Tag: schooling

Remtana – Thanks for coming to my TED talk…

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Part 11 of the Remembering Montana series. The boy and I are on a side trip to Helena, leaving behind Hubby and the girl. I mention Freedomhill in this post; this is a project that is currently on hold but that I would desperately like to see come to fruition. As you read this entry, you’ll see why:

the boy took this photo from the car on our early morning drive through McDonald pass to Helena

Day 12, October 1, 2018:

What a Monday! After a 2 hour stunningly gorgeous drive, Adam and I arrived just in time for the Set the Week meeting at the 3rd Agile Learning Center and 4th SDE (self-directed education) community on our 2018 ALC/SDE tour. Cottonwood ALC in Helena, Montana.

The Monday morning Set the Week meeting where learners decide which of the offerings they’ve requested or are offering themselves will make it on the schedule. None of it is required unless an rsvp was necessary to bring in a particular subject expert to teach a class. If not enough learners are interested, the expert just isn’t brought in. Learners often get a say in the selection process of said expert.

In preparation to open Freedomhill Project ALC in Boise, Idaho, we’ve been immersing ourselves in the daily magic that unfolds through implementation of the ALC model of education. Agile Learning Centers are designed to equip children with the skills to take responsibility for and manage their own time. These centers operate under some basic but radical assumptions about humans (taken from agilelearningcenters.org) :

  1. Learning. Learning is natural. It’s happening all the time.
  2. Self-Direction: People learn best by making their own decisions. Children are people.
  3. Experience: People learn more from their culture and environment than from the content they are taught. (The medium is the message.)
  4. Success: Accomplishment is achieved through cycles of intention, creation, reflection and sharing.

The philosophy, rooted in sound research about human nature, aims to preserve young humans’ internal loci of control, creativity, and self-esteem by not reprogramming them with punishments and rewards and ranking them according to how their abilities compare with the average.

Instead, children are trusted to gain the knowledge needed to thrive in the current culture by pursuing their interests, thereby learning content in a much more efficient and effective manner–when it is relevant to their pursuits. Adult facilitators are present to guide when conflict resolution is necessary (using non-violent communication) and to assist young learners to develop resourcefulness and intentionality.

These centers each evolve an intentional but unique culture through a process of rapid iterations when issues need to be addressed in the communities. The children brainstorm and test solutions until they master new practices that meet the needs of all. It’s an amazing process to witness and leaves no doubt that children are people, capable of much more than we typically give them credit for. The opening of self-directed learning centers is picking up momentum, quickly becoming an international movement toward a more hopeful future for all.

the boy spent most of his time while we were indoors at Cottonwood in this maker’s studio where he designed and made a masking tape shoe, learned how to use a sewing machine and made a pillow, and also made a miniature helicopter with a working propeller — he asked for an adult to assist him once and show him how to operate the sewing machine

My 12 yo boy knows that as one of the founding learners, he’ll get to heavily influence the culture at Freedomhill Project and he’s collecting ideas from each of these visits so he can advocate for his vision for the center. He’s also making amazing new friends and becoming part of a growing network of savvy youth who, I’m confident, will be better prepared for an unknown future, with fiery spirits intact, and the 21st century skills (so often lauded in education policy agendas) to actually adapt to whatever that future may look like.

Do I feel strongly about this approach to education? Yeah, you could say that. A meme my daughter has been saying often, “thanks for coming to my TED talk.”

Educating Freedom

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Some good friends of mine, a tight-knit family with parents in human support fields, both working with adults who are struggling to function (imagine that) were telling me how difficult it is to drop their 5-year-old daughter off at kindergarten. She screams and resists and they pretty much have to drag her into school.

Red flag? I think it should be. Yet, we’re brainwashed into believing there are no other options. This is what kids are supposed to do. They go to school where they’ll learn everything they need to know to function as human adults in our society, right? So what is it they need to know?

