wow...
I just got home from my first volunteer shift since July at my local crisis line. I am feeling emotionally drained. I think I'd forgotten how overwhelming other people's emotions can be at times. I took 5 calls in total. The first two and the last one were from callers contemplating suicide. The first two were from the same man, he is a regular caller, and is not seem as being high risk. The other caller was a new caller, and, beyond the suicide and the crisis that preceded her feelings, also had a lot going on in her life, in her past.
Sometimes I feel like I do as much as I can for these people, offering to listen and to be empathetic, but sometimes it just doesn't feel like enough. My task is to help them restore their own ability to cope, in the moment, and to offer referrals to community resources as appropriate. Sometimes, though, I want to be able to do more. I guess that's why I'm studying social work - so that I'll be qualified to help people over the long term, to offer interventions that, over time, actually make a difference, and maybe improve the quality of life the client is experiencing.
However, it is important to recognise that there is only so much I can do, and that what I am doing DOES make a difference, even if only slightly. I felt like I was able to help the last caller, even just by giving her a phone number to help her find a GP. However, I don't feel like I helped the first fellow. He just wanted to know how to die and said that no one would tell him how. He's depressed, it's not like Sue Rodriguez or anything, where he's fighting for the right to die with dignity. He just feels like a burden to his family. We talked about how to get through a given period of time, but he didn't seem to want to try anything, other than lying on his bed and crying. That kind of hopelessness/helplessness is so hard for me to be with, to empathize with in a meaningful way, without wanting to make some glib comment, like pull yourself together for your family. (Not helpful!)
So, despite feeling unsettled, unfocused and out of sorts, I am choosing to congratulate myself for being there as much as I can for these callers, and I am going to breathe, and do the dishes. Maybe then I will be able to focus on writing my research papers. (Next week is my last week of classes for the semesterand I have 3 papers due!)
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
more on teaching and learning
Yesterday I wrote about what teaching is to me. It was mostly in response to this radical unschooling notion that teach is somehow a bad word. The following was a comment on that blog post:
"But you aren't teaching if a kid is thirsting for the knowledge you impart...that is responding to that child's drive to learn....you can't "teach" a child whose brain is not there yet...it's developmental...one can't want to learn to read unless one is ready to read...and every child is different...."
So, firstly, I'd like to say that I'm not talking exclusively about children learning. I'm also including my own present experiences of being a 34 year old undergraduate student. I love learning, I love education. I plan to work in my chosen field for maybe 5 years, and then return to the ivory tower to earn a masters degree. I will graduate in a year and a half, which will make me about 40 when I plan to earn my MSW. I can also see myself pursuing a PhD. I can also see myself teaching at a college or university one day.
It's not just children who are learners. We learn all of our life, from formal academic teachers, from our bosses at our jobs, from workshops or conferences we attend, from our fellow employees, from our friends, from our relationships, from our children, from life. Education never ends.
Secondly, I'd like to respond to the statement, "but you aren't teaching if a kid is thirsting for the knowledge you impart."
This is, I think where I differ from the radical unschooling perspective, and I think it's a philosophical difference, that is, a matter of opinion, rather than truth. Or, that there are multiple truths out there, and no one has a monopoly on truth.
I say you can't teach anyone unless they are thirsting for knowledge, child or adult. It's like the axiom, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." But why can we not consider the leading to be teaching? I think this is a distinction, a truth, shall we say, that I will never understand.
Perhaps the distinction really is between being and doing. Perhaps these radical unschoolers are rejecting aspects of the doing of teaching, the rote, mechanical parts that sometimes occur when the teacher is not inspired, when the teacher is not being teacher.
Often, when I find myself struggling to understand something (and, like Werner Erhard said, understanding is the booby prize!), I often find myself turning to the dictionary, thinking, "just what, exactly, does that word really mean?
So I'd like to share something from my dictionary about the word teach:
And then from my dictionary about the word learn:
Finally, to look at the argument of development, it is abundantly clear that development happens in distinct stages. For example, the normal range for a a child to learn to walk is 9 to 18 months. That is a huge range. Consider, too, that not all children fall into this "normal" range. My son, for example, never really bothered with crawling. He went from rocking on his hands and knees to couch surfing to walking at 8 months of age. He learned how to crawl, he just wasn't that interested in it, preferring to be upright as soon as possible.
So, yes, I can clearly see that some children aren't developmentally ready to read until they are 8 or 9 years old. But what I don't see is that those children cannot be taught to read. I really think there is a distinction between reading and walking. As a species, we have been walking for far longer than we have been reading. Also, there is only one way to walk - standing up, on your feet, placing one foot in front of the other - but there are many languages to learn to speak and read. I really don't think reading is something that can be learned spontaneously, I think someone has to tell the learner what these symbols we call letters mean. Even if that only consists of reading aloud to your child while they look at the written words, you are still modeling reading in a way that the child is learning to associate a specific sound with a specific symbol.
I'd like to end by paraphrasing something from the Bible: "give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." Can the man learn to fish by himself, can he teach himself to fish? Surely he can. However, if someone else teaches him to fish, might the process not be expedited? Might he not struggle frustratedly with just how to cast the rod, if someone explains the process, guides his arms, watches him practice and corrects mistakes in positioning, etc? I certainly would prefer to not reinvent the wheel, which is why I seek out teachers.
"But you aren't teaching if a kid is thirsting for the knowledge you impart...that is responding to that child's drive to learn....you can't "teach" a child whose brain is not there yet...it's developmental...one can't want to learn to read unless one is ready to read...and every child is different...."
So, firstly, I'd like to say that I'm not talking exclusively about children learning. I'm also including my own present experiences of being a 34 year old undergraduate student. I love learning, I love education. I plan to work in my chosen field for maybe 5 years, and then return to the ivory tower to earn a masters degree. I will graduate in a year and a half, which will make me about 40 when I plan to earn my MSW. I can also see myself pursuing a PhD. I can also see myself teaching at a college or university one day.
