM
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