Pretty Damn Boring

In many of the comments relating to my Outside article, you can see how firmly the story of school is embedded in the American psyche (by the way, it appears the NY Times is getting in on the game. I sure wish the reporter had called me, but oh well. And “Mr. Hewitt”? Really?). I have to admit this surprised me, although in hindsight perhaps it shouldn’t have, because I am coming to realize that the story of school is itself a chapter in the story of achievement, which it itself a chapter in the story of success and prosperity. All of these, of course, are chapters in the story of what it means to be human, the masters of our domain and ultimately the pinnacle of evolution.

Whoa. That’s some heavy thinking for a simple fellow like myself, eh? And it’s only Tuesday; just imagine where we’ll be come Friday! But I think there’s some truth to it. I do think that many people are threatened by the idea of unschooling in part because on some level it calls to question some very basic assumptions regarding what it means to be kicking up dust in 21st century America. Or at least, it can call these assumptions to question, because of course unschooling can be a million different things to a million different families. That’s one of the things that so great about it, of course. It’s not homogeneous. It’s not standardized. If you want unschooling to be about your kids getting filthy rich off the salted back sweat of the underclass and the rampant degradation of the earth’s remaining wild places, well hell. That’s what it’ll be about.

That explains in part why Penny and I aren’t terribly fond of the term “unschooling.” It explains nothing, really, except the absence of school. But what does that mean? Nothing, like I said, and I wonder if that’s where some of the more pointed negativity in relation to unschooling comes from: All they hear is the absence of school, and since the story they know best is the one in which school is a chapter in the book of humankind (after all, isn’t that the story most of us grew up inside?), they believe that school is essential to a functioning democracy and a productive economy. Or they contend if parents aren’t involved in their local school, they’re not involved in their community. Or they suggest that keeping children out of school is a means of control (there may actually be some truth to this one, though it’s hard for me to understand how the same couldn’t be said of sending children to school. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice and all that). Or they simply cannot fathom how children can learn without being told  what they must learn, how they must learn, and when they must learn it. That they must learn. 

We all have our stories. I get that. My family’s story tells us that the best path for our sons is “self-directed, adult-facilitied, life-learning in the context of their unique interests.” Our story tells us that subsistence farming is as noble an endeavor as doctoring or lawyering. In one chapter, our story tells us that we are not stewards of the land but rather that the land is the steward of us. There’s even a paragraph or two whispering that perhaps humans are not as mighty and all-knowing as we’ve come to believe. In fact, it suggests to us that we will never know a fraction of the things we don’t know. And that this is actually ok. Our story has us convinced that it’s as important for our sons to feel a connection to the land as it is for them to know calculus. Maybe more important. In this story, our sons’ learning unfolds from a place of natural curiosity. “Papa,” Fin said the other evening, seemingly apropos of nothing. “If heat rises, why is it colder at altitude?”And later that night, during family read, Rye interrupted: “What’s panache?”

You see what I mean?

It’s a hard thing, sometimes, to accept that other people feel as strongly about their stories as we feel about ours. A hard thing, but also an essential one. Every so often, it helps to remind myself that a world with only one story might be peaceful. But it’d also be pretty damn boring.