It's not just children who are learners. We learn all of our life, from formal academic teachers, from our bosses at our jobs, from workshops or conferences we attend, from our fellow employees, from our friends, from our relationships, from our children, from life. Education never ends.
Secondly, I'd like to respond to the statement, "but you aren't teaching if a kid is thirsting for the knowledge you impart."
This is, I think where I differ from the radical unschooling perspective, and I think it's a philosophical difference, that is, a matter of opinion, rather than truth. Or, that there are multiple truths out there, and no one has a monopoly on truth.
I say you can't teach anyone unless they are thirsting for knowledge, child or adult. It's like the axiom, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." But why can we not consider the leading to be teaching? I think this is a distinction, a truth, shall we say, that I will never understand.
Perhaps the distinction really is between being and doing. Perhaps these radical unschoolers are rejecting aspects of the doing of teaching, the rote, mechanical parts that sometimes occur when the teacher is not inspired, when the teacher is not being teacher.
Often, when I find myself struggling to understand something (and, like Werner Erhard said, understanding is the booby prize!), I often find myself turning to the dictionary, thinking, "just what, exactly, does that word really mean?
So I'd like to share something from my dictionary about the word teach:
- To impart knowledge by lessons; give instruction to: to teach a class.
- To give instruction in; communicate the knowledge of: to teach French.
- To train by practice or exercise.
- To follow the profession of teaching.
- To impart knowledge or skill.
And then from my dictionary about the word learn:
- To acquire knowledge of or skill in by study, instruction, practice, etc.
- To find out; become aware of: to learn the facts.
- To commit to memory; memorize.
- To acquire by experience or example: to learn bad habits.
- To gain knowledge or acquire skill.
- To become informed; know: with of or about.
Finally, to look at the argument of development, it is abundantly clear that development happens in distinct stages. For example, the normal range for a a child to learn to walk is 9 to 18 months. That is a huge range. Consider, too, that not all children fall into this "normal" range. My son, for example, never really bothered with crawling. He went from rocking on his hands and knees to couch surfing to walking at 8 months of age. He learned how to crawl, he just wasn't that interested in it, preferring to be upright as soon as possible.
So, yes, I can clearly see that some children aren't developmentally ready to read until they are 8 or 9 years old. But what I don't see is that those children cannot be taught to read. I really think there is a distinction between reading and walking. As a species, we have been walking for far longer than we have been reading. Also, there is only one way to walk - standing up, on your feet, placing one foot in front of the other - but there are many languages to learn to speak and read. I really don't think reading is something that can be learned spontaneously, I think someone has to tell the learner what these symbols we call letters mean. Even if that only consists of reading aloud to your child while they look at the written words, you are still modeling reading in a way that the child is learning to associate a specific sound with a specific symbol.
I'd like to end by paraphrasing something from the Bible: "give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." Can the man learn to fish by himself, can he teach himself to fish? Surely he can. However, if someone else teaches him to fish, might the process not be expedited? Might he not struggle frustratedly with just how to cast the rod, if someone explains the process, guides his arms, watches him practice and corrects mistakes in positioning, etc? I certainly would prefer to not reinvent the wheel, which is why I seek out teachers.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
what teaching is to me
I've been thinking a lot about what a teacher is to me, and why I value the role a person assumes when they take on the mantle of "teacher." I have always admired teachers.
These are the thoughts that come to me when I think of a public education in BC: My sister is a teacher, my stepmother when I was a child is a teacher. When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I have admired several of my teachers. In first grade one day, they were testing the fire alarms, and I was terrified and crying. My teacher held her hands over my ears. I particularly liked Mr. O'Malley in grade 6. We had Russian penpals. My 10th grade English teacher made Shakespeare come alive for me. Not all of my teachers were great. Some were just okay, and some I didn't like at all. Like my 9th and 10th grade French teacher, who didn't seem to enjoy teaching.
This is also something I've noticed over my long and convoluted college career. My father pointed out to me that some profs are good teachers, and I should keep trying to take their classes if I could. My Social Work School has as many sessional instructors as full time instructors, and I really notice this distinction amongst the sessionals, who are professionals in the field with a masters level degree who teach one or two courses a calendar year. Some are excellent teachers, some mean well. The teachers that are excellent you try to work with as often as possible. Like my favorite political science dept prof, Rita Dhamoon. She has a PhD, she writes articles and speaks at conferences. I've taken a class in Gender/Feminist POSC, and I am currently taking her Politics of Multiculturalism class. She invites us to be radical, to deconstruct ideas and theories, to look at what's going on underneath. She is so inspiring!
But this is just the pathway to what I'm trying to distinguish. Teach is an important word, in my opinion. But I have noticed this thing in radical unschooling where people don't like to use that word. Like it's a bad word. Like learn is so much better a word. For example, I was reading a thread in a forum on radical unschooling, and people were discussing late readers, kids who were 8 or 9 who couldn't yet read, or at least not at the level that they were interested in reading. Kids who would get frustrated and stop trying. Some people commented that their kids didn't get reading until about 9 or 10, and one person said that by 15, the kid was reading at a college level or writing a story or something, and not to worry. However, there was this other element in the thread about how one girl was so frustrated, and her mom kept telling her it was like riding a bike or learning how to walk, that you couldn't be taught to read, your brain had to be ready and then you'd just get it. And another person commented that maybe the mom thought she could teach her to read and so she was subtly getting some message, but the mom said that wasn't the case, she truly believed she could not teach her daughter to read.
