Back to School

Tis the season!  No, it's not Christmas in July, it's back to school season.  You probably noticed about a month ago, the retail stores rolled out the notebooks, pencils, binders and all the other school supplies needed to "educate" students.  Educate... that is the purpose of sending our children to school correct?  What does this mean though?  How do we know if our children are being educated?

Obviously there has been a lot of criticism of public schools and rightfully so.  Parents, school reformers and politicians have all offered up commentary on why they believe schools are falling short in accomplishing the goal of educating students.  The data speaks volumes, although I do not intend to turn this into an analysis of quantitative and qualitative numbers.  Instead, I'd like to encourage you to think about what it means to be educated.

Famed New York City teacher turned schooling critic John Taylor Gatto once said "Nobody gives you an education, if you want one, you have to take it."  What does this tell us about what it means to be educated?  Well, for one, it certainly says something about the manner in which school attempts to educate students.  As children all across the country prepare to shuffle back in to classrooms, they will be met with a bevy of teacher created learning objectives, randomized curriculum, meaningless tasks and so on.  Have we thought to ask what they want to learn?  Of course not, we could never trust students to have ownership over their own learning.  We must dictate what to learn, how to learn it and when to learn it.  In fact, this is ultimately what differentiates schooling from education.  What we should be promoting instead of a system structured in regimented rules, bells and social classes is freedom.

Gatto would go on to promote the idea of open source learning.  Without providing a formal definition, this is essentially viewing anyone as a teacher and learning can occur in any situation or environment.  Teachers are not licensed in any formal teaching process.  Instead, the teacher is the mechanic, the engineer, the doctor, and so on.  In fact, anyone can teach that can offer advice, support and guidance.  Further, and most important, the learner is in complete control of the learning process.  This learning model does not occur in the confines of four walls with a screen and whiteboard.  Instead, learning occurs in everyday situations and places.

Sir Ken Robinson's TEDx Talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

What point is there in defining the differences between these two distinct models?  Afterall, unless you embrace and are able to homeschool, aren't you married to the public school system?  Even if you are not able to withdraw you child from public schools, you can still work to promote the open source model to counteract the schooling experience.  See, that is the ultimate purpose in this exercise; we must come to understand the damage done through schooling.  It labels students in groups like gifted and talented, mainstream and special needs.  These labels are fictitious labels concocted to manage students.  More damaging, schooling crushes the desire to learn.  As I mentioned above, the arbitrary nature of tasks, rules, bells and knowing your places push kids to hate genuine learning.  Does your child resist reading for leisure?  Do they hate learning from every day experiences?  Do they resist applying what they've learned?  If this sounds familiar, it is not by happenstance, it is the direct result of schooling.

So what can we do to combat this?  Doing anything you can to combat the coercive nature of schooling will help.  Give your child autonomy and space in their learning.  Embrace their loves in life to work in core competencies of reading, math, logic, etc.  In sum, trust and listen to your child.