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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - February, 2005 Too Young to be Seen in
Public – February 22, 2005 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. Nurturing Instead of Labeling – February 18, 2005 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. Learning in Nature – February 16, 2005 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. Children Aren’t
Like Horses – February 12, 2005 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. Teaching Kids to Talk, Walk and Other Adult
Silliness – February 6, 2005 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. The False Premise of Schooling
– February 1, 2005 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. Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2007 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm reading:
The Power of Mindful Learning by Ellen J. Langer 1997, Da
Capo Press/Perseus Books Group))
~ What I'm Listening To:
Solo
by Yo-Yo Ma (Silk Road/Sony)
~ Fav Bookmarks: Deep Fun ~
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