I don't get it. What do you mean, you can't teach someone how to read? Maybe I just truly have no experience with people who are not natural readers? I was chomping at the bit at the beginning of 1st grade. I couldn't wait to learn to read. I could probably have learned to read at 3 or 4, if I had been taught. My kids are like that too, both my son and my stepson. Natural early readers. But teaching was a big part of that - learning the sounds of the letters, learning some basic phonetic rules so you know when to use a hard vowel or a soft vowel, the teacher reading to the learner, moving your finger along under the words as you read, etc. Isn't that teaching someone how to read?
I guess I should explain what a teacher is to me. A teacher instructs you and drills you sometimes, yes indeed. But a teacher is also a mentor. A teacher requires compassion, an ability to see the world from another's perspective. A teacher is someone who creates a space for the learner to step into. A teacher holds that space, a space of the wonder and joy of education. So a teacher may not do anything, because it is about who the teacher is being. A teacher is passionate, inspired, a person who can communicate the joy of learning, of knowledge, and who can pass the flame to the next generation.
So this is why I feel that teach is too important a verb to dispense with altogether, despite any possible negative connotations it may carry. Because it is so much more than those.
These are the thoughts that come to me when I think of a public education in BC: My sister is a teacher, my stepmother when I was a child is a teacher. When I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. I have admired several of my teachers. In first grade one day, they were testing the fire alarms, and I was terrified and crying. My teacher held her hands over my ears. I particularly liked Mr. O'Malley in grade 6. We had Russian penpals. My 10th grade English teacher made Shakespeare come alive for me. Not all of my teachers were great. Some were just okay, and some I didn't like at all. Like my 9th and 10th grade French teacher, who didn't seem to enjoy teaching.
This is also something I've noticed over my long and convoluted college career. My father pointed out to me that some profs are good teachers, and I should keep trying to take their classes if I could. My Social Work School has as many sessional instructors as full time instructors, and I really notice this distinction amongst the sessionals, who are professionals in the field with a masters level degree who teach one or two courses a calendar year. Some are excellent teachers, some mean well. The teachers that are excellent you try to work with as often as possible. Like my favorite political science dept prof, Rita Dhamoon. She has a PhD, she writes articles and speaks at conferences. I've taken a class in Gender/Feminist POSC, and I am currently taking her Politics of Multiculturalism class. She invites us to be radical, to deconstruct ideas and theories, to look at what's going on underneath. She is so inspiring!
But this is just the pathway to what I'm trying to distinguish. Teach is an important word, in my opinion. But I have noticed this thing in radical unschooling where people don't like to use that word. Like it's a bad word. Like learn is so much better a word. For example, I was reading a thread in a forum on radical unschooling, and people were discussing late readers, kids who were 8 or 9 who couldn't yet read, or at least not at the level that they were interested in reading. Kids who would get frustrated and stop trying. Some people commented that their kids didn't get reading until about 9 or 10, and one person said that by 15, the kid was reading at a college level or writing a story or something, and not to worry. However, there was this other element in the thread about how one girl was so frustrated, and her mom kept telling her it was like riding a bike or learning how to walk, that you couldn't be taught to read, your brain had to be ready and then you'd just get it. And another person commented that maybe the mom thought she could teach her to read and so she was subtly getting some message, but the mom said that wasn't the case, she truly believed she could not teach her daughter to read.
I don't get it. What do you mean, you can't teach someone how to read? Maybe I just truly have no experience with people who are not natural readers? I was chomping at the bit at the beginning of 1st grade. I couldn't wait to learn to read. I could probably have learned to read at 3 or 4, if I had been taught. My kids are like that too, both my son and my stepson. Natural early readers. But teaching was a big part of that - learning the sounds of the letters, learning some basic phonetic rules so you know when to use a hard vowel or a soft vowel, the teacher reading to the learner, moving your finger along under the words as you read, etc. Isn't that teaching someone how to read?
I guess I should explain what a teacher is to me. A teacher instructs you and drills you sometimes, yes indeed. But a teacher is also a mentor. A teacher requires compassion, an ability to see the world from another's perspective. A teacher is someone who creates a space for the learner to step into. A teacher holds that space, a space of the wonder and joy of education. So a teacher may not do anything, because it is about who the teacher is being. A teacher is passionate, inspired, a person who can communicate the joy of learning, of knowledge, and who can pass the flame to the next generation.
So this is why I feel that teach is too important a verb to dispense with altogether, despite any possible negative connotations it may carry. Because it is so much more than those.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
some more thoughts on unschooling as elitism
I've been reading a few blog articles (and their comments) that discuss the distinction between teaching and learning. As I went to find all the links, I found a new post which contains all the links, and a chronology of the discussion. I wrote a comment on on of the blogs, mainly discussing my distaste at some radical unschooler's choice to not use the word "teach". I wonder, why is "teach" a bad word? It's not that the writers had poor arguments, rather, they were coherent and well expressed. But I can't escape the feeling that it is somehow an elitist perspective.
Like I expressed in my last post, which has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost 3 weeks, I wonder if the unschooling phenomenon is something that is only available to a small proportion of our global population. I wonder if it is a distinctly Western, middle class phenomena. It may not be exclusively Western, but my only exposure to unschooling has been through Western technology, and so that is all I see. However, when I think of my social work education on Aboriginal issues and history in Canada, it's pretty obvious that indigenous peoples were "unschooling" their kids before the Indian agent came along and forced their kids into residential schools. Thus, if North American Aboriginal peoples were unschoolers, it seems quite likely that other tribal peoples were, too. As well, when I consider public education's history, I realize it hasn't been around all that long, and we must have been unschoolers before this time, unless we were aristocrats who could afford private tutors (still not "school").
