Posted on 06/08/2011 9:23:48 AM PDT by MegaSilver
Children don't like school because they love freedom.
Someone recently referred me to a book that they thought I'd like. It's a 2009 book, aimed toward teachers of grades K through 12, titled Why Don't Students Like School? It's by a cognitive scientist named Daniel T. Willingham, and it has received rave reviews by countless people involved in the school system. Google the title and author and you'll find pages and pages of doting reviews and nobody pointing out that the book totally and utterly fails to answer the question posed by its title.
Willingham's thesis is that students don't like school because their teachers don't have a full understanding of certain cognitive principles and therefore don't teach as well as they could. They don't present material in ways that appeal best to students' minds. Presumably, if teachers followed Willingham's advice and used the latest information cognitive science has to offer about how the mind works, students would love school.
Talk about avoiding the elephant in the room!
Ask any schoolchild why they don't like school and they'll tell you. "School is prison." They may not use those words, because they're too polite, or maybe they've already been brainwashed to believe that school is for their own good and therefore it can't be prison. But decipher their words and the translation generally is, "School is prison."
Let me say that a few more times: School is prison. School is prison. School is prison. School is prison. School is prison.
Willingham surely knows that school is prison. He can't help but know it; everyone knows it. But here he writes a whole book entitled "Why Don't Students Like School," and not once does he suggest that just possibly they don't like school because they like freedom, and in school they are not free.
I shouldn't be too harsh on Willingham. He's not the only one avoiding this particular elephant in the room. Everyone who has ever been to school knows that school is prison, but almost nobody says it. It's not polite to say it. We all tiptoe around this truth, that school is prison, because telling the truth makes us all seem so mean. How could all these nice people be sending their children to prison for a good share of the first 18 years of their lives? How could our democratic government, which is founded on principles of freedom and self-determination, make laws requiring children and adolescents to spend a good portion of their days in prison? It's unthinkable, and so we try hard to avoid thinking it. Or, if we think it, we at least don't say it. When we talk about what's wrong with schools we pretend not to see the elephant, and we talk instead about some of the dander that's gathered around the elephant's periphery.
But I think it is time that we say it out loud. School is prison.
If you think school is not prison, please explain the difference.
The only difference I can think of is that to get into prison you have to commit a crime, but they put you in school just because of your age. In other respects school and prison are the same. In both places you are stripped of your freedom and dignity. You are told exactly what you must do, and you are punished for failing to comply. Actually, in school you must spend more time doing exactly what you are told to do than is true in adult prisons, so in that sense school is worse than prison.
At some level of their consciousness, everyone who has ever been to school knows that it is prison. How could they not know? But people rationalize it by saying (not usually in these words) that children need this particular kind of prison and may even like it if the prison is run well. If children don't like school, according to this rationalization, it's not because school is prison, but is because the wardens are not kind enough, or amusing enough, or smart enough to keep the children's minds occupied appropriately.
But anyone who knows anything about children and who allows himself or herself to think honestly should be able to see through this rationalization. Children, like all human beings, crave freedom. They hate to have their freedom restricted. To a large extent they use their freedom precisely to educate themselves. They are biologically prepared to do that. That's what many of my previous posts have been about (for an overview, see my July 16, 2008, post). Children explore and play, freely, in ways designed to learn about the physical and social world in which they are developing. In school they are told they must stop following their interests and, instead, do just what the teacher is telling them they must do. That is why they don't like school.
As a society we could, perhaps, rationalize forcing children to go to school if we could prove that they need this particular kind of prison in order to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to become good citizens, to be happy in adulthood, and to get good jobs. Many people, perhaps most people, think this has been proven, because the educational establishment talks about it as if it has. But, in truth, it has not been proven at all.
In fact, for decades, families who have chosen to "unschool" their children, or to send them to the Sudbury Valley School (which is, essentially, an "unschool" school) have been proving the opposite (see, for example, my August 13, 2008, post). Children who are provided the tools for learning, including access to a wide range of other people from whom to learn, learn what they need to know--and much more--through their own self-directed play and exploration. There is no evidence at all that children who are sent to prison come out better than those who are provided the tools and allowed to use them freely. How, then, can we continue to rationalize sending children to prison?
