Crazy Mom is Awesome!

Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids, is a one-woman agit-prop advocate for children’s independence. When she allowed her nine-year-old son to use the NY subway system by himself she was dubbed “Crazy Mom” by the press and she embraced it. By the way, I grew up in the Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s and my parents let me ride the subways when I was about ten; they were much more dangerous then, but my parents didn’t get called names by the press or other people for letting me do so. Times have certainly changed—and for the worse for children’s play and explorations of the world.

Now Skenazy is back with a new twist to make parents think about why it is a good thing to let children play, learn, and explore on their own. The New York Daily News writes about it, too: Crazy Mom Strikes Again!

Skenazy describes about her rationale for doing this on her blog: “Hi Folks: Welcome to the first after-school class that lets kids play outside, together, unsupervised — the greatest developmental boon a parent can give a child!”

Do you think Skenazy is a crazy mom or is she giving children a gift of time and space to self-actualize?

Educational One-Upmanship and Magical Thinking

Despite all the talk about how education is the way for people to school themselves out of poverty and other social problems, people still know and act as if education is essentially a game of dog eat dog. Viewed this way, as a parent, it is natural that you want to be sure your children are the diners and not the dinner in this situation, but some very competitive adults take this to an extreme.

I learned from Derren Brown, a magician I follow (magic and illusion is a passion of mine), about how Chinese parents were defrauded by an education company's promises to turn their children into academic superstars. This is from an article in the Guardian, "Chinese parents defrauded by 'perfect' education:"

For ambitious Chinese parents, the opportunity was too good to miss – even with its 100,000 yuan (£9,950) price tag. Their children would learn to read books in 20 seconds and identify poker cards by touch. The most talented would instantly see answers in their heads when presented with test papers.

Around 30 pupils aged from seven to 17 were enrolled for the Shanghai summer course. But 10 days later their "special abilities" had not materialised. "I found that my child learned nothing except how to cheat," one parent complained.

The tipoff for the magician that this was a major scam is the poker card trick. This trick is a classic of card magic and has numerous variations, but for parents seeking an edge, and trusting in the authority of educators, it must have appeared as a powerful bonus in addition to the other skills this outfit promised.

Here, though, the fraud of promising special abilities upon completion of the educational program is plain and obvious. In our society we, too, suffer from magical thinking about education. We believe that just progressing through the system creates knowledge, despite millions of graduates who are not  able to speak a foreign language, do more than basic math, or understand science after years of passing classes in those subjects. 

Joy in Learning

Joy in learning is rarely addressed as far as conventional compulsory education goes; however, words like “expectations,” “accountability,” and “rigor” have accumulated around education like flies to fruit; now we pay more attention to the flies than the fruit! It also seems that parents have lost trust in the value of children’s play, with pressures mounting to put children, at ever-younger ages, into controlled education environments in the hope it will make them successful adults. In the name of academic achievement we are depriving our children of the vast quantities of quiet time and personal interactions with other people that are needed to create a self, learn how to solve their own problems, master their emotions, and participate well in group settings. These things can’t be easily structured into a state or national curriculum and that is probably why schools discount them. However, homeschooling allows you and your children to own your schedules, so you have the time to appreciate and leverage your children’s natural tendency to play and learn. I hope the stories and articles in this issue help you feel how desirable it is to remain playful through all our life.

The HoltGWS Newsletter 2 is free.

Back to Playing, Not Back to School

It’s been a busy few weeks for me and I haven’t updated my blog in a while. However, I’ve been collecting some stories I want to share with you that give support for living and learning with children in non-technocratic ways.

At a time in our culture when economists and educators who view schools as giant machines that process people for jobs and social cohesiveness are in control, it is always refreshing—and important—to find researchers and opinion leaders from within the school system who support more human, relationship-based approaches to living and learning with children. One example of the technocratic view of education is the diminishment of physical activity, especially free play, for children. Many parents have internalized the messages the schools have been putting out over the years—your children need lots of academic rigor and the earlier they are brought into line with school standards the better—to the point that children’s free play, pick-up sports games, and other child-initiated and organized games are considered frivolous, if not an actual waste of time. However, as homeschoolers know and have written about for decades, free play is how children naturally learn and develop interests and skills. John Holt explains how this happens beautifully in his revised edition of How Children Learn, in his chapters “Games & Experiments” and “Fantasy Play.” Most recently, Dr. Peter Gray has edited a special edition of the American Journal of Play that focuses on the importance of play for children and its diminishment among schoolchildren.

The journal is available for free, and I urge you to read it if you, or people you know, are having doubts about how much time your children spend playing instead of doing school work. Here is some information about the issue to whet your reading appetite.