But I also wonder, what makes the public school system so untrustworthy? While waiting in a doctor's office yesterday, I read an article in a Canadian parenting magazine discussing the route public education is taking in Canada (I felt this to be false terms of reference; the federal government is not involved in education, it is a provincial matter, and it thus varies across the country). One thing the article discussed was a classroom in Ontario where the kids were able to choose their own method of learning on the teacher's topic. I think it mostly referred to social studies and language arts, because the example referred to either writing a letter to the editor or creating a poster, among other options. Still, in the 6 page article, I did not find one reference to my own province, BC. Regardless, the article did say that the days of teaching to the middle of the class are gone...
But what does it really take to be a homeschooling/unschooling parent? For one thing, money. Money to have one parent home with school aged kids, all day, every day. Sure, lots of unschooling moms talk about the sacrifices they have made to live on one income, but are they the same sacrifices a low income family can make? Or is that low income family already making those sacrifices, just to pay the rent and the bills? Many Canadians have to choose between paying their rent and buying food. Suggest to those parents the option of taking their kids out of the public school system which would require a stay-at-home parent and see if it's a viable option for them.
So, while unschoolers quibble over the connotations of the word "teach," I wonder, does it really matter, as long as there's respect, as long as there's choice? Although I'm certain unschooling is the way to go, and I really wish I had the financial resources to make it a reality NOW, I can't help but wonder about the inherent elitism in a system that is only available to those who can afford it. That truly goes against my values of freedom, equality, liberty and justice. On that list of my personal core values is education. So many revolutionaries have written about the importance of education in achieving freedom. How does one educate the masses in order to assure they can reach for freedom, if not in the public system? I'm still reading Paolo Freire's "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed," maybe I'll have some answers when I'm done.
Like I expressed in my last post, which has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost 3 weeks, I wonder if the unschooling phenomenon is something that is only available to a small proportion of our global population. I wonder if it is a distinctly Western, middle class phenomena. It may not be exclusively Western, but my only exposure to unschooling has been through Western technology, and so that is all I see. However, when I think of my social work education on Aboriginal issues and history in Canada, it's pretty obvious that indigenous peoples were "unschooling" their kids before the Indian agent came along and forced their kids into residential schools. Thus, if North American Aboriginal peoples were unschoolers, it seems quite likely that other tribal peoples were, too. As well, when I consider public education's history, I realize it hasn't been around all that long, and we must have been unschoolers before this time, unless we were aristocrats who could afford private tutors (still not "school").
But I also wonder, what makes the public school system so untrustworthy? While waiting in a doctor's office yesterday, I read an article in a Canadian parenting magazine discussing the route public education is taking in Canada (I felt this to be false terms of reference; the federal government is not involved in education, it is a provincial matter, and it thus varies across the country). One thing the article discussed was a classroom in Ontario where the kids were able to choose their own method of learning on the teacher's topic. I think it mostly referred to social studies and language arts, because the example referred to either writing a letter to the editor or creating a poster, among other options. Still, in the 6 page article, I did not find one reference to my own province, BC. Regardless, the article did say that the days of teaching to the middle of the class are gone...
But what does it really take to be a homeschooling/unschooling parent? For one thing, money. Money to have one parent home with school aged kids, all day, every day. Sure, lots of unschooling moms talk about the sacrifices they have made to live on one income, but are they the same sacrifices a low income family can make? Or is that low income family already making those sacrifices, just to pay the rent and the bills? Many Canadians have to choose between paying their rent and buying food. Suggest to those parents the option of taking their kids out of the public school system which would require a stay-at-home parent and see if it's a viable option for them.
So, while unschoolers quibble over the connotations of the word "teach," I wonder, does it really matter, as long as there's respect, as long as there's choice? Although I'm certain unschooling is the way to go, and I really wish I had the financial resources to make it a reality NOW, I can't help but wonder about the inherent elitism in a system that is only available to those who can afford it. That truly goes against my values of freedom, equality, liberty and justice. On that list of my personal core values is education. So many revolutionaries have written about the importance of education in achieving freedom. How does one educate the masses in order to assure they can reach for freedom, if not in the public system? I'm still reading Paolo Freire's "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed," maybe I'll have some answers when I'm done.
Socialism, anti-colonialism and unschooling: a revolution for the elite?
A few weeks ago I read this post
Then I wrote the following comment:
This is a fantastic piece of writing, filled with amazing, subversive thoughts, especially when your sister is responding to the person who believes that if everyone was unschooled, it would unbalance our current society. Now, wouldn't that be a marvelous thing?!
I am a 34 year old social work student and mom to my 2nd grade son and my 1st grade step-son. I am teetering on the brink of taking them out of the public school system for exactly the reasons your sister discusses. While I agree wholeheartedly with education as a value, and as a necessary component of freedom, I am coming to see public education systems as an element of oppression and government/elite control of "the masses."
However, I balk at seeing sinister intentions in individual educators, just as I balk at seeing myself as an agent of social control as a future child protection worker for the provincial Ministry. Rather, I see myself as someone who will have the power to advocate for social change on behalf of vulnerable persons/groups. I see myself as an agent of social transformation. Because of this, I do somewhat hesitate to outright reject the public education system. If I am not a part of it, how can I participate in its transformation? However, this is a philosophical standpoint that must give way to the practical needs of my kids.
The kinds of thoughts you (and, in this post, your sister) articulate are thoughts that I didn't have words for until I began studying social justice in my 30s. To think that my children could also be as articulate and radical as teenagers, rather than simply rebelling against claustrophobic parenting and learning environments, is inspiring.
For me, the only reason my kids are still in public school is related to my socioeconomic status as a student. My husband and I do not have the income to pay for the necessary childcare while I am in classes and on practicum. Then, once I complete my degree, in 2011, there will be a significant debt repayment, and I will likely be working up to 40 hrs/week.
