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.
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