Go out and play! Parents today are less likely than ever to utter these words. However, hovering helicopter parents who restrict their kids’ unstructured play may actually harm, rather than help, children according to an interview with Lenore Skenazy (syndicated columnist and author of Free-Range Kids) and Hara Estroff Marano (author of A Nation of Wimps). The authors’ condemnation of overprotective parenting appears in a special themed issue of the American Journal of Play devoted entirely to the importance of free play among children.
Guest editor Peter Gray, Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College, has gathered a distinguished group of contributors who probe the near-extinction of free play and its effects on children and society from historic, anthropologic, and psychological perspectives:

“Why Parents Should Stop Overprotecting Kids and Let them Play,” an interview with Lenore Skenazy and Hara Estroff Marano

“The Special Value of Children’s Age-Mixed Play” by Peter Gray, Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College

“The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adults” by Peter Gray,Research Professor of Psychology at Boston College

“Evolutionary Functions of Social Play: Life Histories, Sex Differences, and Emotional Regulation” by Peter LaFreniere, Professor of Psychology at the University of Maine

 

“Marbles and Machiavelli: The Role of Game Play in Children’s Social Development” by David F. Lancy, Professor of Anthropology at Utah State University, and M. Annette Grove

“Empowering Groups That Enable Play” by David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor for the Department of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University; Danielle Marshall, Senior Manager of Research and  Education at KaBOOM!; and Hindi Isherhoff, former board president of City Repair

“The Design Your Own Park Competition: Empowering Neighborhoods and Restoring Outdoor Play on a Citywide Scale” by David Sloan Wilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor for the Department of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University.

The American Journal of Play is published by The Strong in Rochester, New York. For more information, visit www.journalofplay.org.

Another piece of the technocratic school is technology. Homeschoolers have been dealing with online learning for many years now, being courted, even co-opted, by some companies to embrace their products. Now research is showing that “High-tech classrooms don’t mean higher test scores.” This article, that I read in the Boston Globe, has three fascinating paragraphs near the end that I feel summarize one of the many problems that school innovation suffers from: how well-funded advocates can capture and control school funds into their agenda despite a basis in sound research. Homeshoolers have for decades heard that teaching your own children is irresponsible because there is little research to support it (which is just hogwash, by the way); however, when Big Schooling wants to do something it thinks is worthwhile it will press on regardless of what research exists. For instance:

In 1997, a science and technology committee assembled by President Clinton issued an urgent call about the need to equip schools with technology.

If such spending was not increased by billions of dollars, American competitiveness could suffer, the committee said.

To support its conclusion, the committee’s report cited the successes of individual schools that embraced computers and saw test scores rise or dropout rates fall. But while acknowledging that the research technology’s impact was inadequate, the committee urged schools to adopt it anyhow.

One reason our children are outside less and doing less physical play with each other is their increased access to technology that tethers them to screens. If only this money were spent improving playgrounds, parks, and public spaces; improving library resources (such as public computer access) and children’s health and nutritional needs; creating programs that encourage children and adults to mingle in person in their communities. If those billions had been spent in these ways since 1997 I think we would have improved children’s social capital and, in doing so, improved their school performance. Even if it didn’t improve their test scores, it would have had a positive effect on their everyday lives, which is, to me, even more important than test scores.

Finally, if you worry that you’re not spending enough time on academics with your children at home, this article might help you loosen up and let your kids play in the mud, ride their bikes, or help you do something around the house instead of doing school. The Associated Press reports that South Dakota, Colorado, and Wyoming have shortened their school week in response to budget cuts. The article notes:

According to one study, more than 120 school districts in 20 states, most in the west, now use four-day weeks.

The schools insist that reducing class time is better than the alternatives and can be done without sacrificing academic performance . . .

 . . . Melody Schopp, South Dakota’s state education secretary, says schools that have switched to four days haven’t suffered in achievement tests.

Don’t Let the Shadow of the Future Cloud Children’s Lives

One of the many gifts I received from my attendance at the Radical Nemesis: Ivan Illich conference on April 1 was getting together with old friends and colleagues, many of whom I hadn’t seen in some time. Though the conference was quite good, the conversations we had after the event, during dinner and breakfast, were, to me, even more interesting. Indeed, Dan Grego, the director of the TransCenter for Youth in Milwaukee, had many sharp things to say, particularly when our conversation moved to education.

I often note, as others of like-mind do too, that we should live with and enjoy our children now, in the moment, and that it is okay to ignore what the state curriculum says we need to be making our children learn now and instead focus on what the children are actually interested in and are motivated to do, no matter how far removed from conventional schooling it appears to be to us.

During this conversation Dan referred to Ivan’s idea of “the shadow the future throws” on our present thoughts and actions. Dan told me the following story, which is part of a longer work in progress that he shared with me following the conference. Dan plans to publish the complete article soon, but he gave me permission to use these excerpts.

The Educator’s Folly

Back in 2004, the National Council of La Raza received grants to support the creation of Early College High Schools across the country and determined that some of them would be in Wisconsin.  A press conference was held at the Milwaukee Area Technical College to announce the initiative.  I was invited to attend.

