GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 65 In his book Mindstorms; Children, Computers and Potuerji ldeas,
to Seymour Papert writes, "One of the main lessons learned by most people in math class is a sense of having rigid limitations.' Papert would like us instead to have a sense of possibilities, both about mathematics and B about ourselves. He would like us not to fear math, not to see it as alien, I not to see ourselves as incompetent with respect to it or any other area of human activity. One of the striking things - and there are many - about both Mindstorms and the discussion with Seymour Papert in this issue of GWS is that the mathematics Papert loves and invites us to love seems to have nothing to do with the mathematics school teaches us to fear. It's as if Papert - like Aaron Falbel in GWS #63 - is talking about a different animal entirely. We need to ask why this is so. Why is the mathematics that mathematicians do so different from the mathematics that math teachers teach? Why does the history of real historians seem to have nothing to do with the history of school history courses? John Holt wondered, in similar manner, in GWS #64. How come the things we're tattghtseem to bear so litfle relation to what people are actually doing? The answer lies in the framing of that very question, in the divorce of teaching from doing. We think that teaching and doing are different, as we think that learning and doing are different. We think that there are mathematicians and then math teachers, historians and then history teachers. Listening to Se5rmour Papert or John Holt or anyone else who talks about what people are actually doing, one can't help wondering why this information never seems to make it into the schools. Why don't fifth grade math teachers know that mathematicians aren't sitting around reciting multiplication tables? Or if they know, why don't they tell those fifth graders? Perhaps these questions are rhetorical, but they shouldn't be. In the discussion in this issue Papert says that we shouldn't ask how do we cure mathophobia - his word for fear of math and, by extension, fear of learning - but how do we avoid catching it in the first place. One way would be to get to see, early on, in manyways and from many people, what math - or an5rthing else - really is for the people who love it and choose to do it. Papert also says, in these pages, that schooftng is a way of thinking that can be present just as easily in living rooms as in classrooms. Thus, if parents at home believe that you learn only by being taught, a basic premise of contemporary schools, they may be said to be involved in schoolrg just as much as people in school buildings are. The appeal of this distinction seems to be reflected in the choice many parents have made to call themselves home educators rather than homeschoolers sa1nng, through this choice, that they are doing something very different from schooling. Seeing schooling as a way of thinking is useful and important, and helps us say such things as, "I had to unschool myself before I could really trust my child.' But I think that we can also say that certain structures support this way of thinking more than others. That is, school is a better environment for schooling than the home is. The language gets tricky here - what I mean to say is that certain aspects of school, as a structure, a set-up, an institution, are more condusive to schooling as a way of thinking than the home or the community is. The need to manage large numbers of children, for example, lnore easily gives rise to fill-inthe-blank workbooks than does working with a few children at home. Which brings us once again to the idea that home education is ideal for experimenting, for testing new assumptions, for coming, up with ways of thinking that are not schooling. Many people can help us do this, and Seymour Papert is most certainly one of them. Susannah Sheffer
a
Seymour Papert, who talks about computers and changing our attitude toward learning in this issue's Focus.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: NEWS & REPORTS Asbestos
p.2-4
in home schools,
North Dakota and Pennsvlvania court rulings CFIALLENGES & CONCERNS p. 4-6 Overcoming isolation, large family, allergies, testing conditions
THINKING ABOIJT INDEPENDENCE p.7 WATCHING CHILDREN LEARN
p.8-I2
Early speech, a reason to write, spelling, learning French, pathways into mathematics
and the learning Societv p. 29-30
THE MEANING OF COMMUNITY
p.3r-32 CHILDREN IN THE WORKPI,ACE
p.33-34 THE TOYWEAPON AUESTION p. 34 WORKING IN SCHOOTS p. 35-36
OLDERHOMESCHOOLERS p. 36 SPECIALIST OUESTIONS LD MODEL
p.37 RESOLIRCES & RECOMMENDA-
TIONS p.37 ADDITIONS TO DIRECTORY, PEN-PAIS p.38-39
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