I think the educational establishment deliberately avoids looking honestly at the experiences of unschoolers and Sudbury Valley because they are afraid of what they will find. If school as prison isn't necessary, then what becomes of this whole huge enterprise, which employs so many and is so fully embedded in the culture (see my posts on Why Schools Are What they Are)?
Willingham's book is in a long tradition of attempts to bring the "latest findings" of psychology to bear on issues of education. All of those efforts have avoided the elephant and focused instead on trying to clean up the dander. But as long as the elephant is there, the dander just keeps piling up.
In a future post I'll talk about some of the history of psychology's failed attempts to improve education. Every new generation of parents, and every new batch of fresh and eager teachers, hears or reads about some "new theory" or "new findings" from psychology that, at long last, will make schools more fun and improve learning. But none of it has worked. And none of it will until people face the truth: Children hate school because in school they are not free. Joyful learning requires freedom.
Is this your experience? It sounds like mine.
At 21 when I graduated college I really came to resent the 19 years I’d spent in INSTITUTIONS, following orders. I could not turn around and go straight to grad school. Ohhh, the crap I got from my family. But I just couldn’t take it any more.
I eventually did go get a master’s but not for a decade. I’ve learned more on my own and from reading than I ever did in schools.
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Institutional schools **waste** enormous amounts of the child's precious time!
And...Where are the studies that definitively separate out what is learned in the classroom from that which is learned due to the parents and child's efforts in the HOME??? Where are the studies that prove schools work? How much learning is really due to **afterschooling**??? We spend ( on average) $13,000 a year per child and there are NO studies that actually **PROVE** that it is the prison-like government institutional schools that teach children anything at all! Nearly all of what a child learns could be entirely due to his own efforts and that of his parents!
My homeschoolers rarely spent more than 2 hours a day in formal ( at the kitchen table) schooling. The rest of the day they were free to play. Having watched this important activity I am now convinced that play, both large muscle activities and fine motor skills, are a **vital** part of childhood. It was through play that they learned how to direct intense concentration for hours, days, weeks, and even years, on a singular project.
Gradually their play became their adult work!
All three finished all general college courses and Calculus III by the age of 15. Two earned B.S. degrees in mathematics by the age of 18. The oldest became world class athlete and represented the U.S. in competitions around the world. He worked for a few years for our church in Eastern Europe and speaks Russian fluently. Although he attended college part-time he will earn his masters in accounting at an age typical of those who have been imprisoned for their schooling. All of the children are outstanding ballroom dancers. All play an instrument. All sing in the church choir. One is now the pianist for her congregation.
Why, again, are you telling me this?
Charles Murray has a good idea: Qualifying exams!
We could start immediately by awarding an official state high school diploma ( from the local high school) to any child who passes the GED. The child should be allowed to take it at **any** age. ( In my state only those who are older than 18 have “permission” to take this exam.) An official high school diploma makes getting college scholarships and admission to the military far more straight forward.
Qualifying exams could start in the first grade. When a child mastered a specific subject and passed the qualifying exam, he would be immediately promoted to the next level in that specific subject.
Courses could be offered on-line. The course material and, even the exams, could be free to the student if the producers of the material accepted advertising.
Benefits:
Children could begin their life's work sooner and gain more experience and earn more money over a lifetime.
State budgets would be greatly relieved since government schooling is the largest single budget item on all state and local budgets. The more responsibility that a child takes for his own education the leaves the fewer teachers and buildings that would be needed.
Qualifying exams, with Internet courses on-line, would encourage parents and children to take responsibility for their own education. It would also encourage a cottage industry in private tutoring.
Employers would have certifiable evidence that job applicants could read and do basic arithmetic.
By the way.....Unless a child could pass the GED he would not graduate from high school. I would also require that all government teachers take this exam every 3 years. ( Most, today, would likely fail the math portion.)
Excuse me? Why are you so special that I should know who you are among the thousands of people who post here on Free Republic, or whether or not you ( in particular) have previously read a similar post of mine?
