Dave Pollard writes about the new book by PS Pirro – 101 Reasons Why Im Unschooler:
“PS presents 50 reasons why schooling is, in every imaginable way, bad for us and our society, and then 50 reasons why unschooling, which she defines as “learning without formal curriculum, timelines, grades or coercion; learning in freedom” is the natural way to learn. She argues that we are indoctrinated from the age of five to cede our time, our freedoms, and what we pay attention to, to the will of the State, so that we are ‘prepared’ for a work world of wage slavery and obedience to authority. We are deliberately not taught anything that would allow us to be self-sufficient in society. And in the factory environment of the school, where teachers need to ‘manage’ thirty students or more, ethics and the politics of power is left up, from our earliest and most vulnerable years, to the bullies and other young damaged psychopaths among our peers, to teach us in their grotesquely warped way. As PS explains, it is in every way a prison system.”
And here is a memorable quote from the book:
“The world of the classroom is so unlike anything the real world has to offer – with the exception of other classrooms – that kids can excel at school only to find themselves utterly lost in the real world. Some people think this is the result of failed schooling, but a few of us suspect otherwise. We suspect that this sense of displacement and confusion is actually the result of schooling that succeeds in its most basic unwritten objective: to keep you dependent, timid, worried, nervous, compliant, and afraid of the World. To keep you waiting. To keep you manageable. To keep you helpless. To keep you small.
Educated, confident, creative people are dangerous to the status quo, dangerous to a centralized economy, dangerous to a centralized system of command and control. Those in power don’t want you educated. They want you schooled.
It is not up to teachers or school administrators to figure out what you should be or do. It’s not up to the State, it’s not up to your guidance counselors. It’s not up to your parents. What you do with your life ought to be up to you. What you learn ought to be up to you. How you navigate the world and create your place in it ought to be your decision. Your life belongs to you. School does its best to disabuse you of this notion. Unschooling celebrates it. Unschooling puts the responsibility for creating a satisfying life squarely where it belongs: in the hands of the one living it.”
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I have been posting about the problems in the traditional educational structure, designed very recently, perhaps to serve the industrial society. There is a growing movement to reconsider the educational system in its entirety. This is the subject I examined for long time. I basically maintain that school kills a lot of talent. I am not sure what the alternative is yet. I find it interesting that both Google founders attended unstructured Montessori schools. I would like to continue posting on this subject as it hold great interest for me. The first step in recovery is the recognition that the current condition is perhaps the source of many problems. It's a start in the search for the alternative. Lets think it through together. You might want to reread these links:
http://benatlas.com/2009/03/fred-wilson-on-hack…
Ari, There is overwhelming evidence that talented students are stifled and average students are being forced to forfeit their talents to comply with a “curriculum”. Students are much more influenced by the framework of a school than by a bad or good teachers. Enforced mainstreaming is a far greater problem to the individual development that a bad teacher.
How appropriate for May Day. Pirro's juvenile anarchistic ejaculations on education amount to little more than pre-mature utopianism.
Where did you learn to speak like that, not is a school I bet ;-) May be in a school bathroom, where you were taught English by reading poetry on the walls. May Day indeed!
when people speak of “nurturing the talents” they mean a very narrow band of talents that were deemed useful for the society. This naturally excludes the biggest range of talents, only acceptable talents get through. There rest of the students are driven mad, unable to express their innate genius.
Read poetry and smoked cigarettes. Ben, you have just articulated a brilliant rebuttal to Pirro. On a serious note; Education requires an environment that balances the opposing demands of structure and flexibility, something that the axiomatic immaturity of the student can not achieve on his own; neglecting or over emphasizing either results in missing the target. Education is not unique in this regard but in few other areas of human endeavor does failure lead to such dire consequences.
Everyone should agree that over-structured environment or unstructured are bad. We currently have an over-structured educational system.
“society” is a system that wants to use your energy and creativity and spit you out in the end. It is a system that demands obedience and sacrifice to the mythological “common good”. It is a system that decides what talents are good and what talents are bad.
Common good, society? …when you are wrong it's good to have a lot of people on your side. Wiseacre's definition of democracy… and it's also the system that allows and fosters talent. Examples too numerous to list.
Oligarchical concentration of power and money increased globally at unprecedented rate in the last decades. East, West, South, etc.
For those of you who know Russian, read of schooling based on religious education here: http://www.7kanal.com/article.php3?id=261797. It speaks of rigidly structured education which promotes children's intellectual development.
Thank you, but I can't take anything that is written on 7kanal seriously.