Deschooling Society. Contents Introduction xix 1 Why We Must Disestablish School 1 2 Phenomenology of School 25 3 Ritualization of Progress 34 4 Institutional Spectrum 52 5 Irrational Consistencies 65 6 Learning Webs 72 7 Rebirth of Epimethean Man 105 Introduction I owe my interest in public education to Everett Reimer. Since 1967 Reimer and I have met regularly at the Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Universal education through schooling is not feasible. Xx DESCHOOLING SOCIETY and caring. On Wednesday mornings, during the spring and summer of 1970, I submitted the various parts of this book to the participants in our CIDOC programs in Cuernavaca.
Reimer and I have decided to publish separate views of our joint research. Cuernavaca, Mexico November, 1970. Education: Keep it in the family. Nine Dangerous Things You Learned In School. We live in an exciting and interesting time — one when some of our most commonly accepted ideas, traditions and principals are being challenged. This past week featured a fascinating read in the Wall Street Journal asking “Are Playgrounds Too Safe?” , making the case that “ decades of dumbed-down playgrounds, fueled by fears of litigation, concerns about injury and worrywart helicopter parents, have led to cookie-cutter equipment that offers little thrill.” The result being children less compelled to play outside, potentially stunting emotional and physical development and exacerbating a nationwide epidemic of childhood obesity.
Recently Forbes featured an article smartly challenging things many of us grew up being taught and often adhere to still. But in today’s world, the rules of our parents’ past are ones we have to ask in all earnest and respect — do these rules still apply? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Rewild the Child. A week in the countryside is worth three months in a classroom. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 8th October 2013 What is the best way to knacker a child’s education? Force him or her to spend too long in the classroom. An overview of research into outdoor education by King’s College London found that children who spend time learning in natural environments “perform better in reading, mathematics, science and social studies.”(1) Exploring the natural world “makes other school subjects rich and relevant and gets apathetic students excited about learning.” Fieldwork in the countryside, a British study finds, improves long-term memory(2).
Dozens of papers report sharp improvements in attention when children are exposed to wildlife and the great outdoors(3). Teenaged girls taken on a three-week canoeing trip in the US remained, even 18 months later, more determined, more prepared to speak out and show leadership and more inclined to challenge conventional notions of femininity(3). Why schools used to be better. It’s one of the ironies of education reform that despite wave after wave, schools are seen by many as in worse shape as before all the changes. Here’s a look at why from Marion Brady, who was a classroom teacher for years, has written history and world culture textbooks (Prentice-Hall), professional books, numerous nationally distributed columns (many are available here), and courses of study.
His 2011 book “What’s Worth Learning” asks and answer this question: What knowledge is absolutely essential for every learner? His course of study for secondary-level students, called Connections: Investigating Reality, is free for downloading here. Brady’s website is www.marionbrady.com. By Marion Brady You enter a checkout lane at Walmart, Target, or other big-box store and put your purchases on the counter. They’re scanned by a device that reads bar codes and translates them into data fed at the speed of light through fiber optics cables to corporate headquarters and distribution centers. CriticalPedagogy - home. Education could be awesome.
Follow us omnivore Education could be awesome Mar 17 2014 9:00AM Jessica Davis (Columbia): The Ideal School: Justifications and Parameters for the Creation of Philosophy-Based High Schools (2012). Kate Rousmaniere on the principal, the most misunderstood person in all of education (and more). Advertisement top of page. The 7-lesson schoolteacher John Taylor Gatto.
The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher by John Taylor Gatto New Society Publishers, 1992 Call me Mr. Gatto, please. Twenty-six years ago, having nothing better to do at the time, I tried my hand at schoolteaching. The license I hold certifies that I am an instructor of English language and English literature, but that isn't what I do at all. I don't teach English, I teach school -- and I win awards doing it. Teaching means different things in different places, but seven lessons are universally taught Harlem to Hollywood Hills. They constitute a national curriculum you pay more for in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what it is. Doing More Time in School: A Cruel Non-Solution to Our Educational Problems. School doesn’t work very well, so let’s make kids do more of it! That seems to be the policy enthusiastically supported by President Obama, by his education secretary Arne Duncan, by many teachers’ unions (as long as the teachers are well paid for the extra time), and by many education policy makers in and out of academia.
Kids aren’t learning much in school, so let’s make them start school when they are younger; let’s make them stay more hours in school each day and more days each year; and let’s not allow them to leave until they are at least 18 years old. Let’s do all this especially to the poor kids; they are getting the least out of school now, so let’s lengthen their time in school even more than we lengthen the time for others! As I read and listen to the arguments for more forced schooling, what disturbs me most is the complete disregard for the opinions of students. The argument that more time in school increases test scores is debatable. How I Would Unschool My Kids Altucher Confidential.
