Thank you @Agaricus for sharing your family’s experience. It is so interesting to see the many types of changes that have been occurring, and they are indeed not all positive, though not all negative either.
I think including children’s views in our conversation is imperative. However, in order to interpret their answers we need to take a few things into account.
Firstly, most kids have only experienced one way of doing things (school or unschooling). The best they can say is if they’re happy, and/or if they’d like to try another approach.
Secondly, since the parents were initially responsible for the choice of schooling, the child is likely to have heard some convincing arguments from them, without necessarily receiving an equal amount of counter-arguments.
Thirdly, at this point in history, unlike the preceding millennia of human existence, school is normal. Most of us want to seem normal in order to be accepted. Feeling like I was outside of regular society was one of the biggest things that I disliked during the time I experienced freedom from teachers and classrooms. However, during the summer, when other kids were also free, this feeling disappeared completely. Since we tend to fear punishment more than we seek reward, her fear of falling out of the normal sphere may be even greater than the desire I had to be part of the group.
I’m sure you will continue this great conversation with your daughter when she returns to the classroom, and the developments may be very educational for us. It would be great to include the voices of many other children here too.
Agree fully with all you said: Except one minor correction. In our household I’m an advocate for home schooling, and encounter resistance in these discussions. I try to keep it open minded and exploratory, just to maintain an awareness of positive alternatives. When I “come on too strong” it is not helpful.
As much as war, coronavirus pandemic has a disruptive and transformative power. With regularity deserving a law of physics, mankind emerges from disruptive periods stronger and smarter. This is exactly what happens in the area of education. Every country seems to have its own trajectory that depends on the severity of lockdown, and the degree of restricted freedom in education. I have a direct insight into changes in Poland. Abysmally organized and tragically oppressive, remote e-education is driving a new wave of homeschooling. Children felt deprived of the last vestiges of freedom. Parents could see first hand the stultifying quality of “modern” education based on ancient curriculum. New arrivals to home education quickly discovered the value of freedom, and the problem of freedom: children interests do not coincide with the curriculum. The word unschooling shows up more and more often in the conversation. Due Polish restrictive law, which makes unschooling illegal, the word unschooling acquired a new meaning. In Polish, “unschooling” means “to get rid of all bad habits acquired at school” (I list 60-70 of those habits here). Real unschooling in Polish is called by its original English name. There is an increasing understanding of the need to get rid of the shackles of the curriculum. Every attentive parent can see that the right pathway to intellectual greatness leads through the freedom of mind.
I agree Piotr, the disruption is exposing the tragedies of schooling. But do not forget to look “all around” at what’s happening, not just in the direction of the curriculum. Parents are super stressed out because they have to help their children all day while also working to meet their expenses. Children are sad because they don’t see their friends. Here, I notice that many kids are anxious due to evident failure of adult authority to have reliable answers to their questions: When can I go back to school? When will the air clear up? When will the parks reopen? What I see here is that the cancellation of in person school tends to reduce school to its curriculum, which paradoxically highlights the importance of the non-instructional elements of school, including the element I tiresomely reference, which is the overall social relations of students to their peers and teachers.
Your reference to social interaction is not tiresome. You need to bring it back, esp. that you can see it vividly in your own household.
Coronavirus disruption made it possible to separate the curriculum from other aspects of schooling. This way, more people acquire a better model of school. The old soup problem has resolved itself by filtering out sub-ingredients. Let’s perversely call a good part of school: a social group. We can then see that Peter Gray was right all the way. For perfect education we need a social group enlivened with freedom. We can now see an incredible range of options available to a modern kid: democratic school, community center, football field, playground, unschooling, travelling, a month in a tent, etc. I am proud to have gotten to know Tom Durrie, a genius vibrant nonagenarian. In 1966, he took a group of “difficult” kids, in a “normal” school, and implemented some of Peter Gray’s ideas long before Peter Gray became a world’s leading advocate. Here is Durrie’s report submitted to school authorities in 1966.
Hi Piotr, I’m glad we are continuing the discussion here as well as in email!
Wikipedia tells me there are approximately 2 billion children in the world. Can I assert that most of them want to be educated? If you grant me this, I’ll argue that the modern institution of public, compulsory school is humankind’s first attempt serve this desire universally. Your “We can now see an incredible range of options available to a modern kid” would be more correct if written: “We can now imagine an incredible range of options that could be made available to a modern kid.” Most of these options are not in fact available. We’re aligned on hoping that they could be made available. And the people most interested in getting from where we are now, to where we could be going, are associated with schools and education in its various flavors. (Where else would you expect to find them?) These are your friends and allies. I read your position as “let’s cancel schools and let the chips fall where they may.” That’s not really freedom for children. Many students have noticed in the past months how much stronger certain constraints and limits become when schools are cancelled. Historically, in the US and England (which I know best) the era before free compulsory school was characterized by a much lower level of education for most children, and merciless exploitation of poor children as laborers.