GROWING
WITHOUT
SCHOOLING
9 Since GWS#8 went to press, many things have happened. Let ters keep coming in from the Don ahue show, probably by now about 9,000, though we ' ve stopped keeping a daily count . Newsweek had a full page story about unschooling in their 4/16/79 issue. The monthly mag azine Mother Jones had a feature article in their /79 issue. The Special Education Supplement to The New York Times of 4/22 had a full page story about the Sess ions family. By the t ime you read this, many of you will have seen the Hay 3 CBS-TV show "Mag azine," on unschooling. The ABC TV show "20- 20" is doing a pro gram on unschooling, and (as I write) will be taping us here in the office fairly soon. I don't know when that will be aired. In addition, I was on two TV talk shows here in Boston, one with Peter Perchemlides. I have one scheduled for Washington D.C. (WDVM - Ch. 9, 10- 11 AH, l~ay 15). Have also done a number of phone interviews with radio stations. Since the Newsweek article came out I don't th i nk there's been a day when some TV or radio stat ion, newspaper, or magazine hasn't called to ask questions. For this issue we have about 1700 subscribers, almost three times what we had in November (but a long way short of the 7,000 or so we will probably need to be completely self- support ing). And just look at the Di rectory! (By the way, if you change your address, and are in the Directory, please remind us of that, so we'll change it in both places.) Ivan Illich writes that in Germany, for the first time (as far as anyone knows) a family has unschooled their children. He sent me a news clip about it (in German, of course - can anyone translate it?). Still more news in later stories. COMING LECTURES
I will be speaking at the Alternative Schools Workshop and Conference of the School of Edu cation, Indiana Univ., Blooming ton IA 47401, from 3-6 PH, Sat. June 23, and also at another smaller meeting, probably earlier the same day . If any readers are near there, it might be a nice time for us to meet. Director of the conference is Thomas B. Gregory, Assoc . Prof. at the School of Ed . (Tel. 812-337-3015 or 2157). Perhaps
I'll see some of you there. I will also be speaking on Honday Sept. 24 at Western l~ary land College in Westminster MD. More details on that in a later GWS. Theo Geisy has spoken of trying to arrange a meeting for me in the Northern Va.- D.C. area sometime in mid or late t1ay. No definite plan yet, but those in terested might get in touch with her (see Di r.). GOOD NEWS
In the last month four un schooling families have won favorable court rulings, two in Va., one in Mass., one in Iowa and I have heard a report, not yet confirmed, about still anoth er favorable ruling in Va. In Norfolk, VA, the Giesy family, who had been teaching their children at home (and other places) for some time while try ing to get the approval of the local schools, finally registered their own home as a school. The local Superintendent responded by taking them to court. The judge, in a 25 minute statement, ruled in favor of the Giesy's. The Giesy's received much local pub licity, on the whole favorable. Theo Giesy is sending me a copy of the judge's ruling; I hope to print some of it in the next GWS. In King George, VA, the O'Toole family (whom I had just met at a conference in MOl, not liking what was happening to one of their children in school, had taken the child out. The schools took them to juvenile court (hence Mr. O'Toole's Letter to the Editor, printed elsewhere in this issue), which ruled in favor of the fami ly. (Note - both fami lies in Directory) In Somerset, l1ass., Frank and Maureen Turano (he a police officer, she a former teacher) took their children out of school. Though Mrs. Turano, hav ing been a teacher, was obviously competent by state standards to teach her children, the schools took them to court. Mr . Turano researched the law very thorough ly, reading state and federal rulings on this matter going all the way back to 1900. Like Jos eph Palmer in Minn., he defended himself in court, and so strongly and ably - making at least one Constitutional point that I have not heard before, and about which we will write more - that the juvenile court judge ruled in his favor. The Omaha World Herald of l~a rch 20, 1979, reported: Bedford, Iowa - A Lenox, Iowa, couple [Robert and Ruth Cochran] can teach their two children in their home, a Tay lor County l1agi strate Court jury decided Monday .... Richard Jones, Taylor County attorney representing the State of Iowa in the case, said no appeal is planned. For two years, the Cochran's children - Lillian, 14, and Clifford, 16 - have been en rolled in a home teaching pro gram of the Christian Liberty Education System of Prospect Heights, Ill.