Posted by James Altucher My dad hit me when I got bad grades. Particularly when I was young and got a bad grade in “Conduct”. Happiness was an “A”. Even better: an “A+”. Sadness was an “F”. It was almost like a joke. Like the only way to get an “F” is if you tried to screw up almost as much as you tried to get an “A”. But in twelve years of basic schooling I can’t’ remember anyone asking where the “E” was. (the mirror image of the tattoo says “Never a Failure, Always a Lesson”) “F” stood for “Failure”. So why no “E”. Did they ever really judge you on that? “This is awful”, said a teacher at that first convention of the union of the national teachers club.
“But,” said Mr. “There is an E! I doubt that conversation really happened. But now they were stuck with the “E”. Because that’s what English is about. Ugh, trying to unravel the Rubik’s Cube-like scam of lower education is a full-time job. I have not read much about home schooling or unschooling so I am no expert. Then we talk about it. What are the libertarian arguments against public schools. What is it like to be "unschooled" Why School Should Be More Like Summer Camp | People & Places.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition - Paulo Freire. The Case Against Education: The Project Evolves. In the last Table of Contents for The Case Against Education, chapter two is "Useless Studies with Big Payoffs: The Puzzle Is Real. " After writing this chapter for three months, I realized I had to split the discussion. Now there will be a full chapter showing that students learn few job skills in school, followed by a separate chapter showing that the education premium, though sharply exaggerated my mainstream labor economists, is still quite high. Other big change: I got so many positive reactions to the dialog chapter in Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids that I decided to end my education book the same way.
Here's my full revised Table of Contents. Comments welcome. Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1: The Magic of Education Chapter 2: The Puzzle Is Real: The Ubiquity of Useless Education Chapter 3: The Puzzle Is Real: The Handsome Rewards of Useless Education Chapter 4: Measuring Signaling Chapter 5: Who Cares If It's Signaling?
Chapter 8: 1>0: We Need More Vocational Education P.S. Pet Grants, small pets, aquarium equipment. Dogs Play Key Role in Life at Some Private Schools. Poly Prep Country Day SchoolAwaiting orders: Fenway, the headmaster’s dog, at Poly Prep Country Day School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Dr. Evil had his cat, Mr. Bigglesworth; President Obama has Bo; even Jabba the Hut had an interstellar critter named Salacious Crumb. And at the seats of power in some of New York City’s private schools, there’s sometimes something fluffy curled around the chair legs. “Animals have an interesting ability to humanize the people that they are around,” said Robert Lauder, the head of Friends Seminary in the East Village.
Bart Baldwin, the headmaster of the St. Not every dog is suited for school mascot status, though, said Liz Palika, a dog trainer and behaviorist and co-author of “Dogs at Work: A Practical Guide to Creating Dog-Friendly Workplaces.” Trolley, a 125-pound bull mastiff owned by David B. Save for service dogs, you won’t find a personal pet in any New York City public school. Maggie, Ms. At Poly Prep, Mr. Amelia Marzec: Education and Activism in Alternative Schools. In an Occupy-saturated New York, there's a push for education by the people for the people that calls for new structures of collaboration and new uses of resources. But two organizations, The Public School and Trade School, were in play well before the first tent ever popped up in Liberty Square. Designed by artists and organized without curriculums, classes range from philosophy and time travel to mushroom hunting and stilt walking.
They won't be churning out bridge-building engineers, but illustrate a dream of collective education. Both schools have similar structures. They have websites where classes can be proposed by the general public and then approved, and they hold classes wherever they get space, often in public locations (Trade School is currently seeking a storefront space). Most students are adults, and receive no credit for their involvement. However, the schools seem to be diametrically opposed to each other in their approach to theory and practice. Laissez-Faire Learning - David Greenwald. As a teacher in a public high school, I am daily confronted with the lamentable realities of state-monopoly education. Student apathy, methodological stagnation, bureaucratic inefficiency, textbook-publishing cartels, obsessive preoccupation with grades, coercive relationships, and rigid, sanitized curricula are just a few of the more obvious problems, attended by the cold-shower disillusionment and gradual burnout among teachers to which they almost invariably lead.
While outcomes such as these are certainly tragic, the process that produces them is not exactly the stuff of Greek theater. There is no climactic battle, no cathartic denouement, no salvific moral lesson to be taken home when the curtain falls, and seldom are there any readily identifiable heroes or villains. It is not a single, epic calamity but a thousand trivial defeats a day, each too mundane and too quickly obscured by its successor to be considered noteworthy. We will examine each of these arguments in turn. Notes. Every Teenager a Michelangelo: Can Studio Schools Prepare and Engage Adolescent Minds? | Many parents and teachers struggle to engage the nebulous minds of teenagers. How does one teach a brain that’s constantly fluctuating?
