school is out forever

A few days ago I published the video of my 2006 gubernatorial debate, primarily because in it I discussed my proposal to allow tax deductions for scholarships to schools chosen by parents and students. For me that plan would be a huge step in the right direction treating growing, exploring, individuals as that, rather than cogs to be forged by a government monolith.

That article and debate video are here:
2006 Idaho governor candidate debate

Today my FEE newsletter arived with two links to great articles on education. I share excerpts and links with you.

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What Happens When You Ask Unschoolers “What They Want to Be When They Grow Up”
“Real life” isn’t something to be postponed.
by Kerry McDonald

My daughter is a baker. When people ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she responds breezily: “A baker, but I already am one.”

You see, with unschooling there is no postponement of living and doing. There is no preparation for some amorphous future, no working toward something unknown.

There is simply life.

There Is No “After” in Unschooling

To ask what a child wants to be when she grows up is to dismiss what she already is.

The question of what a child wants to be when she grows up is a curious one well-rooted in our schooled society. Disconnected from everyday living and placed with same-age peers for the majority of her days and weeks, a schooled child learns quickly that “real life” starts after. It starts after all of the tedium, all of the memorizing and regurgitating, all of the command and control. It starts after she is told what to learn, what to think, whom to listen to. It starts after her natural creativity and instinctive drive to discover her world are systematically destroyed within a coercive system designed to do just that. She must wait to be.

With unschooling, there is no after. There is only now. My daughter is a baker because she bakes. She is also many other things. To ask what a child wants to be when she grows up is to dismiss what she already is, what she already knows, what she already does.

CLICK THE LINK. THERE IS MUCH MORE TO THIS ARTICLE
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This relates directly to the destruction of creativity in the masses, which is one of the great losses to humanity. Waiting until we have spent the dozen or more years of our exploratory youth BEFORE we undertake expression of who we are almost guarantees a homogeneous gray populace … conveniently designed to be employees to a ruling class.

Lists of people who escaped that factory are impressive. I encourage you to scan these two from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_music_prodigies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_prodigies

So much can be accomplished by children loosed to pursue their interests and passions. So much lost to a society that stifles it.

Some of us survive the Prussian youth training model with some of our exploratory curiosity intact. It would be wonderful if more could, but better still if there weren’t such a system crushing individuality in the first place.

Even if you weren’t unschooled, you can still rediscover your flow by deschooling yourself, which entails reuniting work, learning, and play. This following article discusses a way out that is available to all of us at any age and station in life.

I deliver a small excerpt from the following article. Again, the link gets you to FEE and the whole enchilada.

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How School Stole Your Flow
And how to get it back.