I hope to be there on Saturday. I’m a former public school teacher who ended up homeschooling with my three now-grown kids. I was continually humbled and “schooled” by them on how much freedom they needed to bloom as self-directed learners. It was an education—for me!
I quite agree that SDE is the way to go. So many reasons not the least of which is that it is by far one of the most respectful way to treat a child. And they are their own beings worthy of respect from day one. So much of our current education comes from Puritanism and all the forces that first created Puritanism. If we can let go of that view of children as sinful creatures in need of molding into good people, then and only then can we free a child's inborn motivation and drive to learn and grow.
You previously mentioned, "The end of education as we know it: regenerative learning for complex times" by Ida Rose Florez. Fantastic book! Devoured it.
However, I will bring a few caveats to our discussion of SDE. First, as a parent and a writer who works to improve special education. I do feel that all kids should be screened early (2-7 y/o) for learning differences (aka disabilities in school parlance). Early support for dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, auditory processing disorders, visual processing disorders can save a child from much suffering. It can also help free up access to learning modalities that would otherwise likely remain closed to them. If we consider this in the perspective of hunter-gatherer societies, I imagine that occasionally a child of the group might have difficulty with some important skill. And I imagine that most likely at some point a loving adult would pull them aside for a little extra help.
Second, I am more of pragmatist than a purist and tend to be leery of "pure" philosophies. I do think there are two places for adult directed learning. My vision of perfect schools might start with a Forest Kindergartens. Out door play all day regardless of the weather with a highly educated child development pedagoges who pretty much let the kids go. Continuing thru about age 8 I'd keep to SDL in varied environments with supportive, caring teachers around. If screening showed evidence of learning disabilities then early play based intervention for those kids. From age 8 moving forward I'd make one gradual addition. This is where I'll deviate from the more pure philosophy. I do think that some intentional teaching/ guiding/ exposing of ideas to kids can be truly beneficial.
For example: When my kids were about 7-8y/o we were watching the movie "How to train your dragon II." Part way through I realized that the "bad guy" had dark skin and hair rather like dreadlocks. No other characters had dark skin. So I stopped the movie to point this out to my kids and start a conversation about racism. Intentional. Unintentional. How it might make a young black child feel to see themselves only represented as a villain. This is me giving them a form of directed education in questions of morals, history, and society. I think some of this can be a good thing.
In addition, my 15 y/o daughter (in a school with project based learning that is composed of both school designed projects and individually picked/directed projects) will admit that there have been multiple times when school required her to do a certain project where she thought she'd hate it but discovered it was actually very interesting. From this understanding she has decided to go to all the elective "book talks" given by other students even if it looks uninteresting at first. In addition, from my own education, some of the very best classed I took in college were ones I only took to meet general requirements. But they opened new doors that I didn't know were worth opening.
So there is value to a child or young adult to be exposed to some things that can broaden their view and understanding of the world.
I still think that most time should be in SDL. Say, by high school a kid spends 70% of their time in SDL and 30% in directed learning. I would tend to want that some of that 30% spent on human history, evolution, social studies, human psychology, current events...things that help a child have perspective on the world and society. We can do this in a way that lights interest and curiosity.
One final thought from a very different angle. I have a long standing interest in genocide and why humans keep repeating this horror. My German mother in law wanted everyone to know that the Nazi's weren't drawn from criminal and thugs. They were the neighbors you'd gone to school with. They were what your siblings turned into. So, up and down the street and even within your own family, some became nazi’s while others resisted. They were in the same economic and social structures so what made some go one way vs the other? My theory is that it has to do with internal vs external locus of control. Those with more external locus of control become more fearful and move to join a group and hide behind us-and-them mentality. Interestingly some studies, (sorry don’t remember source) show a decrease in internal locus of control within American kids. I strongly suspect that good SDL will nurture internal locus of control. Which could be a really good thing on the societal level as well as the personal.
Ok, gotta go take my daughter for craft supplies :)
I was a university educator for sometime, and now I am working with a local police academy to create officers who are competent, humane, and committed to their work. Many of our objectives are very social justice oriented, but they are not always enacted with that ideal in mind. So I thought that I would present this challenge to the self directed education community and see how people think that police officers--those who hold one of the most challenging occupations that there is where one can either be killed or kill another person in the course of their daily routine--might learn to embrace the ideals that should guide humane policing. How can the work of police officers be made increasingly self-directed so that these persons are more likely to de-escalate a conflictive situation rather than to worsen it, theoretically, their number 1 priority? Treat everyone they encounter with deep respect? Learn to listen to the communities they serve? Develop a rich sense of emotional intelligence? How might SDE be drawn upon to enact these ambitious ideals?