As Shannon Brownless, acting director of the New America Health Policy Program wrote in US News, a teenager’s pre-frontal cortex isn’t yet mature enough to handle certain judgments and dilemmas. “An unfinished prefrontal cortex also means that young teenagers may also have trouble organizing several tasks,” she wrote. Bobbie Dunn of We Teach We Learn expanded on Brownless’ thought: “It is very important to work with adolescent brains, instead of continually expecting them to succeed with worksheets, vocabulary lists, and long-term assignments with no short-term goals, which can tend to work against their brains, overwhelming them and causing them to struggle with prioritizing.”
One idea for reaching teenage learners comes from Geoff Mulgan, chief executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts. What did you think of Mulgan’s idea? No Teachers, No Class, No Homework; Would You Send Your Kids Here? - Emily Chertoff. Democratic schooling may be the most radical experiment in education of the past 100 years. A.S. Neill in a Summerhill classroom. The image is undated. (Associated Press) In Massachusetts farm country, not far from Boston, a group of about 200 students of all ages are part of a radical experiment.
Sudbury Valley School will this spring find itself one focus of a book by the psychologist and Boston College professor Peter Gray, whose own son attended Sudbury Valley in the 1980s. "He clearly was unhappy in school, and very rebellious," Gray said of his son in a phone interview. Gray wound up becoming a developmental and learning psychologist in order to do a study of Sudbury outcomes. But not all of Sudbury's students and alumni were precocious learners: "Some had been diagnosed with learning disorders. " Nothing enrages parents like the idea that their kids might be educated to do or say or think things they don't agree with, by people they don't trust. He gives an example.
Teach for America’s Deep Bench. “Is this our Egypt moment? Will we seize the moment?” Former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein spoke those words at Teach for America’s 20th anniversary summit last summer. Coming from Klein, who is now a divisional leader at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, incitements to political uprising might raise some eyebrows. But at the summit for the nonprofit, which recruits college graduates to be teachers in poor school districts around the country, Klein was onto something that Nicholas Kristof and Thomas Friedman have ignored in their eight pro-TFA columns: behind the veil of well-funded, debate-worthy idealism, TFA is coordinating a political revolution.
Since its founding, TFA has amassed some 28,000 alumni. Two have made Time’s “Most Influential” list: its Chief Executive Officer and founder, Wendy Kopp, and former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor and StudentsFirst founder Michelle Rhee. What about the other 27,000-some-odd people? Advertisement You may also like: Comments spent** Madfloridian's Journal - Another "false front" education reform group? Keep eye out for their op eds in local papers. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity. RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms. Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!
Hole-in-the-Wall. Elizabeth Weil’s case against emotional regulation: Schools are making kids conformist and boring. WAR ON EDUCATION AND STUDENTS. AT&T, Feds Neglect Low-Price Mandate Designed to Help Schools. Subverting the System: Student and Teacher as Equals. Free Courses and Resources. Who wants an open source curriculum based Education? | A conversation on TED.com - Nightly. A New Educational Model — Teaching & Learning. Aardvark Founder Max Ventilla Is Trying To Turn Education On Its Head With AltSchool.
Saying No to College. UnCollege | Hacking Your Education. College Degree, No Class Time Required. Enstitute, an Alternative to College for a Digital Elite. Open Online Learning – A Paradigm Shift | Workskillers and teacherpreneurs. Is College Worth It? 10 Bizarre Schools From Around The Country. National School Reform Faculty. List of democratic schools. Education Revolution | Alternative Education Resource Organization. Big Picture. PlayMaker School. Learning by Choice: Play, Sports and A La Carte « Learning Is For Everyone -LI4E. News: CS in VN. Thinkers, lifelong learning and informal education @ the informal education homepage. ICPIC. A Child is Forced to Test: Where is Mainstream “Liberal” Media? Florida. Pearson PR Backfires. Education Publisher Accused of Censorship and Propaganda. Florida Backtracks on Standardized State Tests.
School district eliminating No Child Left Behind school transfers. The 7-lesson schoolteacher John Taylor Gatto. When Andrew Hacker asks “Is Algebra Necessary?”, why doesn’t he just ask “Is High School Necessary?” | Galactic Interactions. Achievement First Endeavor Middle School. How New Orleans Did Not Get Turned Around. Addressing Poverty in Schools. Los Angeles school police still ticketing thousands of young students. Education Reform. Toronto News: Toronto teachers stage protest to answer the public’s questions about education cuts. The Network For Public Education | We are many. There is power in our numbers. Together, we will save our schools.
Texas Republican Party Seeks Ban on Critical Thinking, Other Stuff. Chicago's teachers could strike a blow for organised labour globally | Richard Seymour. Texas Studies Suggest Test Design Flaw in TAKS. The California Department of Education says you have a right to a bad education | Melissa Griffin.