The Rev. Paul Lindstrom of the Church of Christian Liber ty, an independent, non-denomi national church that sponsors the correspondence-class pro gram, said he believed the state was violating the couple's right to religious freedom and separation of church and state, guaranteed under the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Consti tution .... The Christian Liberty Acad emy provided the Cochrans with 1ega 1 counsel for the tri a1 , [Rev. Lindstrom] said. Two Mass. families, one of them writing me for the first time, have told me about agree ments which they have reached with their local schools, allow ing them to teach their children at home. In the case of one of these families, the schools have agreed to allow the child to go to school part-time, to take part in special activities that she likes, including athletics. This is the first such arrange ment I have heard of. I hope to be able to publish more, perhaps full details, in the next ~WS. REMIND ER
The things that schools and school people say, write, and do (or try to do) to unschoo 1ers often make me so angry that I have to remi nd myself of a wi se old French saying; Cet animal est tres mechant; Quand on l'attaque, il se defend! which means (for those who may not know French) This animal is very V1C10US; When you attack him, he defends himself! School people feel that they are under attack by unschoolers, and indeed they are. No doubt they greatly overestimate the danger. But the attack is real. The schools have great power over the lives of many people, and most unschoolers would be glad to cut down or take away that power if we could. We mustn't be too surprised if they fight back in ~Ihatever ways they can. A DI SC OVERY
. •• I can't resist the temp tation to share some of E's (aged 3) discoveries. She had shown some interest in letters and words about four months ago. She asked me to write the names of some friends, so that she could see the letters. We also w,ote the names of objects on masking tape and taped them up around the house, like labels. This game was exciting for her for a short time, but then she lost interest. She said little about words for several months, exceet for an occasional reading of an alphabet book she had received for Christ mas. About six weeks ago, while we were driving by a Texaco sta
tion, she looked up at the big sign and ho 11 ered, "Hey! There's an E and an A, just like in my name!" Just how the wheels had been turning inside her head over the months mystifies me. But when she was ready her discovery of letters manifested itself in a really thrilling moment. Now she spends time almost daily practicing E's and A's, and looks over any printed material she can find for any of the let ters she knows. Sometimes she asks me to write things for her. This experience reinforces for me my belief that to put all child ren of an age together to learn the same thing at the same time in the same way is not only a criminal waste of time and an open door to frustration, but it simply doesn't work. CHilD ARTIST
A father writes: "... We have one of the hap py stories about unschooling. Before Mwas born we had decided not to send her to school. We moved to the country thinking it would be easier there. Now I realize it might sometimes be more diffi cult. We were lucky. The teacher and school board of our local school, where I am janitor, have been tolerant and helpful. The teacher is one of the good ones. [., goes once a week on a day of her choosing . Any more than once a week, she thinks, would be awful. One defense that we have thought might help if we are given any trouble about not going to school is that she is biling ual and does learning in her other language at home (There are laws protecting bilingualism inCA schools). t-1' smother is Japanese. Mbegan to draw when she was 6 months old. Everything she did was treated as important art. By the time she was one year old she could draw better than anyone around her. Knowing that she could do something better than anyone, even better than the ever-competent giants around her, emboldened her strokes. In other areas it gave her the confidence to try something difficult, then to continue until she could do it well. At one year of age she was given an easel and some tempera paints. On her second birthday she got non-toxic acrylics, the medium she has preferred since. She enjoyed painting so much that she began calling herself an art i st. We became curious about other children artists so we checked out the children's art scene in San Francisco where we were then living. We made the surprising discovery that 11 is a child artist who does not paint children's art. Her work would look absurdly out of place in a show of children's art. Especial ly so since she began using acry lics because it is always assumed that children's art should be done \~ith water colors. For obvi ous reasons acrylics are easier to use than poster paints or tem pera but they cost more. I know people who make 5 or 6 times my
2
