John Holt often spoke to high school assemblies mostly in rich suburbs of big cities. He talked about the difference between jobs, careers, and work. In the Growing Without School issue #3 1978 he writes the following:
A job as I defined it was something you did for money, something that someone else told you to do and paid you to do. Probably not something you would have done otherwise, but you need the money so you did it.
A career was a kind of step ladder of jobs. If you did your first job for a while, did what you were told and didn't cause any trouble, whoever gave you that job might give you a new job. This job might be slightly more interesting, or at least no so hard-dirty-dangerous. You might not have to take orders from so many people, might even be able to give orders to a few, You might be able to make a few more choices. Then if you did that job OK for a while your boss might then give you a still better job until you had gone up the job ladder. This adds up to a career.
By 'work' I meant (and mean) something altogether different, what people used to call a 'vocation' or 'calling'-something which seemed so worth doing for its own sake that they would have gladly chosen to do it even if they don't need money and the work didn't pay.
I went on to say that to find our work , in this sense, is one of the most difficult tasks that we have in life, that unless we are very lucky we cannot expect to find it quickly, and indeed, that we may never find it once and for all, since work that is right for us at one stage of our life many not be right for use at the next..I added that the vital question, "What do I really want to do?"
What do I think is most worth doing?" is not one that the schools will often urge us or help us to ask of ourselves; on the whole, they feel it is their business only to prepare us for employment-jobs or careers, high or low. So we are going to have to find out for ourselves what work needs to be done and is being done out there and which of that work we most want to take part in.
As I said these things, I looked closely ..at the faces of my listeners...What I saw and what I usually heard in the question periods that followed, made me feel that most of those students were thinking "this guy must have just stepped off the space ship from Mars."
Work for nothing? For most of them it was not just impossible, but unimaginable. They did not know, hardly even knew of any people who felt that way about their work. Work was something you did for external rewards-..
I found myself thinking often about something Paul Goodman had written: Ours is the first civilization in history that has imposed on the elite of its younger generation a morale fit for slaves."
To which I would add soemthing that Hannah Arendt once wrote about slaves in ancient Greece. Slaves could earn money, own property,even get rich. What they could not do was work for anything but themselves;in other words, they could not fight, or vote,or hold office. They were only allowed to be what in our time most people choose to be-what economists call Economic Man, people who work only for their own personal gain.
Of course, in saying this about the young people I talked to, I am to some degree guessing (and therefore perhaps projecting). Of one thing I am certain. There was never, anywhere, a hopeful, positive, enthusiastic response to what I said. I cannot remember even one among all those students, the most favoured young people of the most favoured nation in the world , who said "Mr Holt, here's what I am interested in care about, how can I find a way to work at it?"
To be continued in the next post.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Real Work
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Changing the Way we think about Teens
I'm at the end of my series on adolescence, the book by Robert Epstein called The Case Against Adolescence:Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen. I know, it wasn't all one smooth series but so much else is going on so apologies!
The last idea Epstein leaves us with is the idea that we can change our perspective on how we view the teen-age years- a period of growth that was largely set in motion during the period of massive population growth in the Industrial Revolution.
Epstein explains throughout his book that our views today on teens are determined by messages the media sources and thought leaders serve us daily. You know, the 'reckless, 'lazy', 'violent teen' messages.
"Our views can reasonably be conceived of as a kind of irrational prejudice programmed by our culture-almost precisely the kind that mainstream Americans bore towards women and blacks until very recent times," says Epstein.
We can change this backward way of thinking. We are nothing if not creatures of change.
"Adolescence as we know it in the US should be abolished, and we should stop exporting this dysfunctional period of life to other countries," Epstein continues.
In my opinion, the best place to start would be to abolish compulsory schooling- an outmoded strategy of education. Get the kids in with the adults; let them talk to adults, hang out with them,learn along side them and take their cues from them rather than from their peers.
"The time has come to end the isolation {from adults}. Young and old, we will all benefit by restoring the child-adult continuum that existed through most of human history in industrialized nations and that still exists in preindustrial societies today. The teen years need to be what they used to be: a time not just of learning, but of learning to be responsible adults," concludes Epstein.
What we need then is more avenues, more opportunities for this to take place-for adults and kids to come face to face in meaningful ways. Take your kid to school day won't cut it.