Unfortunately, I need to rely on the free childcare the public education system provides for the time being, unless I can work out something else to provide for their care. Regardless, if I cannot find some way to manage in the near future, as soon as they are mature enough to be home alone for stretches of time, they will be able to leave the public education system. No way will they have to go to high school :)
I've been thinking more and more about the points I made regarding who I see myself as being as a social worker: as a space of transformation, as someone standing for a new possibility. Especially when I consider that my clients will be involuntary. Then I've been thinking about those future clients, and their socioeconomic status. Most of them will live in chronic poverty. Many of them will be single parents or aboriginal peoples or immigrants. Most of them will not be middle class. Most of them will not have the choices I have, despite my own state of (temporary) poverty.
When I think about this, I realize that unschooling is likely an option only available to a small percentage of parents, especially when considering a global context. I realize that the majority of children who have the opportunity to attend public school, to be educated, are privileged, by global standards. This makes me think deeply about my longing to unschool my children. As someone who considers herself a feminist, an anti-colonialist, a socialist, I wonder, am I being hypocritical?
That is, am I espousing something for my family that is elitist, and out of reach for most people? This goes against my personal and professional values like social justice, liberty, equality, democracy.
Then I wrote the following comment:
This is a fantastic piece of writing, filled with amazing, subversive thoughts, especially when your sister is responding to the person who believes that if everyone was unschooled, it would unbalance our current society. Now, wouldn't that be a marvelous thing?!
I am a 34 year old social work student and mom to my 2nd grade son and my 1st grade step-son. I am teetering on the brink of taking them out of the public school system for exactly the reasons your sister discusses. While I agree wholeheartedly with education as a value, and as a necessary component of freedom, I am coming to see public education systems as an element of oppression and government/elite control of "the masses."
However, I balk at seeing sinister intentions in individual educators, just as I balk at seeing myself as an agent of social control as a future child protection worker for the provincial Ministry. Rather, I see myself as someone who will have the power to advocate for social change on behalf of vulnerable persons/groups. I see myself as an agent of social transformation. Because of this, I do somewhat hesitate to outright reject the public education system. If I am not a part of it, how can I participate in its transformation? However, this is a philosophical standpoint that must give way to the practical needs of my kids.
The kinds of thoughts you (and, in this post, your sister) articulate are thoughts that I didn't have words for until I began studying social justice in my 30s. To think that my children could also be as articulate and radical as teenagers, rather than simply rebelling against claustrophobic parenting and learning environments, is inspiring.
For me, the only reason my kids are still in public school is related to my socioeconomic status as a student. My husband and I do not have the income to pay for the necessary childcare while I am in classes and on practicum. Then, once I complete my degree, in 2011, there will be a significant debt repayment, and I will likely be working up to 40 hrs/week.
Unfortunately, I need to rely on the free childcare the public education system provides for the time being, unless I can work out something else to provide for their care. Regardless, if I cannot find some way to manage in the near future, as soon as they are mature enough to be home alone for stretches of time, they will be able to leave the public education system. No way will they have to go to high school :)
I've been thinking more and more about the points I made regarding who I see myself as being as a social worker: as a space of transformation, as someone standing for a new possibility. Especially when I consider that my clients will be involuntary. Then I've been thinking about those future clients, and their socioeconomic status. Most of them will live in chronic poverty. Many of them will be single parents or aboriginal peoples or immigrants. Most of them will not be middle class. Most of them will not have the choices I have, despite my own state of (temporary) poverty.
When I think about this, I realize that unschooling is likely an option only available to a small percentage of parents, especially when considering a global context. I realize that the majority of children who have the opportunity to attend public school, to be educated, are privileged, by global standards. This makes me think deeply about my longing to unschool my children. As someone who considers herself a feminist, an anti-colonialist, a socialist, I wonder, am I being hypocritical?
That is, am I espousing something for my family that is elitist, and out of reach for most people? This goes against my personal and professional values like social justice, liberty, equality, democracy.
Friday, November 6, 2009
on the joys of sending my children to public school
Oh, the joy...
The learning support teacher at my son's school just called to ask for my help in trying to motivate him to do his work... he just doesn't want to do it. I am at a loss, I "motivate" him through our attachment bond, I'm not supervising between 10 to 20 other kids at the same time.
Meanwhile, my stepson's teacher, who corresponds via email with all the parents of her students, shared some information she learned at a talk during a professional development day in October. The speaker was a "brain based learning facilitator" She shared some of her notes, including the following gem:
Perhaps it's time to review my text and notes from that 2nd year Psych class I took on Cognition, but aren't we ALL always learning? Isn't that just the way our brains work?
Another lovely gem was the following:
So, I'm imagining the "captain" she is referring to is our frontal cortex, home of "executive functioning" (to use medical and psychological lingo). From what I've learned through my university studies, executive functioning is a part of "meta cognition" i.e. thinking about one's thinking, or even just a mental awareness of one's own thoughts. She offered to share the resources he provided, and I'm all over that. I'd like to see the studies/experiments that came to these conclusions - because I don't buy the hypothesis.
From my own experience, the "flashing pictures" on the tv screen don't really prevent ME from thinking. Why, just the other day I was watching the 'boob tube' (as my mother called it while I was growing up), and I saw a commercial protesting an upcoming 'tax' on local tv by the big American networks. My immediate thought was, "why is this important news to us mainstream North Americans? Why don't we care about 4th world (a term taken from George Manuel's 1974 book on the realities of being a stateless nation within a colonial country bound on assimilation and cultural extinction) issues, Indigenous issues? Why are we protesting the rising cost of tv, rather than America's Imperial wars, or the political hypocrisies in many African nations? I could go on, but my point is, I kept thinking, despite those flashing lights. Maybe that's because I have a mature brain, and kids are incapable of this because their brains are still developing, but I certainly watched a lot of tv growing up, and my brain works...
And I really fail to see how the "flashing pictures" of video games prevents my children from thinking. Don't they need to utilize problem solving skills to get past each obstacle? They can't continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results... and, of course, they don't. They try something else, or they ask my husband for help.
