…. Our Baby Died ….
Ode to Cody, 18 years on…..
Welcome to the land of "Un"! Unschooling, un"church"ing, unshackling, unfurling, unleashing…. Join me as I journey towards a place of freedom from expectations and unexamined thoughts, from a sense of "have to" and "should"…. and discover a place where we all get to be…. ourselves. It's about re-thinking everything, never assuming things are exactly as they seem, having the courage to face old thoughts in a new way, realising that the old, smelly shoe is not that comfy after all. It's about having the courage to undo the laces, remove the shoe and walk (or run!) barefoot in the grass!
Here in Australia, we are in the middle of summer holidays and people are slowly starting to think about the new school year beginning again.
Some of us don't live in that paradigm anymore. We are school free. We live as though school doesn't exist.
Except, of course, that it does. School is part of the fabric of our society and it can take quite a long time to extricate its tentacles from our thinking (a process known as deschooling).
Schools have gradually become less relevant and less "necessary" as society has become more technologically advanced and accessibility to information has increased. If you think about the history of compulsory schooling and about how society has changed, it is hard to believe that the majority of people still seem to believe that government mandated schooling and curriculum are relevant, helpful or perhaps even essential.
Or perhaps they have simply never paused to question our reliance on the school system for the instruction of society's masses of children.
Schools are not essential for learning, for getting into university or for being "successful" in life! Schools are no longer the custodian and disseminator of all knowledge.
Knowledge, learning and all sorts of opportunities are widely and freely available in our modern society. It is not just a privilege for the rich, and apart from certain careers, formal instruction is not usually required at all. If someone chooses to undertake formal lessons or classes, however, these are usually available without ever setting foot inside a school building. Times are changing! Gone are the days when academic knowledge was a privilege for the rich, where knowledge was sequestered in dusty old text books in school classrooms.
Autodidactism is defined as "learning on your own or by yourself, and an autodidact is a self-teacher." It is not an adequate term to explain the fullness of the parent-child dance that is unschooling but it is a helpful starting place for people stuck in the mindset that a human requires a teacher to enable them to learn.
In our contemporary societies, we have a wealth of resources to inspire and equip us in our learning journey.
Pretending to be a tourist in your own town!
Hanging out with people who know stuff you want to know!
Once confidence in autodidactism is achieved, it will become obvious that learning also happens in the midst of all sorts of other activities and resources, not often thought to be "educational".
That being said, schools seem to work well for some people and some families benefit from using the service provided by schools, and that is totally fine, of course. I am not here to judge, but to show another possible path.
I think making schools optional would be the fastest route possible to true school reform! If schools had to entice children to attend, and convince parents that it is a good choice for their family, they would have to create places children really want to go to, and parents see the relevance and value of!
I'd love to hear your stories showing some examples of learning without school, especially when the learning has happened in surprising ways.
Note: The above graphic is obviously tongue in cheek. Anyone can obviously go to school if they really want to.
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