GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 63 In GWS #29, we publlshed excerpts from a paper that the theoretical physicist Davtd Deutsch had wrltten about how young people could learn physics by apprenticeship rather than by studylng lt in school. For thts lssue, we asked several GWS readers lnvolved ln other klnds of work to consider how the apprenticeship model might work ln thelr case, or how it had already worked tn thelr experlence. Our decislon to focus on those kinds of work - ln this case, mathematlcs, wrlting' medicine, archltecture, computer programming, and blologr - that seem less eastly adaptable to the apprenUceshtp model was a consclous one: we wanted to challenge ourselves and our readers to thtnk in new ways, to realtze Just how broad the appllcation of thls model can be.
A child dolr4 what mathematiclans do - no0ctng patterrls. Mathematlcs ls one klnd of work dlscusscd in this ls.sue's Focus on the apprenticeship model, L9-22,
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: OFFICENEWS p.2 NEWS &REPORTS p.3-a
NEW HOMESCHOOLERS p.5 CFIALLENGES & CONCERNS p.6-9 Feeling Isolated, Dllllcult Child, Don't Knock Teachers, Patronizlng Adults, Culture's Emphasis on Children's Frtends
DEALINGWITH OFFICIALS p. lo-12 RESOURCES & RECOMMENDA-
TIONS p. 12
David Deutsch descrtbed the apprenttceshlp sltuatlon as an opportuntty for a young peron to 'partictpate ln the physlcs culture'; ln other words, to do what phystclsts do, to ltsten to thetr talk, to begln to understand thelr way of thinktng. Stmtliarly, Flank Smlth, tn his book Insulttolntelligence [avail. here, 18.95 + post.], wrltes thatwhatyoung people need is a chance to belong to varlous clubs - the spoken language club, the ltterary club, the physlcs club, and so on. Smlth's clubs are not excluslve; they're slmply the group, or the culture, of people who do a parttcular thlng. Adults who talk to bables, who respond attentlvely to their flrst sounds, who demonstrate ln countless ways that speech ls meaningful, are gtvlng babtes a hearty welcome lnto the spoken language club. Ltkewlse, adults who gtve chlldren access to the 'communit5l of practttloners,' as Aaron Falbel calls it later tn thls lssue, of whatever lt ts they do - math, physlcs, carpentqr' anything - are saylng, 'This ls what we do, and tf you want to do lt too we wlll give you whatever help you ask for.' The fact that apprentlces have a chance to seewhat older people do is significant, even leaving aslde for a moment the question of thetr acUve partlctpatlon in that work. J.H. van den Berg, in The Changing Nqfitre of Man[also avatlable here, 5.5O + post.l, wrltes about "t]re xrvtstbtllty of adult life.'Young people ln our soclety often have very little sense of what there ls to do, what club they might want to belong
THOUGHTS ABOUT MATH p. 13-14
to.
FOCUS: THE APPRENTICESHIP MODEL p. 19-22 How apprenttceshtp can work ln math, medicine, wrtting, computer program-
slzes that ln any work, the young apprenttce "should be truly productlve from the beginning. He should be worlidng on real problems and not on invented exercises with no purpose other than 'education.''
ming, architecture and biologr
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CRITICAL I,OOK
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LEARNING
DISABILITIES: INTERMEW WITH GERALD COLES p.23-25 THE USE OF RITALIN IN SCHOOI-S p.25-26
OLDER HOMESCHOOLERS p. 26-27
CHILDREN IN THE WORKPLACE p.27-24 WATCHING CHILDREN LEARN p.29-32 Stories Help Problems, The Need for Privary, Unafraid of Mistakes ADDffiONS TO DIRECTORY p.32-35
But of course, getting to help is also important. Deutsch empha-
Worktng on these real problems, and learning from the feedback that the work itself provides, is a kind of education for which there ls no
substltute. As Jonathan Rowe makes clear later tn this issue, one can also apprentlce onself to books, or to people who are unaware that they are being thought of as a mentor. Certain books, and certain lrtnds of sltuailons, can glve young people the feeltng of being part of a communlt5r of practitioners even if this ts not directly and immediately the case. Though weVe focused tn this issue on how apprentlceshlps can work in lields which we usually think of as suited only to the school model, this is not meant to tmply that lt ls never appropdate to go to school to learn more about these klnds of work. We're trylng to show that one doesn't have to go to school by default, out of the feeling that "math (or whatever) has to be learned that way." In fact, people who know that it's possible to learn math ln all sorts of ways will likely choose school only when there's somethin$ very specific that they want from that erperience, something that they think ls best gotten that way. Perhaps this knowledge on the part of young people, this feeling of the range of choices, will be, if nothlng else, what succeeds in changing the schools. - Susannah Sheffer