In reply to my email requesting the references she had offered, the teacher wrote the following:
I recently posted some unschooling resources on video games being GOOD for your brain on my Facebook page, starting with Sandra Dodd's website. (The first link no longer seems to take you to the article, unfortunately). A good friend commented, saying that her son, who attends a French school, learned to read English in kindergarten by playing video games. As well, most kids I know use video games to socialize. They play the games together, they talk about the games together, they help each other out when they get stuck.
And the point about being susceptible to depression... yeah, I think depression is a BIT more complex than that.
Regardless, she writes that I am doing a good job with my stepson, and she is really enjoying having him in her class this year. However, I let that kid play his Nintendo DS for hours all weekend long, simply because they want to.
The learning support teacher at my son's school just called to ask for my help in trying to motivate him to do his work... he just doesn't want to do it. I am at a loss, I "motivate" him through our attachment bond, I'm not supervising between 10 to 20 other kids at the same time.
Meanwhile, my stepson's teacher, who corresponds via email with all the parents of her students, shared some information she learned at a talk during a professional development day in October. The speaker was a "brain based learning facilitator" She shared some of her notes, including the following gem:
Children have to be constantly learning. If they are not learning their brain is not growing. Give them chores. Penitentiaries are full of people who never had chores.
Perhaps it's time to review my text and notes from that 2nd year Psych class I took on Cognition, but aren't we ALL always learning? Isn't that just the way our brains work?
Another lovely gem was the following:
Never allow children more than one hour of t.v. or video games a day, it "rots the brain" with electronic sedation. The flashing pictures take away your "captain", your thinking brain and cause mental passivity and lack of creativity.
So, I'm imagining the "captain" she is referring to is our frontal cortex, home of "executive functioning" (to use medical and psychological lingo). From what I've learned through my university studies, executive functioning is a part of "meta cognition" i.e. thinking about one's thinking, or even just a mental awareness of one's own thoughts. She offered to share the resources he provided, and I'm all over that. I'd like to see the studies/experiments that came to these conclusions - because I don't buy the hypothesis.
From my own experience, the "flashing pictures" on the tv screen don't really prevent ME from thinking. Why, just the other day I was watching the 'boob tube' (as my mother called it while I was growing up), and I saw a commercial protesting an upcoming 'tax' on local tv by the big American networks. My immediate thought was, "why is this important news to us mainstream North Americans? Why don't we care about 4th world (a term taken from George Manuel's 1974 book on the realities of being a stateless nation within a colonial country bound on assimilation and cultural extinction) issues, Indigenous issues? Why are we protesting the rising cost of tv, rather than America's Imperial wars, or the political hypocrisies in many African nations? I could go on, but my point is, I kept thinking, despite those flashing lights. Maybe that's because I have a mature brain, and kids are incapable of this because their brains are still developing, but I certainly watched a lot of tv growing up, and my brain works...
And I really fail to see how the "flashing pictures" of video games prevents my children from thinking. Don't they need to utilize problem solving skills to get past each obstacle? They can't continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results... and, of course, they don't. They try something else, or they ask my husband for help.
In reply to my email requesting the references she had offered, the teacher wrote the following:
He said that they use very fast moving stimulus to cause the thinking brain to shut down. He said any child watching/using more than an hour a day was also susceptible to depression. I also saw the good things many children miss when they spend great amounts of time at the t.v. or computer, developing oral language, problem skills, socializing.
I recently posted some unschooling resources on video games being GOOD for your brain on my Facebook page, starting with Sandra Dodd's website. (The first link no longer seems to take you to the article, unfortunately). A good friend commented, saying that her son, who attends a French school, learned to read English in kindergarten by playing video games. As well, most kids I know use video games to socialize. They play the games together, they talk about the games together, they help each other out when they get stuck.
And the point about being susceptible to depression... yeah, I think depression is a BIT more complex than that.
Regardless, she writes that I am doing a good job with my stepson, and she is really enjoying having him in her class this year. However, I let that kid play his Nintendo DS for hours all weekend long, simply because they want to.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
on "random"
My son has lately been having a love affair with the word "random." He's not really sure of what it means, but he mostly uses it in context, and I haven't been able to clarify it any better, as "random number generation" is a little beyond his conceptual abilities. But, he has been "randomly" choosing chocolate bars from his Hallowe'en stash, and I'd say that's a pretty accurate usage :)
I must say that word more than I realize.
I love precocity.
I must say that word more than I realize.
I love precocity.
Monday, November 2, 2009
on resentment
I am reading an amazing thread on the Radical Unschoolers Network that started out as a discussion called "children 'need you to make choices for them'" and quickly morphed into some fantastic insights by some extremely articulate individuals on moms resenting doing chores. Also discussed are conventional parenting and subsequent 'withdrawals' by the parent, used later to 'bargain' for a behavioural change in the child. Below are the excerpts that speak to me the most:
"Conventional parenting wisdom -- which is the parenting most of us are familiar with -- leans toward getting the child to see the error of his ways. To the child that feels like the parent saying "I don't care what you want [the reason for hitting]. I only care what I want [to make you stop being bad].
Unschooling wisdom would, of course, stop the hitting, but focus on finding a better approach to help the child get what they wanted that caused them to hit. (Even better is being present to reroute situations before they get to the hitting point.)
Most people reading don't know that. Most people are reading to find ways to control an action. (Because, without realizing it, that's the foundation of the parenting they've always known.) It's not easy to turn thinking around. It's hard to let go of the need to punish a child for wrong behavior. It just feels wrong.
We can work at understanding how our kids see the world so that we avoid acting in ways that feel different than what we intend. We can't be perfect, but we can be better and better with awareness. So a lot of discussion has a foundation of helping parents see that kids are reacting rationally to the situation the child perceives, even if the parent thinks the child is being totally unreasonable."
