Weapons of Mass Instruction

by Paul Rathgeb

When it comes to education, people are fed up. Modern education has come down to a limited set of choices, like Pepsi or Coke, or Wal-mart or Costco. And with the indoctrination of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Act, and more recently his endorsement of "Intelligent Design" theory, state schooling is fast becoming a less enticing choice for our children's education, provoking many people to seek other alternatives.

People at the forefront of the alternative education movement traveled around the globe to Albany, NY, this past summer. They were there to attend a conference titled "A Spectrum of Alternatives." In a five-day open forum of workshops, meetings, lectures, and dialogue, everyone put on their thinking caps to take a critical look at the pattern of state schooling and to share in the abundance of current alternatives available in education.

Folks traveled from as far as Washington state, and even Nepal and South Africa, representing about 85 unique schools which have emerged from "one size fits all" monopolized education, or what speaker John Taylor Gatto at the conference referred to as, "weapons of mass instruction."

Hosted by the Alternative Education Resource Organization (www.educationrevolution.org), this was the third annual conference at the Russell Sage Campus. The purpose, according to the founder and host Jerry Mintz, was "to get dialog started amongst a variety of educational alternatives." Workshop topics included Montessori, Waldorf, and Sudbury models, Modern Schools, Free Schools, Eco-villages, Home Learning, and a few models that are barely on the map yet, but fit the mold of non-compulsory learning.

Nothing on the topic of "alternative education" was left out of the mix, with a hodge-podge of free-range workshops, panels, films, and social gatherings in between, to tie up any loose strings. People at the conference were interested in putting education back into culture. Many were there to celebrate the diversity of multiple creative places where youth thrive, in non-coercive, non-hierarchical environments, free from a paternalistic and centralized body ruling from above.

And whatever was on one's mind was placed on the board each morning for people to facilitate their own workshops. "Open workshops" happened--often spontaneously--around the core agenda, nothing was stymied by structure and nothing was obligated, otherwise these folks would have bailed.

Ideas were flying, thoughts were raised, and comments were challenged over the grand subject of "education." And if you didn't learn anything from this conference, then you weren't breathing. Yes, there was debate, controversy, and compassion, yet most shared in a real human desire to help facilitate more options than the narrow choices offered by traditional schooling. The participants strove to solidify a supportive network for small-scale community-governed schools.

As Tim Seldin, president of the Montessori organization, tactfully stated during his presentation, "The wisest people to govern schools are the collective community." Matt Hern, who operates the Purple Thistle Center in Vancouver, Canada and authored the book "Field Day," summed it up by saying that there is no "body of central knowledge" which holds all things for all kids within the education model. He said basically that "one size does not fit all.... The question we need to be asking our kids is 'What do you need to thrive?' and this is different everyday." Hern called "teaching" an "impediment," a process of filling kids with data. "Once we remove ourselves from being subjective actors, we get real teaching.... The best teaching is to reveal yourself," Hern commented.

At the conference there were a variety of documentaries which captured the human spirit of having full sovereignty when it comes to learning. Day one included a film documentary on a teen-unionized homeless program in India called "Butterflies." Butterflies is owned and operated by the youth, as many of them hold jobs within the community and voluntarily contribute a portion of their hard earned money to cover some of the costs of the resources and classes, which are provided through the Butterflies program. They are a completely autonomous group, having the ability to come and go at will, while making their own educational choices.

Other documentary films shown were from the Albany Free School and Fairhaven School, two independent schools where youth participate in direct democratic decision making processes, are not held to a curriculum, do not takes tests, and yet all succeed in learning.

Following the Albany film, some of the student graduate attendees joined in a panel discussion. "I really learned what democratic education was, I lived it," said an Albany Free School student, in response to a question from the audience. Any student at one of these schools can "call" a meeting, to settle a sticky issue or concern. These documentaries were true testimonies as to how youth can naturally solve problems, without imposition from adult authority.

Alfie Kohn, who took stage with his slick wit, about midway through the conference, argued for a different kind of structure for schools. Kohn speaks widely on human behavior, education, and parenting as an author of several books. Kohn divides educational ideologies down the middle, one type based on control, the "authoritarian type," and the other based on freedom. He finds himself an advocate for an ideal of having a model of structure in which the teacher "is to be more involved, not less; more involved in the direction of provoking and sparking kids."

Gatto got the last word as a speaker at the conference, and it was rightfully deserved, as he spent 30 years as a public school teacher in New York, and has written a massively bombastic book titled, "The Underground History of American Education."

Gatto made reference to compulsory schooling as the "flea principal." Fleas trapped inside a dish will attempt to leap out, while continually bouncing off of a sealed lid. With the lid sealed tight for a while and later removed, the fleas no longer continue to jump out. He compared that idea to the way schools teach kids "not to jump" so to speak.

He went on to describe traditional schools as places which inhibit natural movement. Gatto also said that "misdirection is another example of weapons of mass instruction," referring to the phenomenon of keeping people away from insights that could change their lives, as another principal agenda of state schooling.

He said if you trick people 12 or older into being "children," rather the men and women who ought to have full sovereignty over making their choices, you're doing a great deal of harm, whether you have a democratic school or any kind of school. Gatto said, "It's schooling that causes the damage. There are better and worse kinds of schooling, but schooling itself is such an evil, unless you watch what you are doing all the time."

The common echo heard throughout the conference was that schools need to happen on a grassroots level within the community they serve. Schooling can no longer be entrusted to be the exclusive domain of "experts."

A common thread at this conference was that more and more people are turned off by a curriculum-driven approach, and are turning towards a more child-centered approach to learning. Perhaps this is where, even as adults out of school, we tend to thrive best, when education does not become a managed commodity.

Well over two million people homeschool their children and over 12,000 schools are creating more than a cookie-cutter approach to education. There is an alternative movement happening, as people simply want more independence, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and control over their own education. And judging by the tremendous energy of the crowd in a small campus in Albany, New York this early summer, the revolution in education is just getting warmed up.

Paul Rathgeb is the publisher of Natural Learning, a journal for teens and adults published at Olympia Community Free School (www.olympiafreeschool.org).