This is an interesting question, Patrick. I'm not sure if we'll have time to get to it at Saturday's meeting, as it will be focused on SDE for Children. However, if there is time, it may be interesting to raise it and see how people respond. My first thought is that police officers, during training and throughout their career, need more opportunities to meet and get to know individual people in the population with which they are concerned. Sometimes there seems to be a sort of warlike attitude between the people in blue and the people out there who are seen as inherently criminal.
We've just embarked on homsechool SDE for our 6 year old.
I really find it so challenging in so many ways, notwithstanding I see how much our child learns on his own. Indeed, he started reading words at 3 years age without having had any instruction whatsoever.
Some of the questions that churn around in my mind at various times are....
* what if he never shows interest in a particular area of knowledge that is important for living?
* what is he wants to learn something but doens't have the prior knowledge/learning required? (will this provide the motivation for him to go and learn it?)
* how are standards of excellence achieved?
* does everything have to be self-taught or autodiactic in SDE? Is there no role for teachers or mentors with greater subject matter expertise in an area?
One thing that I regularly struggle with is on the one hand the child's democractric rights and not coercing them, and on the other, fields of knowledge are not democratic...there are pinrciples of physics and mathematics, there are rules of grammar in languages, if you want to learn Japanese you have to memorise thousands of Kanji....and so on. There is "submission" involved... Matthew B Crawford his book The World Beyond Your Head talks about this (specifically citing from memory, Iris Murdoch talking about learning Russian and "submitting" to the Russian language). There seems to be some kind of philosophical conflict here that I can't quite reconcile.
Anyway, thanks again Mr Gray for the very helpful article and opportunity to share my thoughts.
I won't be able to make the meeting in person due to time differences (I'm on the other side of the world) - but ut perhaps they may be of interest to others who can attend.
What a beautiful article that holds so much hope for the future. Thank you, Peter. I totally agree.
I am now 25, and school has been 14 years of mental imprisonment and stagnation. I am now dealing with the damage caused by it, struggling to find a fulfilling job to pay my bills, while also battling depression.
I want to create a course and help young adults rediscover their curiosity, playfulness, and willfulness, as you so beautifully describe in your article. A way to reverse the damage caused by more than a decade of coercive schooling. In my blog, I am rolling up my past and discussing ways to reverse that damage.
What do you suggest people like me should do to get back on track, rediscover their inner light, curiosity, and purpose in life, and catch up on all the missed information and knowledge caused by school?
I think that one issue I can observe with the definition of education you give is that we don't all have the same interpretation of meaningful. For example the modern industrial based, Western interpretation might be to associate meaning with production.
I often tell my friends and colleagues that I believe education should have a clearly defined purpose, and that purpose should be for students to learn and discover the means of their own happiness, which I might further distinguish and explore through my own understanding of meaning making and value creation in that regard.
The other comment I wanted to make is, I think when you say that children are naturally curious, there’s a better way to phrase that, and for me, that is, Children are necessarily curious. Biologically, the necessity is tied to survival and culturally, curiosity exists within the context of the other. As education attempts to define the world, the context of that necessity is removed and lost, until the conditions by which students are able to freely question and explore concepts is made available . For many public school students, that seems to be a difficult task, with the pressure to do right and be correct buried deep into their psyche by the time they gain a developed awareness and capacity for exploring life’s mysteries deeply. Which, I should add, does not seem to be the case in self directed settings. The kids seem very curious and proactive. The teens ask many questions and are very invested in engagement.
The third point, and this is totally nit picky is to suggest that everyone concerned with the state of modern education to consider calling it what it is, coercive education. That is to me, the root of the problem. The educational process must be coerced to produce results, and from said coercion, all these issues arise; inherently inequitable power dynamics and marginalization, disempowerment and disinterest, and alienation and objectification to name a few.
One thing that I've really struggled with as a english as an additional language teacher and a kindergarten teacher is how to take the best of SDE and apply it to my practice as teacher. For this very specific context is the anything that you would recommend me to read?
I hope to be there on Saturday. I’m a former public school teacher who ended up homeschooling with my three now-grown kids. I was continually humbled and “schooled” by them on how much freedom they needed to bloom as self-directed learners. It was an education—for me!