Historical facts and dates? They’ll forget those. How the world works? I learned everything I know about physics when I became a second grade teacher because I’d forgotten every little bit of science I learned in school. How to read? When I was a third grader, I sat silently terrified, surrounded by “big kids” in a sixth grade reading class because I had already discovered a way to escape my life in highly engaging chapter books and devoured them voraciously. That’s all I remember about “learning to read” in school—oh, and that I was “smarter” than my classmates because of how quickly I sped through the colors of the SRA reading program. Algebra and geometry? What I learned in my high school algebra class was that I hated math; in geometry, I developed my social skills by convincing the kid behind me to let me cheat off his work so I could avoid my creepy perv of a teacher’s hand on my waste when I went up to his desk to get help.  What do you remember learning in school?

I’ll bet you remember learning how to sit still and raise your hand when you wanted to speak. I’ll bet you remember paying careful attention to the bathroom policy so you’d know how long you’d have to hold it. Or maybe, you remember coming up with clever ways to convince your mom you were sick so you could stay home. I remember thinking if I took the thermometer out of my mouth when my mom was out of the room, the reading would be off enough that she’d have to keep me home—clearly all that science was paying off!

I remember getting antsy when someone else turned a test in ahead of me because it meant I’d lost the race and someone else might be “smarter” than me. I learned that there’s only one right answer and not to ask too many questions. In high school, I learned really well how to fly under the radar, how to be invisible, how to cram for tests the night before so I could get away with ignoring my homework. I learned exactly how little I could do to still graduate, so I guess I learned efficiency?

I also figured out the best time of day to leave campus and walk across town to my boyfriend’s house. (Though there was that one day my dad randomly drove by and I was busted!) I learned that my hair and make-up mattered and that my wardrobe was insufficient. In fact, once when a boy was picking me up for our first date after I had agonized for hours about what I could wear, he looked me up and down and asked if I could change. I learned that the best way to get through high school was to be in the popular crowd, yet I never seemed able to quite break into that. The next best way was to always have a boyfriend, whether I really liked the boy or not.

So what did I really learn? I learned that using my resources was cheating, my worth was determined by how well my teachers liked me, needing others was bad, my thoughts and feelings held no weight, attractive people did better in life than nice people, that my gut was not to be trusted. I learned to please the adults who were always right and that authority figures had total control over my life.

I learned that anything I studied could be forgotten after the test, mistakes were punished and there were no do-overs, failing was to be avoided at all costs. I learned to study my teachers so I knew exactly what they wanted and just how little I could do to keep their favor or at least not attract their contempt.

And I learned what freedom means. It means giving up control over the majority of your time so you can have the freedom to buy a house and toys. It means busting your ass to build someone else’s dream so one day when you are old, you can stop working and be free to finally figure out what your dream is. It means sacrificing your childhood and your sense of self so you can appreciate living in a free country where you get to watch other people live their lives on reality TV.

There’s a powerful reason that five year old girl screams when she’s dragged into that classroom. Children know what true freedom is…and what it isn’t. Alarm bells are ringing in her head and heart; she recognizes that environment has no real interest in who she is and its sole purpose is to suck away her one and only childhood and educate her how to be in this free world of ours.   

I see dead people.

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Truly, I think we’re in the Zombie Apocalypse. It’s a perfect metaphor for our current society of people reduced to mindless producer/consumer states. There’s a general sense of discontent along with ridiculous rates of anxiety, depression, and chronic disease conditions and yet people accept this fate with little resistance, moving unquestioningly through the prescribed path to becoming one of the living dead: go to school, get good grades so you can get into a good college so you can get a good job so you can attract a mate, get married and have children, buy a house, fantasize about vacations and retirement, spend evenings numbing out in front of a screen, live for the weekends, you know the recipe.  

If you read my post, You’ve Been Schooled, you’ll find a list of ways that our school system prepares us for this bleak, depressing consumerist future. Children are reprogrammed to suppress their intuition and deny their own needs for play and self-discovery, never developing the strong sense of self needed to create satisfying and meaningful lives. They graduate from a system that directed nearly every minute of 10,000 hours (and this is without college) of their lives up to this point, disabling their own internal compass and ensuring compliance with our consumerist culture.

