(Source: planetsedge, via tierracita)
"But now I want to turn to the violence we do to our children by forcing them into schools. When schooling is compulsory, schools are, by definition, prisons. A prison is a place where one is forced to be and within which people are not free to choose their own activities, spaces, or associates. Children cannot walk away from school, and within the school children cannot walk away from mean teachers, oppressive and pointless assignments, or cruel classmates. For some children, the only out—the only real way to quit—is suicide. As writer Helen Smith put it in her book, The Scarred Heart, in describing the suicide of a 13-year-old girl who had been regularly bullied in school: “After missing fifty-three out of the required one hundred and eighty days of school, she was told that she would have to return to school or appear before a truancy board which could then send her to a juvenile detention center. She decided the better alternative was to go into her bedroom and hang herself with a belt. … In times past, she could have just dropped out of school, but now kids like her are trapped by compulsory education.”
Lots of words have been spent on the problem of school bullying and related problems such as students’ general unhappiness, boredom, and cynicism in school. Nobody has found a way to solve these problems, and nobody ever will until we grant children the freedom to quit. The only way to solve these problems, ultimately, is to do away with the coercion.
When children are truly free to walk away from school, then schools will have to become child-friendly places in order to survive. Children love to learn, but, like all of us, they hate to be coerced, micromanaged, and continuously judged. They love to learn in their own ways, not in ways that others force on them. Schools, like all institutions, will become moral institutions only when the people they serve are no longer inmates. When students are free to quit, schools will have to grant them other basic human rights, such as the right to have a voice in decisions that affect them, the right to free speech, the right to free assembly, and the right to choose their own paths to happiness. Such schools would look nothing at all like the dreary institutions we call “school” today."
Lots of words have been spent on the problem of school bullying and related problems such as students’ general unhappiness, boredom, and cynicism in school. Nobody has found a way to solve these problems, and nobody ever will until we grant children the freedom to quit. The only way to solve these problems, ultimately, is to do away with the coercion.
When children are truly free to walk away from school, then schools will have to become child-friendly places in order to survive. Children love to learn, but, like all of us, they hate to be coerced, micromanaged, and continuously judged. They love to learn in their own ways, not in ways that others force on them. Schools, like all institutions, will become moral institutions only when the people they serve are no longer inmates. When students are free to quit, schools will have to grant them other basic human rights, such as the right to have a voice in decisions that affect them, the right to free speech, the right to free assembly, and the right to choose their own paths to happiness. Such schools would look nothing at all like the dreary institutions we call “school” today."
—
He’s also written a book on this topic called Free to Learn.
(via thefreelioness)
(via whimsyville)
"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them."
—
Assata Shakur (via ethiopienne)
great quote.
(via deafmuslimpunx)
Our government considers this woman a terrorist.
(via knowledgeequalsblackpower)
(Source: twitter.com, via dancinginthegrocerystore)
Posted this on my Facebook blog page:
In a perhaps misguided attempt to alleviate some of the guilt I feel for not responding to the *dozens* of emails and Facebook messages I’ve received over the past year, I’m opening my Tumblr ask box (since that seems the easiest way to work things) to questions about unschooling tonight. If you’re curious about something, ask away and I will provide a short response!
Don’t know if anyone will take me up on it, but since I felt like I was up for that tonight, figured I’d let people know. *Shrugs*
"There were no sex classes. No friendship classes. No classes on how to navigate a bureaucracy, build an organization, raise money, create a database, buy a house, love a child, spot a scam, talk someone out of suicide, or figure out what was important to me. Not knowing how to do these things is what messes people up in life, not whether they know algebra or can analyze literature."
— William Upski Wimsatt (via radicalginger)
Oh, I love when the angry-about-unschooling people periodically post stupid comments on my blog/blog FB page/youtube videos, just showing their stupidity.
I was just told “If you don’t [respond by email] then you simply agree that I’m right and you wasted your life away :D”
Um, yeah, you totally just convinced me with your sparklingly original points that I have heard about a thousand times before, I’m not going to respond because now I know I’ve just “wasted my life away” and don;t want to admit it to you, angry internet person.
Or, you know, it could just be because why the fuck would I waste my time responding to nasty people saying ignorant and unoriginal things and demanding I *email them* to “debate”?
Sheesh, people.
I keep finding myself wanting to write a critique of the capitalistic and competitive direction I feel that the unschooling/self-directed learning movement is going in as it’s brought more into the mainstream, but it just seems like such an overwhelmingly large (and not to mention controversial) topic that I just don’t know where to start!
"Schooling confuses teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new."
— Wendy Priesnitz (via lifeofaspec)
(Source: lifeofaspectator.net, via newlyemmett)
"Unschoolers learn just like you or I learn as adults: based on what interests them, figuring out how to learn it on their own, changing as they change, using whatever resources and learning materials they find, driven by curiosity and practical application rather than because someone says it’s important."
—
The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling : zenhabits (via guerrillamamamedicine)
Fuck yes, unschooling!
(via tierracita)
(Source: zenhabits.net, via tierracita)
New post on the blog.
Learning is something very personal and very individual, so having found myself being asked for generalized learning advice, I find myself both eager to share but hesitant about what to share!
So I’ll simply do what I always strive to do: write from personal experiences. Share what I’ve found to be important in my own learning and in my own life, and hope that others can find it relatable or otherwise helpful. Much of this seems really obvious, yet at the same time I’ve never actually sat down and attempted to list all the things I find most important in my own learning, and seeing it all laid out like this is proving really interesting and revealing to me…
Be comfortable learning just enough and nothing more
Read the Wikipedia article, and if you’re satisfied with that, stop. Go by your interest level, and don’t feel an obligation to learn a lot about a subject if you’re not interested in doing so.
Be comfortable focusing on one subject to the exclusion of (almost) all else
Sometimes digging deep and truly immersing yourself in something can be a wonderfully rewarding experience, and leaves you with a very deep knowledge of something or a high level of skill. If something seems wonderful enough to you to do that, go for it.
Learn alone
Books are great. So is the internet. So are solitary walks in the woods.Self-taught ukulele player
Seek out groups, teachers, or mentors to learn
Sometimes learning with other people really feels best (for some people often, others, rarely). Whether it’s in a group where big interesting discussions can happen, or finding a teacher who can help you gain the level of skill you want to have, learning with other people can be wonderful. There’s nothing that says just because you’re a self-directed learner you can’t direct yourself towards lots of other people!Don’t force it
If you find yourself reading the same paragraph half a dozen times because you’re just not taking it in, stop. Put the book down. Maybe permanently, maybe just until the next day if it seems interesting again then. But I do find, in my experience at least, that anything I’ve ever had to choke down or really force myself through, I’ve forgotten. Every single time. That doesn’t mean you might not want to force yourself through a boring chapter in an otherwise interesting book on occasion, or get through a not-so-interesting article online because it’s the only place you’ve found to get that specific information you want. Just that if you’re really not enjoying something and there’s nothing forcing you to do it (as in, you’re not studying for a test you really want to pass), then give up. If you’re not enjoying it and not taking it in, what’s the point?(Read more at link)