I am responding to a **public** post that you made. Since this is a public forum, you should expect comments. My comments are not only directed to you, personally, but to other members of this very public forum. One of the unique benefits, and purposes, of a public forum such as Free Republic is the wide dissemination of conservative ideas. ( Is a “duh” needed here?)
If you do not wish to have responses to your posts from me or others ( most of which are not going to be directed to you personally but for the enlightenment of the group), I suggest that you use the private mail option available.
Now that you have made a minor snit about it, I will try to remember the name, “La Lydia”. Yes! “La Lydia”, “La Lydia”, “La Lydia”..... Maybe I an others will remember it for the next five minutes.
Sorry, but your post didn’t seem to be in response to anything I said. At all. I understand you like the chance to brag on your children, we all do. But this is supposed to be a conversation, not a monologue. Sorry I missed a chance to be enlightened by you.
That ain't what THEY say!
4 years in the service will do WONDERS for the ability to finish college!
As I drive by our prison-like government schools, I know that likely the top 10% could be finished with their college educations ( like so many homeschoolers, such as mine) instead of languishing in these pits of ignorance.
(As the advertisements states, “ A mind is a terrible thing to waste!” )
I still have no idea what you mean. I did not mention institutionalized children. Nor did I mention government schools. Nor did I mention advertising. Are you sure you are responding to the right posts? Or is there some hidden message here that I am not able to decode?
Well, I see what you mean, but there are better and worse methods of home schooling as well. One savvy American home schooling advocate suggested that parents wait until age 7 or 8 before beginning "formal" lessons. Moreover, there is definitely a social and psychological difference between a mother and father compelling their children and a state-run institution doing so.
My daughter who attends public schools love school. She is sad when the school year ends. Why, mostly because of her friends, but she also loves learning.
A most excellent piece of news. I don't believe all school is bad, but I do believe thar overall compulsory school attendance has been largely detrimental to society. It seems that your daughter has entered the right school for her at the right age, and that is terrific. Regrettably, our uniform Skinner box method of leveling the playing field does not work so well for all children and destroys the lives of many.
I have been through public school, home school and private school. Of all these, I can definitely say home school was by far the most productive and most memorable.
I eventually did go get a master’s but not for a decade. I’ve learned more on my own and from reading than I ever did in schools.
I was really sick of schooling by the time I finished my bachelor degree, as well, but you know what? I am very grateful for my university experience. I do think it was overly costly and that for a number of classes I had learned all the material on my own (I read history), but the whole academic campus environment and the proximity of a cosmopolitan world (I went to U of Miami) allowed me at the same time access to a vast pool of intellectual resources and the opportunity to observe societal forces in the real world.
I think that, so far as the USA is concerned at least, the recent trends of focusing on test performance above all else (especially with Leave No Child Behind) have really worked to the detriment of children's education. Education is about more than learning facts or intellectual techniques: it is about integrating a mindset, a worldview, a language of life and a moral compass.
(And of course now you can see the Catholic in me starting to surface.)
This reminds me of the essay about Tiger Mothers (Asian mothers). When kids complain about being made to practice an instrument, the mothers force them to continue because NOTHING is fun until you MASTER it! (Interesting essay if you haven't read it!)
I believe that all kids hate school at some point, especially if they are frustrated at not being able to do something they want to do. For instance, I teach children with special education students in middle school to read. In 6th grade, universally they HATE reading, with a passion. Of course they do! Reading is actually painful to them. It takes a whole lot of patience and practice for them to master this skill. By 8th grade, most of them don't love reading, but at least they like it, and they are proud when they read in class out loud.
But one question...since when is what a kid with an underdeveloped frontal lobe the one 'in charge' of what should happen to them? What happened to the adults being in charge? Curiously, I don't remember my parents talking about how their parents 'cared' about anything they wanted.
I tend to agree to some extent that arguments based on “what children want” alone hold little sway.
In this case, however, there is a difference.
First of all, schooling was not compulsory for the vast majority of society’s children throughout most of the history of Western Civilization, INCLUDING those times when parents acted more authoritatively than most of them do today.