"How do people perceive love? That's an important question to think about. Specifically, how do the other members of your family perceive love? That's more important, in terms of you showing them love, than how you perceive love. One way to communicate love is by doing things for others. When my partner brings me a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, or cleans the kitchen right before I come home from work, he's expressing love to me. For awhile he was all wrapped up in a recording project and stopped bringing me coffee in the morning - I had to consciously remind myself that it wasn't a deliberate act of love-withdrawal on his part, but it hurt my feelings a little, anyway.
I don't expect my kids to have that kind of understanding, yet, though. Heck, some adults don't have that kind of understanding (one of my coworkers suggested I withhold sex in retribution, for instance). So I try to be very careful of things that could seem, from another's perspective, to be acts of love withdrawal. Today, for instance, is the day of my dd's birthday party. She's 8, her actual birthday was yesterday. But she wanted everyone in the family to say: "Happy second day of your birthday" today. We all did (some with prompting) because that's important to her. It helps her feel loved. If one of us refused to say it, for whatever reason, she'd feel less loved today, regardless of any of our actual feelings."
I've found myself feeling very resentful of late. Much of it is tied up with money, specifically our lack of it, due to our recent (mid-September) wedding which included approximately 100 guests and cost a 'pretty penny.' However, much of it is also cultural, and I have been feeling this resentment for 7 years, now. I am an individualistic white North American. I often feel constrained by the role of a parent, the need to continually give and give and give to my kids. The words, above, often help with this. These writers points of view soothe me, make me feel like it is all manageable.
But then I compare my husband to the second writer's partner, and I feel jealous and angry and resentful again. My husband works 40 hours a week in retail. He is constantly on his feet, he does a lot of heavy lifting, and he is constantly having to cater to the demands of a public who believes that "the customer is always right," despite the fact that corporate law suggests corporations have far more power than people in our society. He commutes by bus, which often takes an hour and a half to travel what is normally a 30 minute drive.
I, on the other hand, do not have a regular job. I am a student. I commute twice a week, in my car, to a campus about 45 minutes away. There, I participate in stimulating courses of my own choosing, and I work minimally as a research assistant, less than 10 hours a week. The rest of the time I spend at home, reading, writing papers, and researching interesting ideas. Still this is draining work. As well, it is expected by my professors and the institution that I will spend 2 to 3 hours studying per hour of class time. That puts me to about 30 hours a week, all of which is extremely draining. Intellectual work is still work.
Plus, I am primarily responsible for the children, for all driving (my husband doesn't know how to drive), errands, grocery shopping, cooking, bill paying. I am responsible for most of the cleaning. My husband is responsible for doing the laundry, yet every week I have to ask him to do this, and then I have to remind him to take the clothes out of the washing machine and put them in the dryer. If I don't remind him to take them out of the dryer, they will sit there for days.
I feel like a domestic slave, and thus I feel angry and resentful. I feel that my academic pursuits are not considered as valuable as a "real" job. I feel that my real value is tied up in the domestic, unpaid labour I provide for my family.
I want to be able to approach this without anger and resentment. I want to come from nothing, so as to create a solution that isn't transactional, that isn't based on bargaining and withdrawals. So far, the only thing that works is to express my frustration and resentment and leave it with the kids or my husband. I usually see a difference for a very short period of time (a week with my husband, maybe an hour or so with my kids). They get it in the moment, however, they seem unable to maintain this.
This is an uncomfortable place for me. I want to be valued, and I want compassion. I want my family to demonstrate their love for me. Instead, I have to operate from the knowledge that, despite their actions, they do love me.
Still, I wish I could go on strike.
"Conventional parenting wisdom -- which is the parenting most of us are familiar with -- leans toward getting the child to see the error of his ways. To the child that feels like the parent saying "I don't care what you want [the reason for hitting]. I only care what I want [to make you stop being bad].
Unschooling wisdom would, of course, stop the hitting, but focus on finding a better approach to help the child get what they wanted that caused them to hit. (Even better is being present to reroute situations before they get to the hitting point.)
Most people reading don't know that. Most people are reading to find ways to control an action. (Because, without realizing it, that's the foundation of the parenting they've always known.) It's not easy to turn thinking around. It's hard to let go of the need to punish a child for wrong behavior. It just feels wrong.
We can work at understanding how our kids see the world so that we avoid acting in ways that feel different than what we intend. We can't be perfect, but we can be better and better with awareness. So a lot of discussion has a foundation of helping parents see that kids are reacting rationally to the situation the child perceives, even if the parent thinks the child is being totally unreasonable."
"How do people perceive love? That's an important question to think about. Specifically, how do the other members of your family perceive love? That's more important, in terms of you showing them love, than how you perceive love. One way to communicate love is by doing things for others. When my partner brings me a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, or cleans the kitchen right before I come home from work, he's expressing love to me. For awhile he was all wrapped up in a recording project and stopped bringing me coffee in the morning - I had to consciously remind myself that it wasn't a deliberate act of love-withdrawal on his part, but it hurt my feelings a little, anyway.
I don't expect my kids to have that kind of understanding, yet, though. Heck, some adults don't have that kind of understanding (one of my coworkers suggested I withhold sex in retribution, for instance). So I try to be very careful of things that could seem, from another's perspective, to be acts of love withdrawal. Today, for instance, is the day of my dd's birthday party. She's 8, her actual birthday was yesterday. But she wanted everyone in the family to say: "Happy second day of your birthday" today. We all did (some with prompting) because that's important to her. It helps her feel loved. If one of us refused to say it, for whatever reason, she'd feel less loved today, regardless of any of our actual feelings."
