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.