When I arrived, crews from several local television stations were setting up their cameras and microphones.  A group of young people enrolled in the alternative high schools that had been selected to participate in the project were sitting in the back of the room waiting for the dignitaries to show up and the press conference to begin. 

I mingled with the students and chatted with some of them.  I got to know a young man named Ben who was seventeen.  After talking with him for a while, I made a prediction: 

In a few minutes, you and your friends will be asked to stand behind the podium and listen to the speakers.  At some point, one of them will say something like: “This is a great day for Milwaukee because our children are our future.”  When that happens, go over and grab the microphone away from whoever is speaking and tell him: “I’m here right now.”

The press conference began.  The students were herded behind the podium.  The president of the technical college welcomed everyone and introduced a representative from the National Council of La Raza who described the initiative.  Then, he invited the superintendent of the Milwaukee Public Schools up to the microphones.  The superintendent said: “This is a great day for Milwaukee because our children are our future.” 

Standing behind the cameras, I made eye contact with Ben and gestured to him to do what I had suggested.  He smiled shyly, looked down at his shoes, and shook his head.  The press conference droned on to its conclusion.  When it was over and the media people were packing up their equipment, Ben found me in the crowd. 

“How did you know someone would say that?” he asked.

“Because,” I answered, “most of the people in the adult world don’t believe you’re here.  They think you are somewhere else they call The Future.”

 2.

There are some practical reasons why educators should abandon their “obsessive speculations about the future.”  My conversation with Ben points to one of them.

For too long, in modern, industrial societies, adolescents have been given mixed messages.  Fashion designers and advertisers treat them as mini-adults and bombard them with seductive images intended to persuade them that they can be sexy at thirteen; while in schools, they are often infantilized.  They are told over and over again in subtle, and sometimes in not so subtle, ways that they cannot be expected to make real, useful contributions to their communities until some nebulous “future.”  No wonder so many young people feel they are “growing up absurd.”[1]

. . .  A second drawback of educators’ obsession with the future is that it is actually a hindrance to parental involvement in the education of their children.  Parents, of necessity, must live in the present.  They have mortgages to pay, homes to care for, neighbors they are obliged to love as they love themselves, communities to which to contribute.  If children are being educated for The Future, then schools are separating, in a fundamental way, children from their parents.  And Wendell Berry has pointed out this separation inevitably leads to the undermining of communities:

Neither teachers nor students feel themselves answerable to the community, for the school does not exist to serve the community.  It exists to aid and abet the student’s escape from the community into ‘tomorrow’s world,’ in which community standards, it goes without saying, will not apply.[2]

This obsession with The Future is, by definition, irresponsible.  To be responsible is “to be able to respond” to someone or something.  Since the future has yet to happen, one cannot possibly respond to it.  The consequences of the obsession, both for individuals and for communities, are almost entirely negative.

. . . I think our future-obsessed educators misunderstand the true purpose of education.  Education is the process by which people become responsibly mature members of their communities.  If young people develop character, become familiar with their cultural inheritance and the wisdom of the past, and acquire the habits of mind that will help them think critically, they will find their way to productive adulthood. 

By placing the use of the energy and talents of our youth in abeyance, by separating children from their parents and thereby undermining communities, and by irresponsibly presuming to know the future, educators participate in folly, the proportions of which resemble a modern form of idolatry . . .

. . . C. Douglas Lummis, a former professor of International and Cultural Studies who taught in Japan, once asked Ivan Illich in an interview to speculate about a “possible future.”  Illich responded sharply: “To hell with the future!  It’s a man-eating idol.  Institutions have a future…but people have no future.  People have only hope.”[3] 

It has not always been this way.  In the past, in most cultures, people had the sense to know that the future was in the hands of the gods.  The classics scholar, Bernard Knox, wrote:

The early Greek imagination envisaged the past and the present as in front of us – we can see them.  The future, invisible, is behind us.  Only a few very wise men can see what is behind them; some of these men, like the blind prophet Tiresias, have been given this privilege by the gods.  The rest of us, though we have our eyes, are walking blind, backward into the future.[4]

The story of how human beings abandoned this understanding and began to believe that the future was ours to design and control is long and has been told a number of times . . . [5]

---

[1] Paul Goodman. 1960. Growing Up Absurd. New York, NY: Random House.

[2] Wendell Berry. 2002. The Art of the Commonplace. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, p. 63.

[3] Ivan Illich and David Cayley. 2005. The Rivers North of the Future. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, p. xix.

[4] Bernard Knox. 1994. Backing into the Future. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 11-12.

[5] See, for example: Robert Nisbet. 1980. History of the Idea of Progress. New York, NY: Basic Books; Morris Berman. 1981. The Reenchantment of the World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; Christopher Lasch. 1991. The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.  The story was also the theme of a novel that won (ironically?) the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship.  Daniel Quinn. 1992. Ishmael. New York, NY: Bantam Books.