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Q: What is deschooling? Will we have to do
it if our children haven’t been
to school?
A: Deschooling is a process that almost everyone will have to go through in
order to comfortably and successfully unschool - children and adults. In
fact, if the adults are able to deschool while their children are very
young, they may be able to spare their children from it!
Why do the adults have to go through it? Because almost all of us have been
through the system! In order to survive, we have probably bought into many
parts of it. Grace Llewellyn, in The Teenage Liberation Handbook says to
teenagers:
But schools push you beyond intimidation; they shame you into believing you
need them. By giving out grades, they cancel people’s faith in their
perfectly good brains. Once you accept a report card’s verdict that you’re
not so smart, you’re hardly in a position to say you don’t need school. If
they happen to decide you are smart, you have the opposite problem--your ego
is addicted. You "succeeded" in school, so why risk leaving it for a
world
where you might not get straight A’s?
Even when we reject most of "school" outright, we still may harbor
much
anxiety about leaving the "safety net" that the idea of
"school" provides
for us. School teaches us many lessons and these are just some examples:
Someone else knows what’s best for me.
I can only learn what is spoonfed to me.
What I’m interested in is not important or of value.
Only those with credentials can "teach."
There exists some "core" curriculum that we all must learn in order to
live
in harmony together.
If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t count.
I have to keep up with everyone else.
I have to learn how to do difficult things by being forced to.
Difficult things are bad.
If we don’t learn "X" now, we’ll never learn it.
Guessing shows you’re lazy, not thinking, and should be avoided.
Learning "differences" are flaws to be corrected.
"A" students are better people than "C" students.
Self-discipline can only be "learned" through a complicated reward and
punishment system.
Don’t fail, don’t even try if you might.
Unless I conform to society’s standards, I can’t be successful.
Conforming is the only path to social acceptance.
I can only be friends with people my own age.
People younger than me are inferior.
Keep my mind on the future, don’t try to live in the present.
So what can you do? You, the adult, need to deschool yourself. You need to
figure out how to wean yourself of these beliefs. I would recommend that you
first consider yourself the subject of your searching -- not your child. How
has school affected you and how do you feel about that? Are you letting the
"experts" run your show? How do you view your own learning? Are you
taking
control of your own life in this area? Read as much as you can about the
success families are having with unschooling. Find out how they overcame
their fears and doubts. Do whatever it takes to tackle these things within
yourself. Think about the possibility that your child won’t learn to read at
age six, or won’t write a research paper at age 10. What if they aren’t interested in multiplication tables or electricity when you think they
should be? How are you going to handle these situations? How do you feel
about them? They might happen! Talk to other unschoolers about their
perspectives on these issues.
As for your children ... if they haven’t been to school (including most
preschools), they will not have the same misconceptions about who is in
charge of learning and how it should be done. They will continue learning
the natural way! In the areas where you struggle with deschooling, they may
also struggle because these things will trickle down to them. You don’t need
to be perfect at it — continue to learn and grow just as you would like to
see them do.
If they have been in school, even for a relatively short period of time,
they will probably need to deschool too. They will take a lot of their cues
from you. What they probably need is a long vacation from school and
school-like pressure. The longer they have been in, the longer they will
need. They may need a lot of time to "do nothing." But wait! What is
this
"nothing" that they are doing? Perhaps they are building with legos,
playing
with stuffed animals, making forts in the livingroom or tree houses in the
back yard, reading every book by their favorite author, putting on puppet
show, etc. Perhaps they are watching TV and listening to their favorite
music. These are certainly things you might find unschoolers doing! Or
perhaps they are moping around trying to figure out what’s going on. Most
children who have been in school will need time to recapture the ability to
fill their life — moment by moment — with the things that interest them.
From an adult (schooled) perspective, their interests may seem very limited
at first (or always). But they own these things and their realization that
their choices are valued and will be honored, will lead them to explore new
areas and challenges. In their own way, at their own pace.
The worst thing that can go wrong with your unschooling is lack of trust -
in your children, yourself, or the process. This is what deschooling is all
about. If the doubts and fears creep into your interactions with your
children, just keep working through them. We all have these moments but, with time, they should become fewer and farther
between.
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