If you’ve seen some of my recent posts, you know I’m all about school reform and questioning the idea of compulsory schooling in general. There are people doing the same in all corners, including the unschooling community, doing so for their own different reasons. My reason is simply the rights of the student.
However, with many voices on this subject, you get many talking points. And as with any collection of talking points, you get some that are just plain stupid.
For the moment, I’ll focus on one.
“Why do I need to learn X? When am I ever going to use it?”
I admit it. That drives me up the damn wall. Well, truth be told, there are some times it’s a valid question. My brother is in third grade, and just like I had to in third grade, they’re making him learn cursive handwriting. He told me this and I was like “WTF? Why?” Come on, have you seen anyone write in cursive? There are some. And it is annoying as shit, because you can’t fucking read it. Not as quickly and easily as printed letters anyway. That seems to be one of those things they only continue to teach and require because adults just like the idea of children learning it, probably out of some ridiculous nostalgia.
But that is an exception, and there are a few others. The anti-school crowd, however, has a way of taking the “need to learn” idea to strange new levels. As in, they question the “need” to learn things like math, history, and science! Or at least certain portions of them.
“Why would I need to know algebra?!”
“Who needs to know the structure of the cell?!”
“How could I need to know about the French Revolution?!”
This goes beyond being anti-school. This is anti-intellectualism. This makes the subject matter itself out to be some sort of enemy, when what’s supposed to be the problem is the coercive mandatory nature of how it is being taught. Not to mention that some reasons I’ve seen from these people as to why certain (all?) subjects are “useless” are really fucking stupid.
I could go into why these subjects are in fact important, that even if they aren’t mandatory school subjects one should still learn them some way or another. History is important because to move forward as a society and human race, it helps to know where we’ve been. Developing good math skills has advantages just about anywhere. And scientific literacy may save your life some day, as that is what governs things like health and nutrition, among much more. And I’ll throw in language skills, so that people will actually be able to understand you, saving you and others much frustration.
Should someone stand over you and force you to memorize and practice these subjects under penalty of jail? Hell no. But that doesn’t mean learning these things isn’t still a good fucking idea anyway!
And even if it being a good idea is questionable, why exactly is extra knowledge being treated like a bad thing?
LIKE LIKE LIKE.
Katrina, you are calling out the anti-intellectual, pro-anarchistic nature of a lot of unschoolers today. Led by writers like Grace Llewellyn and Matt Hern, these folks routinely talk about complete freedom and anti-authoritarianism in concept. Oftentimes, they live in homogenous communities with a great deal of resources at their disposal. They’re independently wealthy, live on comfortable trust funds or alimony settlements, or otherwise drift with ease through daily living. Its easy for them to see a world without hierarchical learning because they generally and genuinely believe they live without hierarchies in their own lives.
However, the great big myth behind all that is plain to see when you’re not wearing rose-colored glasses: That world doesn’t exist for almost anyone else on planet Earth. Their kids can unschool without repercussion because they have the access and privilege they need to “succeed” in life. In the meantime, most other people are struggling to survive day in and out, wrestling with making enough money to pay the bills and trying not to get stop-and-frisked /again/ this week.
Unschooling is generally a fantastical and wonderous sounding adventure. However, in reality, its for the privileged few who enjoy self-learning who want to self-learn more and enjoy their privilege even more.
For those of us who live in reality, we have to confront the reality of the systems in front of us, like schools and youth programs and faith communities and government agencies, if only because for the vast majority of all young people today, that’s reality. And that’s where I live and work to change, every single day.
I’m glad to hear that you do, too.