I believe humans come wired for contribution, each with unique strengths that support the whole. We’re driven to create and innovate, with bodies that reward us with feel-good chemicals when we’re engaged in those behaviors that call on our natural talents and when we lock arms with our fellow humans to maximize our resources. Ongoing movement throughout the day, generosity, and a sense of purpose are all natural parts of being human, so why aren’t most of us living a lifestyle that reflects this?

Because we’ve all been schooled. Broken like wild stallions. The human spirit is much stronger than it would appear these days, but how is one to resist the slow, steady reprogramming toward external drivers? Rewards and punishments, baby! Mandatory coercive schooling over a long period of time will break just about anyone. Soon a body wants to do nothing if there’s no external reward. We seek the “juice” through other means when our grades fail to provide dopamine hits; social media and video games become the drugs of choice for those who don’t conform well to the authoritarian paradigm of school.  

Most five and six and twelve year olds want that damned gold star. They want to please their teachers and be seen as competent. In fact, according to self-determination theory, along with autonomy and relatedness, a sense of competence is imperative to our psychological well-being. What happens when you don’t get these needs met? Depression, anxiety, addiction.  We end up creating an attachment void that gets filled with virtual or chemical substitutes for authentic connection.

This is nothing new. I’m just one more outraged voice among many who see the wreckage and fear the future of a world filled with sheeple. Why hasn’t there been a revolution?! To demand change requires courage to leave the mainstream, imagination and innovation to create new ways of doing things, risk-tolerance to try those new ways knowing we’ll fail many times before we get it right and others might mock us. Courage, imagination, innovation, resilience: all natural human traits that we’ve sacrificed to our “education.”

Four Powerful Reasons

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I am writing this ahead of time and scheduling it for Sunday, June 23. The blog challenge’s single rule is that I must publish something each day of the challenge. My family has agreed to go almost unplugged every other Sunday (hubby and I conceded to the texting of friends and listening of music in favor of willing buy-in.) So, I’m going to forgo the writing of an original post again and share one of my favorite articles (relevant to my content) from one of my favorite people.

Peter Gray, an evolutionary psychologist and frequent contributor to Psychology Today, is a champion of self-directed education and an expert on the importance of free play. Here’s his article on Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple. If you like this, consider reading his highly persuasive book, Free to Learn.

Imposter Syndrome: My Story, Part Two

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I was one of the original teachers at that shiny new International Baccalaureate charter. The school became a quick success despite the ongoing tension in the culture, and it grew much faster than originally planned. Year two, they added an additional class for each grade that only had one the first year, including second grade. My good friend, another OG, became my second grade teaching partner and we worked exceptionally well together, designing a really fun Programme of Inquiry for our 7-8 year old students. She was a gifted educator and I was so lucky to get to work with and learn from her.

Despite getting to collaborate with one of my best friends, being in philosophical alignment with the school model (at the time and on the surface anyway,) being recognized by many of my families and students as their “favorite” teacher, being well-liked by my immediate administrator (the ED was a nightmare. I could have a whole separate blog about the abuse the faculty endured under his leadership,) and being chosen to be on the team that researched, developed, and delivered professional development for the faculty, I managed to find intermittent enthusiasm but mostly I was a miserable wreck who was neglecting her family.

I was always depleted at the end of my 10-11 hour days of “performing” for children who, for the most part, had already lost interest in “learning.” This was also the 5th job in a row that I was certain I was underqualified for. Remember, I didn’t have a teaching degree, just that stupid test that said I knew what I was doing. I had chronic imposter syndrome.

Rather than recognizing that I must present as capable and intelligent to pull off these longshot hires, I would beat myself up for not being a “legitimate” expert in my field since I hadn’t completed the required education for any position in this string of employment: wilderness therapy instructor (a clue- and degree-less city girl,) field medic (remember the EMT test? I did the rushed version—two weeks instead of a full semester—of that training also) speech language pathologist (ha! I was SO underqualified for this one, it was considered unethical,) then two elementary teaching positions (just those stupid tests for the latter.)

In each of these positions I’d received recognition for excelling, but I still blamed my lack of qualifications for my chronic stress. Cortisol was my constant companion. I was always seeking to better “educate” myself and worked stupid long hours so I could feel like I was worthy of the meager paychecks these jobs paid. I still have to laugh ironically about how I left a cushy credit union job with excellent benefits because I was seeking “more meaningful work,” only to take on far too much student loan debt (that continues to haunt me) for an exhausting career that paid less than what I was making at the financial institution.  