I want to hear your ideas and experiences on what can be done (what is being done) to restore the continuum. Please write in.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Childrens Liberation Front against Graham Badman's report
A protest song and video by the Childrens Liberation Front against Graham Badman's report and the prospect of enforced schooling
these are the lyrics (for the hard of hearing)
We don't need your registration
We don't need your yearly goals
No right of entry to our houses
Badman leave home ed alone
Hey Badman leave us kids alone
All in all you're just another brick in the wall
All in all you're just another pawn for Ed Balls
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Homeschooling in England; Under Attack
In North America, we enjoy the right to educate our children outside of school with little or no interference from the State. In England, home education has always been seen as an acceptable route to go- up until now.
Kelly Green is a Canadian monitoring the situation closely. She reports that a few days ago the "independent expert" stirring up all the trouble gave evidence before a Parliamentary Select Committee. This individual is the same one wrote the report recommending that all home educators should have to supply a complete educational plan a year in advance for each child, force their children to display "evidence" to Local Authorities that the plan had been followed, and allow their children to be interviewed, alone, with no trusted adult present, to ensure that they were "voluntarily" being home educated.
In her email message Green notes that home educators in England are living a nightmare; they are being accused of child abuse by this man, the Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Children, Schools and Families and many of the nation's biggest newspapers.
Green writes that many home educators are now planning to flee the country, but others intend to stay and fight, or have no choice to leave. They are now working out their next steps, and there may be things we can help with.
She urges us to read the following blogs to find out more about what is happening to them;
http://threedegrees
http://www.renegade
http://www.patchofp
This organization is one of the ones leading the fight:
http://ahed.
A blog about what kids themselves have to say:
https://heyc.
Meanwhile, an email to Ed Balls, the Minister of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, letting him know that this is becoming an international issue of civil and human rights, would be a worthy act of support and solidarity. info@dcsf.gsi.
Check back at Freedom and Choice in Education--BC for updates. http://facebc.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
John Holt on Alternative Schools
Periodically, I like to refer to John Holt's writing to keep me on track as to what authentic learning is really about. In an essay he wrote for Growing Without School (#17) he said he wanted to do away with the idea of compulsory learning, and the idea that learning should be separate from the rest of life. "Above all, I want to break down the barriers that separate children from adults and their work and concerns."
"It's okay to have special places for kids, since they have certain needs that in some respect are different from the needs of adults....But they should not have to spend all their time in those special places. The adult world should be as far as possible open to them,and they should not have to go to special places unless they want to.
"People say to me quite often,"I want to work with kids." What they really mean is that they want to work on kids, to do things to them or for them, usually without their consent,which they think will do them good. I often say to these well meaning people,"Why not find some work worth doing and then try to find ways to make it possible for young people to join you in this work?"
"This is very different from starting an alternative school. Children (and youth especially -my words) should be able to have contact with many adults who are outside their families, and whose work is not taking care of them. They should be able,if they wish, to make friends with adults who may or may not be friends of or even known to their parents. They should be able to see adults at work and to share in that work according to their energy and skill.
If we want to call the place where this work is done a 'school," I suppose we can. But I would prefer something new, and in our time this is new, I'd rather think of a new name for it than bend an old name out of shape to fit it."
Holt felt uneasy about the relationship between adults and children in alternative schools claiming that in regular school the "relationship is stark and clear."
Wrote Holt, "School is the Army for kids. Adults make them go there..tell them what to do, bribe and threaten them.. When the teachers in an alternative school try to give up this bad relationship, it is very unclear what they put in its place. If they are not there to tell the children what to do, what are they there for? To "help" the children? Did the children ask for this help? Can they get away from it?...Are they the students' servants or their bosses, or if neither, then what? Is the task of adults in alternative schools to think up interesting things for the students to do and then try to seduce or cajole them into doing them? Is their task to be available if students want their help, but otherwise to stay out of the way? Neither of these seems to me like good life-work for serious adults.
"I personally would hate to be in the position of having to think up things for children to do and to find ways to get them to do them. If and when they ask me, I often show them how to do things i like to do, so that we can do them together. But I am not going to do thins that bore me in the hope that they many interest or be good for them. Thus I am glad to play my cello with the children around,and to offer them a chance to play if they want. But if they don't want, that's fine with me; I am not trying it "get them interested" in playing cello. I am not going to take up painting in the hope that, seeing me, children will get interested in painting. Let people who already like to paint, paint where children can see them.
"When adults come into our office with children, if we are doing anything which children can do, we ask them if they want to help, and they almost always say Yes. They work hard and well, and are a real help. I think children could and would like to help adults much sooner and in more ways than most adults give them a chance to."
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