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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] is unschooing effective? responsible?

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  • From: KNat <knat@sprintmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] is unschooing effective? responsible?
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 09:44:42 -0500

Jenny Katz wrote:
Everyone,

What would permaculture say about this? Make slow and small changes in the
system? Or what? I'd love your opinions.

Jenny
The chapter from A Pattern Language (thanks Steve for leading me to read this) has a wonderful description of permaculture education and it is what our family did for homeschooling. Children stay connected to the whole community and develop with guidance from experts that nourish their interests. In our model, parents keep children near them as they work and teach, by example, interaction skills (which reading and writing just naturally flows out of .) As the children interact with more diverse adults they expand their language to include the technical vocabularies of specialized fields and when one field peeks their interest they work alongside a smith of that trade. In my son's case it was math and music so he hung out with retired engineers that people forget to listen to too often in this society- math doesn't get old and elders with a passion for it can explain why the special vocabulary (and that is all Math is) is beautiful. He learned history by interviewing elders at homes and day centers they were forgotten in and helped them write memories their children had never dreamed to ask for. My daughter's passions were different and she did a joke book of what people remember as funny from childhoods of different decades. It still gave her a real sense of how humans age and find joy. That's permaculture. Timelines of people's stories needed research on life at the same time in other places, then other times. Then other governance structures. My son, reading his own work, learned to edit and write for different audiences by experiencing different audiences- political advocacy, newspaper articles, poetry festivals. Society has always offered him an audience because he had something to say and didn't know children aren't people yet and he'd have to wait. It is not the same as some people's version of homeschooling to produce hot house flowers that excel on the same scales of questionable value. Unschooling is permaculture. It is a community educating a child. That's why we chose permaculture for a school model to try and form a community around a school. Historically, "school" was where one went when one had "leisure" time to develop themselves. It presumed other life skills were learned elsewhere. A place that supported philosophers who could share mental knowledge with passion. A way to apprentice thinking arts. It was for the student driven to those masters the same as the student craving blacksmithing. Trade schools developed around tradespeople students flocked to for their skills. Today "school" needs to have many types of experts or serve as a referral service to where such expertise is. Too often the only masters to learn from are people who "teach."
But any of us need to realize the other real learning is in summer camps now. The students who will excel in other than teaching are now studying fencing, crafts, nature lore, or working on farms. They may be enjoying music or foreign language immersion. They may be engaged in family interaction of a wonderful or stressful kind. This is the season for those studies. Some are studying video games and television watching. Children don't have an off season and "school" only does 6 hours of 180 days of their education/year. 1080 hours- including lunch and hall time to study societal values displayed by like aged peers and select adults. That's of 5840 study hours (8760 hour year less 8 hrs sleep.) Seems silly to me to evaluated them only on their teaching/testing skills. So much more study is in other areas.
The kid you walk by today could learn from you. Share your passion. That would be permaculture change. "We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Peace,
Kathyann

"In a society which emphasizes teaching, children and students-and adults-become passive and unable to think or act for themselves. Creative, active individuals can only grow up in a society which emphasizes learning instead of teaching."
A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander, p 100 (Volume 2, Center for Environmental Studies)






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