“Do you think Self-Directed Education (SDE) can be integrated into the current public schooling model?” Responses ranged from “no way” to “anything is possible,” with commenters pointing out the key factors that would need to exist to make it work: increasing parental empowerment and mobilization; loosening compulsory schooling regulations; trusting children more and weakening the authoritarian structure of modern schooling; investing in smaller schools and classrooms.
Tag: education
Schooling is Not Inevitable
As back-to-school time approaches and articles swarm on how to make the transition to September easier and more successful, maybe it’s worth pausing to ask: If something is so unpleasant for so many of us, why are we doing it?
New Reflections on the Evolution in France
The biggest change is the ubiquitous police and military presence. Teams of militarized police and policified military patrol every tourist site and every public function, plus numerous random locations. It wasn’t just Paris; even small cities like Bayeaux were on guard. I’ve never seen anything like this in the United States, even on September 12, 2001.
15,000 Hours of Playing School
As so often happens when we reach adulthood, and especially parenthood, we realize how much we don’t know. I realized that I might have been successfully schooled, but I didn’t feel well educated. When I reflect on the approximately 15,000 hours I spent in K-12 public school, I think of what a waste of time most of those hours were.
From “Come and Take It” to “Go and Make It”
What if we stopped attacking people for a cause and started attracting people to a cause? What if we became creators instead of mere critics and conquerors? Rather than waging war—either figuratively (in arguing) or literally — what if we channeled all of our passion and energy into disruptive acts of creation?
Those Who Think Nothing of Voting Us into Compliance
It seems the government’s monopoly on education has finally eroded enough common sense over the decades that many can seriously argue that to pin blame on two sides is somehow excusing one, as if blame is somehow a rivalrous, consumable good.
How Mass Schooling Perpetuates Inequality
For kids like Matt, schooling can bring out the worst behaviors. Like a trapped tiger–angry and afraid–they rebel. Unable to conform properly to mass schooling’s mores, they get a label: troubled, slow learner, poor, at-risk. They will carry these scarlet letters with them throughout their 15,000 hours of mandatory mass schooling, emerging not with real skills and limitless opportunity, but further entrenched in their born disadvantage.
Public Education Vs. Public Schooling
The primary difference between public education and public schooling is that the former is openly accessible and self-directed, while the latter is compulsory and coercive. Both are community-based and taxpayer-funded; both can lead to an educated citizenry. But public education–like public libraries, public museums, public parks, community centers, and so on—can support the education efforts of individuals, families, and local organizations with potentially better outcomes than the static system of mass schooling.
Challenging Societal Defaults
The problem with mass schooling is that it is not serving children well. It kills creativity, punishes individuality, and pathologizes difference. As mass schooling expands and becomes more restrictive, there is mounting evidence that it is causing serious psychological harm to many children. In addition to these troubling outcomes, mass schooling simply isn’t working. Children aren’t learning.
Why You Should Pull Your Kid Out of School
Kudos to these parents for listening to their parental instincts, despite pressure from the school to do otherwise. They saw that forcing their son to read at age 6, before he was ready, was causing him to hate reading and despise books. They recognized that the rigidity and uniformity characteristic of the mass schooling model was smothering their son’s curiosity and innate, self-educative ability.