Midway through year four, as the level of stress crescendoed at the charter school along with my sense of impotence to improve my working conditions, my mother asked a pivotal question on the phone one day in response to my chronic complaints, “What would you do if you were to leave teaching?” I spent that night into the wee morning hours researching this very question. Joel Hammon, in his TED talk on liberating teachers, jokes about his own online search for “What kinds of jobs are there for teachers who hate teaching?”

My search turned up life/executive coaching among other things. I signed up for an online certification course that I couldn’t afford (and would be another “alternate route” to expertise—seems I never learn!,) decided I was starting my own coaching business, and let the school know I wouldn’t be renewing my contract for the fall. What I couldn’t have articulated at the time was the real reasons I had to leave the teaching profession. I claimed too much self-respect to tolerate a persistent toxic environment as my reason, and while I’m certain and extremely grateful that expedited my departure, it was really that square box that would never accommodate my not-square nature that I was running from.

I have so much more to say about that box—if you’ve been following my blog, you probably know I’m just getting started. Oh, the reprogramming, self-worth stealing box that we call school…   

Restoring Justis

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Restoring Justis

Yeah. The title is meant to be ironic. It’s ironic that my last name is Justis. I’m certainly not justice-oriented. The world has never been fair and it never will be. By trying to make it fair, we just cripple everyone.

No, I’m not trying to restore justice. I’m trying to restore curiosity. I’m trying to restore creativity. I’m trying to restore human nature. It is not our nature to be caged. It is not our nature to follow orders and deny our bodies movement, or to hold our waste until the bell rings. It is not our nature to only learn what we’re forced to learn, to do as little as we can get away with, to only look out for ourselves, to be apathetic.

We’ve been reprogrammed. Humans are social creatures, wired to contribute to a community. Our bodies reward us with feel-good hormones when we behave in a way that supports the greater good. It should feel good to parent. It should feel good to learn. It should feel good to contribute. It does when we haven’t been reprogrammed with external drivers, rewards and punishments, prestige and shame.

I don’t believe in good and evil, I only believe that we are social creatures by nature. When someone is acting in a way that is not socially acceptable, it’s because they have a need that is not being met. What do we do in our culture when that happens? Typically, we punish the behavior. What would happen if we attempted to find out what was going on for that person and tried to meet their needs rather than impose consequences? Can you imagine what a different world that would be?

But instead, we’ve become a culture of control. We lack the skills to effectively communicate, so we forcefully impose our will on others. And children get the worst of it. They have less freedom during the school day than prisoners. Many of our schools even resemble prisons with guards and weapon detectors. It’s no wonder we’re suspicious of children when we treat them like criminals.

Then we expect them to suddenly be able to direct their own lives at 18?! Is this logical? It seems so obvious to me that childhood these days does not support self-directed, functioning adults that know how to create satisfying and meaningful lives. Satisfying and meaningful lives. Is that really too much to hope for? What a different world it would be if more of us were living satisfying and meaningful lives.

This is what we need to restore. And I think it’s human nature to create satisfying and meaningful lives, if only we allow our children to develop as they naturally would. Unfortunately, it may be too much to hope for. The adults that would be modeling such lives are few and far between. Most adults think they’re supposed to control kids. Make them “get in line.” Teach them to sit still and raise their hands when they want to contribute. Teach them to tolerate tedium. Teach them mistakes are bad.

If you want to change a culture, you take the kids. It’s what they did with our modern day school system. We like to call it “education” but really it’s “schooling.” We’ve been schooled into believing we’re providing our children with the knowledge they need to be “successful” but really we’re just programming them to be mindless consumers.

But maybe if we stopped schooling our kids and were just there as supportive adults, resources and models of stewardship, we could restore human nature. Maybe if we let them learn instead of coerce them to cram content, we’d restore their natural tendencies to explore, discover, create, and contribute.

Who knows? Maybe those kids could even save the world.