a portal to articles, commentary, and online resources pertaining to learning, educational and intellectual liberty, and the separation of school and state
"The first article of a bill of rights for a modern, humanist society would correspond to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: 'The State shall make no law with respect to the establishment of education.'
There shall be no ritual obligatory for all." Ivan Illich
"A person's freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech." John Holt
Sugata Mitra: Can Kids Teach Themselves?
Via TED Talks: "Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?"
Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity… Full bio and more links More videos »
" If it would be wrong for the government to adopt an official religion, then, for the same reasons, it would be wrong for the government to adopt official education policies. The moral case for freedom of religion stands or falls with that for freedom of education. A society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of explaining to do." James R. Otteson Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling
Training
David H. Albert Home Education Magazine (J/F 2009)
A requirement of being a state employee and a manager is that I attend "training." I can say with some certainty that, in terms of assisting me in doing my work better, the taxpayers are not getting their money's worth.
A Teacher Questions
Compulsory Schooling Jim Strickland
Natural Life Magazine (N/D 2008)
"Compulsory attendance laws undermine learning by creating an atmosphere of coercion, mistrust and manipulation. They do this by their very existence as the faint (or not-so faint) hum in the background of each potentially joyful moment in every classroom. We all know the best way to make anyone hate doing something is to force their compliance under threat of punishment. Learning that is meaningful, lasting and real can only take place with the consent and willing participation of the learner. One cannot teach the values of freedom and democracy using a totalitarian pedagogy. The medium is the message."
Assumption 5: "Schools Have a Noble Purpose" Wendy Priesnitz Excerpt from Challenging Assumptions in Education (2008, The Alternate Press)
"Scratch the surface of most public school systems and you will find something quite different than justice and democracy, in spite of good intentions. You will find an archaic institution, which defies everything we know about effective organizations and what we have learned about cognitive development. You will also find an institution that perpetuates social hierarchies, disempowers people and forces them to do things against their will – supposedly for their own good – while encouraging a destructive level of consumerism and consumption. If a democratic society is one in which people are collectively in control of their lives and the lives of their communities, then our present-day school systems are anti-democratic."
The Promise of Deschooling Matt Hern Social Anarchism (2001)
"It is virtually anathema in our culture, but I want to argue here that our society needs far fewer schools, not more. I believe that schools as we have conceived them in the late-20th Century are a parasite on our communities, a burden to our children and are the very essence of a hierarchical, anti-ecological culture. I further contend that dissolving the school monopoly over our kids may well hold the key to reconstructing our communities around local control and participatory democracy."
Totally Wasted Sallie Tisdale
Salon (1998)
"High school devalues teenagers' idealism, saps their creativity and is just plain boring. So why don't students want it to change?"
Why high school must go: an interview with Leon Botstein Robert Epstein
Phi Delta Kappan (2007
"Does our culture protect teens from themselves, or does it create the very irresponsibility we are trying to protect them from?"
Schooling: The Hidden Agenda Daniel Quinn
"The need for schooling is bolstered by two well-entrenched pieces of cultural mythology. The first and most pernicious of these is that children will not learn unless they're compelled to--in school. It is part of the mythology of childhood itself that children hate learning and will avoid it at all costs. Of course, anyone who has had a child knows what an absurd lie this is."
A Libertarian Solution to Evolution Education Controversy: No More Public Schools Interview with Andrew Coulson Brandon Keim
Wired Science (01.08)
"When you force people to teach a subject in a way they don't want it taught, and the school system is a political beast, which our public schools are, you're going to see the curriculum you have in mind corrupted by the political process. People campaigning for strong teaching of evolutionary biology in public schools are ignoring that this is what's purportedly been going for the last 50 years. There are no states with a theistic presentation in their classrooms. Real science is what's supposed to be taught; yet when you look at polling data, the ones who see a non-theistic, purely naturalist explanation are in the minority."
The Humanism Behind Homeschooling Theresa Willingham
"As the trend towards home education has grown since it's inception in the early 1970s . . . its liberal foundations have become buried under an avalanche of conservative rhetoric that can make a real understanding of this educational phenomenon elusive at best, and create an historical facade of misinformation at worst."
"Is it not ironical that in a planned society of controlled workers given compulsory assignments, where religious expression is suppressed, the press controlled, and all media of communication censored, where a puppet government is encouraged but denied any real authority, where great attention is given to efficiency and character reports, and attendance at cultural assemblies is mandatory, where it is avowed that all will be administered to each according to his needs and performance required from each according to his abilities, and where those who flee are tracked down, returned, and punished for trying to escape - in short in the milieu of the typical large American secondary school - we attempt to teach 'the democratic system'?"
Royce Van Norman
"School Administration: Thoughts on Organization and Purpose"
Phi Delta Kappan 47(1966):315-16