subsistence wage who tell me they With his letter the father can't afford acrylics for their sent me some reproductions of M's children. What this really means early work, five paintings done is that they think children can't between the ages of 26 and 38 do anything worth that much. months. They were printed in Jap Probing deeper in this di an, perhaps by some museum, in rection via an understanding of connection with a show on child ren's art. I am guessing, but adultism might begin to explain what I mean when I say that much they look like the postcards of of what is known as children's paintings that one can buy in mu art is an adult invention. seums. The paintings themselves In all the contacts we have are stunning. Three of them would had with the children's art es stop you dead in your tracks if tablishments in San Francisco and you saw them in an exhibition of Tokyo we have had nothing but un "adult" art. The colors, the pleasant experiences. They are shapes, the drawing, the design, amazed but they are even more the underlying idea of the paint s kepti ca 1. I thi nk they are hop ings, are extraordinary. I wish ing she'll turn out to be the GWS was rich enough to reproduce them. 40-year-old midget in one of your I am ready to believe that M books. (Ed. - thi s refers to an episode in ESCAPE FROM CHILDHOOD) is an exceptionally talented Finally we know they are the ene chil d. But that is what I felt my. We avoid them, scorn their when I first heard 4-6 year old nonsense books on children's art ch i ldren, students of Suzuki in ("Children will generally not be Japan, playing difficult music of Bach, Vivaldi, etc. in perfect ready :0 paint before they are 5 time and tune. Perhaps other years old"), frown back at the children might do work of equal saved missionary smiles they are beauty and power if their talents in the habit of turning on their flock. When they used to say M's were taken seriously and given scope. work was very good for her age I asked them if they would say Picasso's erotic drawings, done SCIENTISTS in his latter years, were good for his age. It is recognized that child From latest issue of OUTLOOK ren have their original imagina (see GWS #l - new address, r~ount tion destroyed in the socializing ain View Publishing Co., 2929 6th St., Boul der CO 80302, $8. 50/yr. ) process and that as adult artists they must struggle to regain it "... A three-year-old has if they are to create an original moved into a new house and has vision . There must be some way played in the sunshine on the new for people to grow up without losing this although it rarely roof. He goes downstairs to sup per and when he comes back steps happens. The most obvious thing into a changed and darkened to do is to stay out of school world. With a wondering glance and maybe to prevent their expo sure to phony children's art. One he says, 'The big shadow is all indication of what might have around.' Another three-year-old happened to M if she had been sees a thin cloud float across the moon. She watches intently, forced to go to school full time then says to herself, 'Like ice, is that when she draws at school 1ike ice.' " her drawings are stiff and unin teresting. They are like child ren's drawings are supposed to REQUIEM be, cute and easy to patronize. She also prints her signature on About eight years ago a them like the other children do. She has always signed her name in mother wrote me some very inter esting letters about her daughter cursive and has used nothing but (then about 17). She told me cursive at home since she learned about a chant that the girl, when it when she was 4 years old. two years and nine months old, She's 7 now. M's conversations about what had made up one day while swing was going on in the paintings ing on the swing, and seeing something disappear with a crunch while she was doing them were so interesting that I decided when into the mouth of her cat. (If either mother or daughter read she was 4 years old to get some of her old paintings out to talk this, I hope they will write.) The chant went like this: about them with her. She enjoyed seeing her treasures again. About Oh, we went downtown ..
the same thing she said original Downtown my mother
ly was repeated but more concise ly. She called them poems. During and r1ary Jean went .
We saw some pretty turtles,
her fifth year she began writing her poems and stories by herself. some pretty little turtles.
One of her 4 year old poems about Yes, we did. 0 yes we did!
Pretty, pretty little turtles ..
a painting described what she They wiggled and wiggled,
imagined she did when she was They wiggled their heads,
wandering around the world with They wiggled their legs,
us five years before she was And their tails they wiggled,
born: 'When I was in Mama's stom wiggled .. O! ach it was very dark so sometimes I wanted to get out. From a sec My mother buyed me ret door I was looking out of Mama's stomach through her navel. Two little turtles Two little turtles and Everywhere Mama went I was watch One little turtle made ing from my secret door. Each The other little turtle time I looked out she came to a Not lonesome .. O! new town. I saw the whole world. He was s'posed to make him That's the place I was born.' " Not lonesome .. O!
Did he make him not lonesome? NO!
He climb out, out ..
He fallon the ground .. O!
Oh, oh, oh, OH!
He climb out
Over and over AGAIN!
I just can hardly believe it!
I look
And I look
On the ground
I find that little turtle, O!
I can hardly believe it!
But he wiggle and he cli mb!
He fallout on the tab l e, O!
That ignorant little turtle!
He fallout on the floor, O!
The poor little,
The ignorant little turtle, O!