I quite agree that SDE is the way to go. So many reasons not the least of which is that it is by far one of the most respectful way to treat a child. And they are their own beings worthy of respect from day one. So much of our current education comes from Puritanism and all the forces that first created Puritanism. If we can let go of that view of children as sinful creatures in need of molding into good people, then and only then can we free a child's inborn motivation and drive to learn and grow.
You previously mentioned, "The end of education as we know it: regenerative learning for complex times" by Ida Rose Florez. Fantastic book! Devoured it.
However, I will bring a few caveats to our discussion of SDE. First, as a parent and a writer who works to improve special education. I do feel that all kids should be screened early (2-7 y/o) for learning differences (aka disabilities in school parlance). Early support for dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, auditory processing disorders, visual processing disorders can save a child from much suffering. It can also help free up access to learning modalities that would otherwise likely remain closed to them. If we consider this in the perspective of hunter-gatherer societies, I imagine that occasionally a child of the group might have difficulty with some important skill. And I imagine that most likely at some point a loving adult would pull them aside for a little extra help.
Second, I am more of pragmatist than a purist and tend to be leery of "pure" philosophies. I do think there are two places for adult directed learning. My vision of perfect schools might start with a Forest Kindergartens. Out door play all day regardless of the weather with a highly educated child development pedagoges who pretty much let the kids go. Continuing thru about age 8 I'd keep to SDL in varied environments with supportive, caring teachers around. If screening showed evidence of learning disabilities then early play based intervention for those kids. From age 8 moving forward I'd make one gradual addition. This is where I'll deviate from the more pure philosophy. I do think that some intentional teaching/ guiding/ exposing of ideas to kids can be truly beneficial.
For example: When my kids were about 7-8y/o we were watching the movie "How to train your dragon II." Part way through I realized that the "bad guy" had dark skin and hair rather like dreadlocks. No other characters had dark skin. So I stopped the movie to point this out to my kids and start a conversation about racism. Intentional. Unintentional. How it might make a young black child feel to see themselves only represented as a villain. This is me giving them a form of directed education in questions of morals, history, and society. I think some of this can be a good thing.
In addition, my 15 y/o daughter (in a school with project based learning that is composed of both school designed projects and individually picked/directed projects) will admit that there have been multiple times when school required her to do a certain project where she thought she'd hate it but discovered it was actually very interesting. From this understanding she has decided to go to all the elective "book talks" given by other students even if it looks uninteresting at first. In addition, from my own education, some of the very best classed I took in college were ones I only took to meet general requirements. But they opened new doors that I didn't know were worth opening.
So there is value to a child or young adult to be exposed to some things that can broaden their view and understanding of the world.
I still think that most time should be in SDL. Say, by high school a kid spends 70% of their time in SDL and 30% in directed learning. I would tend to want that some of that 30% spent on human history, evolution, social studies, human psychology, current events...things that help a child have perspective on the world and society. We can do this in a way that lights interest and curiosity.
One final thought from a very different angle. I have a long standing interest in genocide and why humans keep repeating this horror. My German mother in law wanted everyone to know that the Nazi's weren't drawn from criminal and thugs. They were the neighbors you'd gone to school with. They were what your siblings turned into. So, up and down the street and even within your own family, some became nazi’s while others resisted. They were in the same economic and social structures so what made some go one way vs the other? My theory is that it has to do with internal vs external locus of control. Those with more external locus of control become more fearful and move to join a group and hide behind us-and-them mentality. Interestingly some studies, (sorry don’t remember source) show a decrease in internal locus of control within American kids. I strongly suspect that good SDL will nurture internal locus of control. Which could be a really good thing on the societal level as well as the personal.
Ok, gotta go take my daughter for craft supplies :)
Great thoughts and questions. I hope I will be able to respond to at least some of them on Saturday.
I was a university educator for sometime, and now I am working with a local police academy to create officers who are competent, humane, and committed to their work. Many of our objectives are very social justice oriented, but they are not always enacted with that ideal in mind. So I thought that I would present this challenge to the self directed education community and see how people think that police officers--those who hold one of the most challenging occupations that there is where one can either be killed or kill another person in the course of their daily routine--might learn to embrace the ideals that should guide humane policing. How can the work of police officers be made increasingly self-directed so that these persons are more likely to de-escalate a conflictive situation rather than to worsen it, theoretically, their number 1 priority? Treat everyone they encounter with deep respect? Learn to listen to the communities they serve? Develop a rich sense of emotional intelligence? How might SDE be drawn upon to enact these ambitious ideals?
