GROWII\G WITHOUT SCHOOLI N G 62
Mothers discuss breastfeedtng; at a La kche League meeung, Breastfeedlrrg is one of the social moverncrrts discussed in tJris issue's
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: NEWS&REPORTS p.3-5 NEA Opposes Homeschooling, School Entry Pollry, Homeschoolers Aren't Chtld Abusers AS GUINEAPIGS p.5 RESOURCES &
RECOMMENDATIONS p.6 CFIALLENGES &CONCERNS p. 7-8
Blind Parents, When Kids Are lgnored, TV, Sex Roles ARRANGEMENTS - WITH SCHOOI.S. WIITI HOMESCHOOL ERS p.e-lO
WArcHING CHILDREN LEARN p.
ll-14
Self-Educators, When Peers Help, Flnding Teachers, Children's Comments, Studying History
Together FOCUS: EFFECTME SOCIAL CFIANGE p.le-23 A look at the breastfeeding and homeblrth movements and a discusslon of schoolteachlng as a way of making change INSID E STANDARDIZED TESTS
p.24-25 LEARMNG IN THE WORLD p.26-27 CHILDREN IN THE WORKPI-ACE p.2a-29
'Important and lastlng social change,'John Holt wrote ln the flrst lssue of Growing WitFrr.n ehmling,'always comes slowly, and only when people change their lives, notJust thelr polltical bellefs or parfles. It ls a process that takes place over a pâ‚Źrid of time.'For this lssue of GWS, weVe trled to catch this process in acflon, to grab a small part of the change that ls happenlng all around us so that we can hold it up for a brief moment and try to understand it. WeVe asked two people involved ln movements similar to ours to reflect on how thls "nlckel and dlme theory,' as John called lt, has worked for them. Much ln the historles and ecperiences of these two movements - breastfeedlng and homebtrth - will be interestlng and useft-rl to homeschoolers, but we don't hold them up as absolute models that the homeschoollng movement should set ttself against. Rather, we hope that tlese other movements wlll showJust how broad the application of the nlckel and dlme theory can be, and how effecUve. Mary I-ofton of La Leche Irague International tells us that La kche League began with seven women ln a livingroom - seven women who were breastfeeding at a time when only about fifteen percent of the mothers tn ttris country did so. Thirt5ryears later, the percentage hasJust about quadrupled. It's safe to say that real change has occurred here, but the change isn't finished There's no one moment at which we can say, about any socid movement, 'Nour we've really made some change.' Real change doesn't happen all at once, tn a revolution that topples all the edsttng structures. But at any glven point lt's posstble to look at how things used to be and at how they are now and say, "Hey, somettring slgnlficant has gone on." And ls still going on. Something that comes through very clear\r tn the accounts of the breastfeeding and homeblrth movements - and ln our own accounts of the homeschooling movement thus far - ts that rather than belng a group of people saying, Tou should,'successful movements are made up of people saying, Tou can,'to others who are interested or curlous orJust at the beginning of wanting to go in a particular directlon. People call up La l-eche League or Informed Homebirth or Grotning Wtttlott Schooling and say, "I want to do this. Can you tell me hovf'The next thing these people know, someone else is asking them how to begin. To the ldea that social change ls never flnlshed, John Holt added tn GWS #l that lt's imposslble to tell when a particular change @an" "except perhaps to say that any given soclal change begrns the ffrst tlme one peron thinks of lt.'The nlce thing about this ls that it remlnds us that what one person does with one life can be slgnificant. We don't have to walt for a million people to agree with us before we can move toward the world we want; rather, we can startwith our own llves, right away. Yet John knew, and would later say elsewhere, that one person thlnking of or even making change is not enough. There have to be ways for people who are trying somethlng different to talk to each other, and to let others know that a particular alternative is available. GWS #l contalns the rather cautious predictlon, "In time lthis newsletter] may lead to many tnformal and personal networks of mutual help and support.'The predictton seems cautious because we know how qulckly GWS did lead to informal and personal networks - one look at our Dlrectory and Resource Llst conflrms thls, and we cerialnly don't know about all such groups that edst. Because of thts, we were lnterested to hear how people in the other movements we look at ln thls lssue communicate, both with those who are dolng what they're dotng and those who mlght like to. "Change is slow, but steady,'wrote Jud Jerome tn his memorial poem to John Holt. It's also fasclnatlng to watch and to take part ln - and, now and then, to think about and examine, as we do tn this issue of GWS. Take a few minutes, then, to think about lt with us, before you go back to making tt happenl Susannah Sheffer
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