And the Poco-cat
Ate him all UP!
Bad, bad Poco!
That turtle scratch him,
He scratch him, that Poco,
In the stomach!
I think-!--
I think he scratch poco
In the stomach!
My mother will buy me
Another little turtle. Maybe.
For the GOOD little turtle to
play with. Poor, ignorant little turtle! Oh, Oh, Ohhhhh .... (Turned out later the cat hadn't eaten the turtle, who was found under the child's bed.) SMOKESCREEN
The mother who wrote, "Time Of Our Own (GWS#5) wrote later that (as so often happens) neigh bors reported to school authori ties that her children were not in school. I asked how that had all worked out. She replied;
hill. An ll-year-old boy, playing nearby, also saw the car, dashed across the street, ran alongside and reached through the window. He ma naged to turn the wheel enough to get the car off the street, where it rolled a little way and then stopped, occupants unhurt. Had it continued to roll down the street it would have almost certainly have struck another car or crashed into a building at the foot of the hill. In talking to police offi cers later the boy's mother ex plained that her son had been home that day because he had been suspended from school, and she hoped the incident would en able him to start feeling better about himself again. And I wonder - how can we as a society allow suchlhUrt and damage to be done to a child that it takes such an exhibit of in credibly quick thinking and self less courage to even begin to think about repairing the hurt? 0, now 6, stood at the edge of the garden the other day, cheeks pink and eyes round, her yellow hair je\"leled with mist, and asked, in a voice to match that delicate fragileness, "Mommy , do bi rds have bi rthdays?" With what fragile and tenta tive fingers of curiosity do children make friends with the world! And with what clumsy thoughtless responses do we pun ish and inhibit such adventuring imaginations, pushing them back inside the straight-walled edges of our adult percepti ons. I try to imagine what response her question would have met in a first-grade classroom, and I can only shudder .... " EINSTEIN'S QUESTIONS
"No excitement, which is good news. After being turned in last winter (we got out of that one because the oldest wasn't yet at the compulsory age in this state) we decided to do a little smokescreening, so enrolled them at a private school, and they started school in September like everyone else, as visibly and audibly as we could manage - new clothes, lunchboxes, much talking about it with neighbors, etc. Then we quietly pulled them out. We don't do anything foolish, like let them wander allover the neighborhood or go to town in the middle of the day, and so far, so good. I think the private school tactic was good, not only for the obvious reason, but because it offers us a broader margin of safety with the neighbors' sus picions. Holidays, 'early dismis sals,' even 'special programs' are all unknown to the neighbor hood - much more is 'legitimate' before it becomes reason for sus picion - like being seen not in school at an odd time. The other day I heard this little tidbit on the radio, one of those 'human interest' news spots; A mother had parked her car on a steep hill, leaving a baby and a 5-year- old inside while she ran a quick errand. Suddenly she saw the car rolling down the
Someone (I once read some where) asked Einstein how he had got started on the train of thought that 1ed to the Tileory of Relativity. He said that it had begun with two questions that he had asked himself, and couldn't stop wondering about. One was, "What does it really mean to say that two things happen at the same time?" The other was, "If I were riding through space on the front of a beam of light, what would I see, how \"Iould things look? " Most people, I would guess, would call the first question ob vious and the second one silly. It would be a rare science class indeed in which either question would be taken seriously, or Ein stein encouraged in his efforts to answer them. And indeed, his teachers (I have been told) gen erally reported him as being dull and a dreamer. "TESTING" ADULTS
In his very good new book, GROWING WITH YOUR CHILDREN (see GWS #8), Herb Ko hl - like just about everyone who writes about children - says that they have to keep testing adults in order to fi nd 1imi ts. I don't agree. They do it all the time, no question about that. But I don't think they have to do it, and J don't grow; n9 wi thout schoo 1i ng *9
3
think we ought to let them do it. There are other and better ways to find out the ru l es of family life and huma n society. One year, when I was teach ing fifth grade, I had a boy in my class who had been kicked out of his loca l publ ic schoo l s - no small feat. He was a perfectly ordinary l ook i ng, middle- si zed, middle- class white kid, didn't pull knives or throw furniture, no Blackboard Jungle stuff. It took me a whi l e to understand ~ the public schools had shown him the door. In a word, he was an agitator, always stirring things up. One day, when everyone was trying to do something, I forget what, and he was trying to pre vent them, or get them to do something else, I turned on him and shouted in exasperation, "Are you ~ to make me sore at you?" To my great surprise, and his (judgi ng from his voice), he sa i d, "Yes . " It took me a while