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The First Day of School –
August 11, 2011 The assumption that children must attend school at age five
or six is not just educationally-motivated. It has been made socially
unacceptable for children to remain at home with a parent during a good portion
of the day. In our culture (the one we call “civilized”), we tend to worry about
the so-called “unwholesomeness” of a close relationship between mother and
child, conjuring up images of “smother-love” and a variety of psychological
complexes. So it is that a sort of legend has built up around The
First Day of School to the point where it has become a rite of passage, a
crucial cutting of the apron strings, a desirable first step away from the
family and toward autonomy. The fact that the separation may occur before the
child is emotionally ready seems to have little bearing on the age chosen for
this ritual. In fact, in this era of the hurried child, earlier is assumed to be
better. There are lots of academic papers supporting this nasty
practice. Many of them, I suspect, were written by those who feel mothers belong
in the workforce and therefore need school’s babysitting services. But there is
also lots of evidence that children don’t need school in order to become
autonomous adults. The past few generations of successful grown unschoolers were
preceded by generations who grew into fully functioning adults before school was
even invented. And those of us who have been advocating learning without school
for decades are now being joined by many other forward thinkers who are
realizing that classrooms are no longer necessary at best and, at worst, hamper
learning. But still we inflict the trauma on children by forcing them
out on their own before they are ready. And that trauma can haunt us in ways
large and small for the rest of our lives. I live for the day when the supports
are in place so that children can maintain the close physical and emotional
attachment they need as long as necessary, and are given the freedom to explore
the world at their own pace...no matter what their age.
(Author Laurie A. Couture has a compelling article in the
upcoming September/October issue of
Life Learning Magazine about the need for teens
and adolescents to maintain their attachment to family as well.) I hope that someday the legend of The First Day of
School will be just a dim memory from an unenlightened time. |