I've found myself feeling very resentful of late. Much of it is tied up with money, specifically our lack of it, due to our recent (mid-September) wedding which included approximately 100 guests and cost a 'pretty penny.' However, much of it is also cultural, and I have been feeling this resentment for 7 years, now. I am an individualistic white North American. I often feel constrained by the role of a parent, the need to continually give and give and give to my kids. The words, above, often help with this. These writers points of view soothe me, make me feel like it is all manageable.
But then I compare my husband to the second writer's partner, and I feel jealous and angry and resentful again. My husband works 40 hours a week in retail. He is constantly on his feet, he does a lot of heavy lifting, and he is constantly having to cater to the demands of a public who believes that "the customer is always right," despite the fact that corporate law suggests corporations have far more power than people in our society. He commutes by bus, which often takes an hour and a half to travel what is normally a 30 minute drive.
I, on the other hand, do not have a regular job. I am a student. I commute twice a week, in my car, to a campus about 45 minutes away. There, I participate in stimulating courses of my own choosing, and I work minimally as a research assistant, less than 10 hours a week. The rest of the time I spend at home, reading, writing papers, and researching interesting ideas. Still this is draining work. As well, it is expected by my professors and the institution that I will spend 2 to 3 hours studying per hour of class time. That puts me to about 30 hours a week, all of which is extremely draining. Intellectual work is still work.
Plus, I am primarily responsible for the children, for all driving (my husband doesn't know how to drive), errands, grocery shopping, cooking, bill paying. I am responsible for most of the cleaning. My husband is responsible for doing the laundry, yet every week I have to ask him to do this, and then I have to remind him to take the clothes out of the washing machine and put them in the dryer. If I don't remind him to take them out of the dryer, they will sit there for days.
I feel like a domestic slave, and thus I feel angry and resentful. I feel that my academic pursuits are not considered as valuable as a "real" job. I feel that my real value is tied up in the domestic, unpaid labour I provide for my family.
I want to be able to approach this without anger and resentment. I want to come from nothing, so as to create a solution that isn't transactional, that isn't based on bargaining and withdrawals. So far, the only thing that works is to express my frustration and resentment and leave it with the kids or my husband. I usually see a difference for a very short period of time (a week with my husband, maybe an hour or so with my kids). They get it in the moment, however, they seem unable to maintain this.
This is an uncomfortable place for me. I want to be valued, and I want compassion. I want my family to demonstrate their love for me. Instead, I have to operate from the knowledge that, despite their actions, they do love me.
Still, I wish I could go on strike.
The "third shift" of parenting
October-28-08 The "third shift" of parenting
My first grader is having problems at school. He disrupts the class. He doesn't complete his assignments. He lies down regularly on the floor. He has a great difficulty when required to attend to lessons. His teacher communicates with me through penciled notes in his planner. She asked me to speak with him before today's field trip. After the field trip, she wrote he "wandered from the group many times." As well, he's "still having difficulty with writing" and she will "be keeping him in at recess to see if this helps to motivate him." She then wrote that he was under his desk, which, when we discussed her note, he adamantly denied and then began to cry.
The teacher is quite experienced and, during a conference we had three weeks ago, stressed positive interactions and multiple modes of learning. However, my son is young for his grade; his birthday is in mid-November. I am concerned that this teacher has expectations for his behaviour that are developmentally beyond his mastery. I also think that recess, and running around, will improve his executive functioning, and therefore his control over his own behaviour. I want to be able to teach him some self-managing techniques, such as twiddling his thumbs while sitting in a group on the rug (which he reports she vetoed), but I have been unable to observe the situation, and thus to suggest appropriate interventions.
As a result, I've been spending time researching children's behavioural issues at the expense of my university studies. As well, I've added a half-hour on to our morning routine to wake up earlier to chat in bed and to be less rushed when getting out the door. This is after altering his bedtime last month, at the teacher's request. Now, I will be spending an hour and a half at my son's school tomorrow, in the middle of the morning. As well, I suspect I will be instituting a half-hour of study time in the evenings. Finally, I am looking into piano lessons for my son, as my research suggests this may contribute to the development of attention span.
These are excellent examples of Hothschild's "third shift" of emotional work to compensate for the time crunch of the first and second shifts of work and household and family labour (1989, 1997, cited in Ranson, 2007:77). Hothschild argues parents must manage their home lives as efficiently as their work lives, but by doing so, something is lost, and must be compensated for. This is the “third shift” of nurturing modern parents take on to compensate children for the time crunch.
My experience as a working mother reflects this, but it also reflects Lareu's middle class pattern of "concerted cultivation," which involves promotion of children's talents and abilities, but usually through “financially expensive” and “labour-intensive” means (2002, cited in Ranson, 2007:76). This middle class pattern, however, is not, for me, matched by a middle class income, as I am a student and a single mother. Thus, my financial resources are strained, and I take on the burden of providing such cultivation less through participation in paid activities like lessons and sports teams, more through my own, individual efforts. This requires efficient time management, as in the “second shift” of family labour, which then leads to the compensatory “third shift” in order to maintain the experience of myself as a “good mother” in an ideological sense.
It is a year later, and I am no longer the single parent of an only child, but rather the married mother of two. However, not much has changed in my experience of the public school system, and the need to experience myself as a "good mother." Despite this, I have discovered the concepts of radical unschooling and non-coercive parenting, so I waffle back and forth between "concerted cultivation" and "deschooling," where I let my kids spend their weekends doing whatever they like, without trying to direct their activities or limit their choices. If they want to play DS all day, I let them. After all, my husband spends his days off from work parked in front of the tv, why should there be a double standard? My husband, not quite understanding the philosophical underpinnings of my new parenting attitude, attempts to set limits on their video game playing time, to which I suggest he's being somewhat hypocritical. He's getting there. As am I. This is not an easy transition! We are working against generations of conditioning, where children are to "be seen and not heard." Bizarre. Developmentally inappropriate.
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