to un~erstand, or at least to guess, that he had learned from experience that the only way he could be sure of getting the un divided attention of other ~eo ple, children or adults, was to make them sore at him. As the year went on, he improved, became only difficult instead of impossible. But he was still a long way from being at peace with himself - the roots of hi s problem were deeper than I or my class could reach in a year. Our school only went through sixth grade; what became of him later I don't know. t4eanwhi le, he had taught me something valuable. At about that time I was be ginning to know the interesting but angry and difficult child of a friend. One day I was at their house, talking with his mother about something important to both of us . The boy kept interrupting, more even than usual. I knew by then that children hate to be shut out of adult talk, and tried from time to time to let this boy have a chance to speak . But on this day it was clear that he was trying to keep us from talking at all. Finally, looking right at him, I said, not angrily but just curiously, "Are you trying to annoy me?" Startl ed into honesty, like the other boy, by a question he had perhaps never really asked himself, he smiled sheepish ly and said, "Yes." I said, still pleas antly, "Well, that's OK. Tell you what let's do. Let's playa game. You do everything you can think of to annoy me, and I'll do everything I can think of to annoy you, and we'll see who wins. OK?" He looked at me for a while - he knew me well enough by this time to know that I would play this "game" in earnest. He considered for a while how it might go . A look at his mother showed that, for the time being at least, he could not expect much help from her if the game went against him. Finally he said, "No, I don't want to play." "Fine," I said. "Then let us have our conversation, and you and I can talk later." Which is what happened. That was many years ago. From many encounters I have since had with many children, I have growfng without schooling 19
come to believe ver~ strongly that children as young as five and perhaps even three are well able to understand the idea of "testing" - doing something to someone else or in front of someone else, just to see what that other person will do - and to understand that this is not good. If I thought a child was doing this to me, I would say, "Are you testing me, just dOing that to see what I will do?" If the child said Yes I would say, "Well, I don't l i ke that, it's not nice and I don't want you to do it. I don't do th i ngs to Y2!!., especially things I know you don't like, just to see what Y2!!. will do. Then it's not fair for you to do that to me." Children like big words; I would introduce them to the word "experiment." If they tested me, I would say, "You're doing an experiment on me." If they said, "What's exper iment?" I would say, "If I pulled your hair to see how hard I could pull it before you began to cry, that would be an experiment." I might go on to say that it's OK to do experiments with things, trying to stand blocks on top of each other, or mixing paints to see what color you get, and so on. But it isn't nice, it's very bad, to do experiments on people, unless you ask them first and they say it's all right. It's especially bad to do experiments on them that you know they don't 1ike. Where the line is between good experiments and bad - not an easy one for adult scientists to find, even those who look for it - is something that slightly older children might find very interesting to talk about. We would probably agree that hurting animals just to see what will happen - which some people do is bad. What about trying out medicines on animals to see which ones work, or work best, or maybe hurt the animals in other ways? What about making animals sick so that we can tryout medicines on them and see whether any of them make them better? These questions are worth talking about. Finally, I would say to children, "Do what seems inter esting, or exciting, or fun wha tever you vlant to do. If I think some of those things are unkind, or destructive, or dan gerous, I'll tell you, and ask you not to do them. But don't do things just to see what I'll say. As I said, I think children are perfectly able to understand these ideas, to see that they are fair, and to act upon them. When they do, it will make our lives together much easier. II
--
ON AN ISLAND
Gail 1·1yles, 341 Locke Rd . , Rye NH 03870, writes: ... In August, 1977, I moved with my three sons to an island we own off the coast of Maine. This decision was the result of my husband's and my opinion that they were not learning in public or private schools. Because we were taking them out of N.H. we had no hassle from the school district. I have worked as a vol