Second, formal universal schooling is used as a political brainwashing tool by governments and lobbyists to undermine the authority and influence of parents and clergy. In many American States, P.C. teachers’ unions impose trendy pop repertoires on English departments so that a student finishes high school with little or no notion of traditional Western or Anglo-American folklore or literature. In France, the leftist government of the Third Republic invented universal public schools with a deliberate anti-clerical pedagogy from first through last level to make students at best indifferent to the Catholic faith of their parents.
In both cases, parents who can afford costly private religious schools have the means to shield their children from a system of brainwashing using their tax dollars and bearing an efficiency worthy of a Communist state. Those who cannot run a huge risk of losing future generations of posterity to ignorance and irreligion. There are smart and morally strong young people who can resist the harm done by public schools and turn out very well in spite of all that, but having watched the results in the form of my younger brother’s friends, I have to conclude these are a minority.
Third, with compulsory schooling, there is too much demand for teachers—and there will never be enough supply. Good teachers, especially at the elementary level, are relatively rare and especially at the lower levels need more qualities than intelligence or even pedagogical prowess. I have come to believe that even a cretin of a mother could do a better job on her children than many of the wenches in public (and even some private) schools do.
Fourth, they are never satisfied. School takes up an increasingly large chunk of children’s time, homework assignments are scandalously long—when I was in high school, my mother (the proud product of Catholic sisters from first through twelfth and a highly successful M.S. in chemical engineering) balked at the homework load I bore—at the expense of leisure time and SLEEP, sure, but especially of physical activity. No wonder American children are becoming obese!
FIFTH... since all of us here (I assume, I hope) value freedom, let’s address the compulsion point. Yes, to survive, one must do things one is not particularly keen on doing. But there is a difference, for example between a parent forcing a child to go get a paper route and a parent withholding pocket money so that the child who wants it, as most children do, will go looking for odd jobs to earn it.
Moreover, there has been a parallel drawn between school and work. Let us remember, though, that in pre-industrial England those who worked for wages were considered “servants.” The legal and political implications of this servitude, however voluntary, were that the servant was disenfranchised on the grounds that he could not vote objectively with his own interests (his livelihood) tied so closely to his master’s. In other words, he was not considered fully “free,” morally speaking.
I’m not saying we need to go back to that system, but we should certainly contemplate whether a compulsory confinement system designed to prepare children for a lifetime of what we once called “servitude” is really becoming of a free people. Is this luxurious economic structure good for the soul and for society? How much control do we really have over our own lives?
Bismarck had a conservative streak and some classical notions of good statesmanship to him—on both grounds, unlike the Roosevelts—but in salvaging the particularity of Prussia he attempted to impose it, top-down and in draconian fashion, upon all of Germany.
Thank you for mentioning these points. The history of anything is really that thing itself and tends to go a long way toward explaining why it is the way it is.
I'm going to remember this one!
If I accept all of these as truths, and I do, then that leads me to the obvious conclusion that while, yes, there IS compulsory attendance, the parent can shape that attendance to what they believe is appropriate for their own child. So if kids are in school and it is considered a 'prison' the parents are responsible for that act.
So if a parent agrees with their child that school is prison like, then home school them. It takes only 2- 3 hours a day, cost less than $1000 a year (less than buying supplies, school lunches, paying for field trips), is better for the environment, and produces an outstanding product. These are all facts I have read dozens, if not hundreds of times here on FR, and I beleve every one of them.
I am in full agreement. My mother is, as well. Still, the compulsory school attendance rule wrecks havoc on society and culture as it lends a prestige to standard universal schooling that the institution does not deserve. Large numbers of Americans are still opposed in principle to home schooling and the teachers' union would love to outlaw or restrict the practice.
We have got to spread the message far and wide that not only is home school a better option in the vast majority of cases, but that not everyone needs a high school or university diploma for what he will do in life. If people can come to terms with these truths, we will gradually chip away at the NEA's near-monopoly on thought training of the next generation.
I can think of nothing better in life than to have no public schools --- tomorrow --- and all 5 million (or however many minors there are) under the tender loving care of the custodial parents. Positively the best possible outcome for greatness! Look at how well it worked before public schools were compulsory! We are collective idiots for tolerating the monstrosity of public schools for this long!
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