 |
|
Alchemical Bakery Homeschool Newsletter Back to Home Education page 
LIFE IS THE CURRICULUM by Jeannine Parvati Baker The voice on the phone is raspy, a kindness covering desperation, as she asks if I homeschool? She had been referred to me by someone who she can't recall just now. Her questions about homeschool bring to mind the travesty of American public education in the new millennium. Already her 5 year old has been singled out in kindergarten this year as likely to fall behind in her school work. Why did her teacher request this parent conference? The young girl would fidget around during "story time" and try to talk with whomever was seated by her in the "sharing circle". I told the mother that I thought this teacher was interfering with her daughter's education by expecting her to fail already. It seemed to me that being forced to listen to an adult read a story book and not talk to ones neighbors was actually more indicative of a problem than not. I had long thought that Attention Deficit Disorder was medico-bureaucratic double-speak for "boring teacher". There is no blame. It's the zeitgeist: The pressure is on. The rousing State of the Union Address by our President at the beginning of 2000, urged new educational reform in the guise of a B. F. Skinnerersque reward system for the teachers. The program basically proposed would test the children's progress and if not up to standard, the teacher and school would be penalized where it truly counts in public education -- financially. In other words, if the kids don't learn the assigned curriculm adequately, the school suffers. Teachers may lose their jobs and funding diminished. Contrast this with unschooling -- that is, learning whatever one loves to learn because it is fun, or because ones Muse commands -- whatever the motive -- it is from WITHIN the one learning, rather than an assigned curriculum. Who loses their job in a homeschool if there is not enough progress? And who measures the progress and how? Most importantly, what is progress? Our most important product in the Reaganomics of America -- yet in the Information Age, is this really true? It seems to me that the capacity to learn, to wonder and discern critically what is true for oneself is real education: Not being a "consumer" or "member of the work force" or socially fitting into a competitive system as the prioritized goals of education as it is generally thought to be. This mother was realizing that her son was sick the last two school years more than any time in his life, and that this was co-arising with their move to a new school in which he is struggling just to keep up to grade level. His assigned Special Ed teacher says that he is doing "fine" but he is flunking his other subjects. He is dyslexic and the mother says that he spends hours every day studying at home trying to catch up. She wants to homeschool, yet lacks the confidence that she can do it well enough. She doesn't want to "have to make him learn". This may be a more common dilemma than I had thought. Yet when I first heard this, my heart fell to the ground. It was all turned around! In my own experience, learning just happens, until we (ego) get in the way with our agendas and curriculum. All babies love to learn, until there is too much pain and punishment and for survival, wonder is leashed into a respectable distance, not too far from the society's yard. Moreover, she was concerned was that her children would not be adequately socialized if she was their primary relationship, day in and day out. Well then, what is adequate socialization? Before their move here to our rural county, she said that her first grader was approached to buy drugs at school. She also told me of her son who was getting beat up at school by one boy, whose mother warned her bully son, that if he laid another hand on that boy, he'd be sorry forever. This is socialization? I shared with her that we took field trips to widen the realm of relationships for my children -- and this included journeys to Europe and Australia, as well as all over this continent. What I liked the most about our field trips was my children's ability to relate to people of any age, of any culture, with a grace and maturity impossible to achieve when sequestered in any school most of the time with children of ones own age. The world is our classroom. I told her that homeschooling her children may be easier than she imagined. All one needs to do is drop our most cherished beliefs about education, and be open to what our children want to do, to experience, to LEARN. If I don't know, I have an opportunity to learn something new myself. Therefore, there is no "teacher" and no "student" when unschooling at home: No success and no failure. Rather, each day unfolds many opportunities and LIFE IS THE CURRICULUM. |