unteer for several years in the Rye schools and informed the teachers and principals of the plans. Many teachers agreed this was a good idea . We sent to the Calvert School for their courses and had to have the boys take a placement test. Here was our second con firmation of their not learning in the schools they'd been at tending. Bud (13) was to be in 8th grade and was placed by Cal vert in 7th only because I prom ised I could bring him up to level; Mike (11), a straight A student was placed in 4th, when he should have gone to 6th; and Tim (8), who was the only son who I knew had a love for 1ea rn ing still within him, was placed at grade level - third. The boys were greatly dis turbed at the prospect of this adventure. I found the Count of Monte Cristo's earlier experien ces in prison very applicable to their "trauma." They were to live four seasons through exper iences only alluded to by Outward Bound programs and alone with only unmechanical t10m. Dad would visit when possible, perhaps once a month for a couple of days. That was the situation and we stayed till April 1978. But it would take the equivalent of a novel to tell you of the benefits of the total experience and the tremendous heartbreaks upon our readjustment to the "hard knocks" of "real" life. What you have been saying in the books and GWS is true but there is so much more. We now have three boys, 15, 13, & 10, who know there is a better way. Learning can be exciting, in fact one of the most exciting things we ever do. It only takes an in terest in a matter and someone who will answer or learn with us the answer. It takes two to ten hours a week to do the busy work for certification. Learning goes on every minute of our lives. I never expected the boys to express any appreciation for this experi ence. I fi gured they mi.ght be sitting at a lunch with some business friends when they were thirty and mention the year. What I couldn't have predicted is that they would see the difference so soon. They learned to dig clams with the clammers of Maine, the salt of the earth, in forty deg rees below chill factors, they lived through situations where everyone takes responsibility for the lives of each other, they came to like and understand opera because it was available to us through Texaco broadcasts, an interest none of US had prior to this, they learned that out of the eight unexpected puppies born five had to be destroyed because of the food shortage, and probab ly the best thing they learned was to get along with themselves and each other. They had to, be cause there was no one else and if you want something from some one you have to give in return. That should take care of this "soc i al life" garbage. To feel your worth in an adult world side by side with hard working people, is there a better reward? I don't think so. They even had tears at departing from this small coastal community they knew as "in town." t~y rewards were beyond meas
ure. NO yellow monster took my favorite friends away every morn ing; when they were exposed to a new vocabulary word I could use it pertinently in everyday hap penings, if we wanted to know molecular theory we could work from g AM to 4 PM till it click ed, everything they were exposed to in Calvert Curriculum was learned by all, they spent early evenings putting on operas they made up, shows for Dad's pleasure were presented, sometimes taking three days just to prepare the staging. We read books, books, and books till 1 AM and no one had to be up at 6:30 for the mon ster. An additional reward was the result of the history, litera ture, mythology, and architecture we were exposed to; we went to Athens, Greece, in April, a trip we would never have been inter ested enough in taking or felt a need to take if "doors" hadn't been opened to us. Bud came to love the Parthenon and had to see it. Tim was a walking encyclope dia on mythology and gave Jack and me the tour in the Archaeo logical Museum, and Mike was our history guide - we didn't even need a Greek service. Mike is also a gifted writer, and after reading his final composition for Calvert the teacher said she wished she could fly up to meet him, said he knew what writing was all about - she wanted to fly to Troy and Greece as his subject was the Trojan War. He had made her feel something inside. -r-enjoyed the Calvert sys tem. Their writers are excellent and really speak to the kids. It was a personal relationship in which they looked forward to hearing from someone who was wri ting to them. Letters were scarce and they learned the value of the written word. But I must say we used the curriculum to our needs and interests and only took the grading so that the boys would not be denied the credit upon returning to public school. This was completely their choice they are encouraged to set polic ies regarding their futures. Not knowing the courses well, I went to the island with out a large set of reference books and I negelcted to bring Shakespeare with us. In one of Mike's history chapters there was a reference to "the noblest Roman of them all . " In order to get the point of the title the student was to read the particular scene of Julius Caesar. Mike was furi ous that he couldn't get his hands on that play and I am sure he would have read a great deal of it if I had had it available. Now when we returned to Rye Tim was still finishing up his course and had touches of history offer ed to him. In each case he would jump to Mike's book, nice paper back, and read more on that event. When he read this partic ular chapter we had the play available and he and I read it with great interest. That's when you present Shakespeare to a g year old! ... Bud went on in June to grad uate with his 8th grade but not without hassle, hassle, hassle from the local bureaucrats. Mike was practically a peptic ulcer victim from the intimidations he