I welcome your thoughts.
This is an interesting question, Patrick. I'm not sure if we'll have time to get to it at Saturday's meeting, as it will be focused on SDE for Children. However, if there is time, it may be interesting to raise it and see how people respond. My first thought is that police officers, during training and throughout their career, need more opportunities to meet and get to know individual people in the population with which they are concerned. Sometimes there seems to be a sort of warlike attitude between the people in blue and the people out there who are seen as inherently criminal.
Thank you Mr Gray. This is extremely helpful.
We've just embarked on homsechool SDE for our 6 year old.
I really find it so challenging in so many ways, notwithstanding I see how much our child learns on his own. Indeed, he started reading words at 3 years age without having had any instruction whatsoever.
Some of the questions that churn around in my mind at various times are....
* what if he never shows interest in a particular area of knowledge that is important for living?
* what is he wants to learn something but doens't have the prior knowledge/learning required? (will this provide the motivation for him to go and learn it?)
* how are standards of excellence achieved?
* does everything have to be self-taught or autodiactic in SDE? Is there no role for teachers or mentors with greater subject matter expertise in an area?
One thing that I regularly struggle with is on the one hand the child's democractric rights and not coercing them, and on the other, fields of knowledge are not democratic...there are pinrciples of physics and mathematics, there are rules of grammar in languages, if you want to learn Japanese you have to memorise thousands of Kanji....and so on. There is "submission" involved... Matthew B Crawford his book The World Beyond Your Head talks about this (specifically citing from memory, Iris Murdoch talking about learning Russian and "submitting" to the Russian language). There seems to be some kind of philosophical conflict here that I can't quite reconcile.
Anyway, thanks again Mr Gray for the very helpful article and opportunity to share my thoughts.
These are great questions. Please do bring them to the meeting tomorrow.
Thanks Mr Gray.
I won't be able to make the meeting in person due to time differences (I'm on the other side of the world) - but ut perhaps they may be of interest to others who can attend.
Where do I find a link for the July 12 session?
What a beautiful article that holds so much hope for the future. Thank you, Peter. I totally agree.
I am now 25, and school has been 14 years of mental imprisonment and stagnation. I am now dealing with the damage caused by it, struggling to find a fulfilling job to pay my bills, while also battling depression.
I want to create a course and help young adults rediscover their curiosity, playfulness, and willfulness, as you so beautifully describe in your article. A way to reverse the damage caused by more than a decade of coercive schooling. In my blog, I am rolling up my past and discussing ways to reverse that damage.
What do you suggest people like me should do to get back on track, rediscover their inner light, curiosity, and purpose in life, and catch up on all the missed information and knowledge caused by school?
That definition of education is something I'll carry with me this school year! I love your framework!
Great article Peter.
I think that one issue I can observe with the definition of education you give is that we don't all have the same interpretation of meaningful. For example the modern industrial based, Western interpretation might be to associate meaning with production.
I often tell my friends and colleagues that I believe education should have a clearly defined purpose, and that purpose should be for students to learn and discover the means of their own happiness, which I might further distinguish and explore through my own understanding of meaning making and value creation in that regard.
The other comment I wanted to make is, I think when you say that children are naturally curious, there’s a better way to phrase that, and for me, that is, Children are necessarily curious. Biologically, the necessity is tied to survival and culturally, curiosity exists within the context of the other. As education attempts to define the world, the context of that necessity is removed and lost, until the conditions by which students are able to freely question and explore concepts is made available . For many public school students, that seems to be a difficult task, with the pressure to do right and be correct buried deep into their psyche by the time they gain a developed awareness and capacity for exploring life’s mysteries deeply. Which, I should add, does not seem to be the case in self directed settings. The kids seem very curious and proactive. The teens ask many questions and are very invested in engagement.
The third point, and this is totally nit picky is to suggest that everyone concerned with the state of modern education to consider calling it what it is, coercive education. That is to me, the root of the problem. The educational process must be coerced to produce results, and from said coercion, all these issues arise; inherently inequitable power dynamics and marginalization, disempowerment and disinterest, and alienation and objectification to name a few.
One thing that I've really struggled with as a english as an additional language teacher and a kindergarten teacher is how to take the best of SDE and apply it to my practice as teacher. For this very specific context is the anything that you would recommend me to read?