School Leader

Trusting Our Children, Part II

In the first part of my two-part reaction to Suzie Andres' The Little Way of Homeschooling: Thirteen Families Discover Catholic Unschooling, I noted the surprising way I found the book - through Stratford Caldecott's manifesto on rethinking Catholic education, Beauty in the Word.  And I observed a key theme from the book: that consistent with the unschooling philosophy, these Catholic unschoolers practiced a remarkable level of trust in their children to direct their own learning process.

Which is not to say that it's easy to cede so much control to children, especially when adults have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in the teacher-driven approach.  One of the things that impressed me about the essays in The Little Way of Homeschooling was the frank and vulnerable way that the moms described their struggles with the method.  Many battled a constant fear that their children were not learning what they should, but tried to hold steady in trusting their kids to lead the way.  This often involved a constant dance of moving toward and away from structuring their children's learning.

And this was the second thing that impressed me about The Little Way of Homeschooling - the great flexibility the parents practiced in supporting their kids and the permission they gave themselves to try different approaches at different seasons of their lives, and especially to allow the needs of the individual child dictate their path.  Across the thirteen families profiled in the book, some practiced a very "free" style of unschooling, while others regularly directed some portion of the learning in their home, but none were dogmatic in their approach as all seemed to recognize that their children needed different things at different times and flexibly responding to those needs is the real essence of unschooling.

Many of the moms mentioned the notion of "strewing," a term coined (it appears) by unschooling advocate Sandra Dodd, author of The Big Book of Unschooling. The idea is to create an environment filled with good books, art, musical instruments, and other items that will naturally spark a child's interest and prompt them to learn something new (akin to Montessori's idea of the "prepared environment"). 

The idea is a wonderful example of how unschooling does not mean taking no interest in your child's learning.  To the contrary, it requires intimately knowing your child, his or her needs and interests, and knowing a lot about a lot of different things so you can prompt the child toward the material that will ultimately nourish his or her soul and intellect.  In this way, unschooling represents the ultimate form of differentiation - something educators know is essential, but is so hard to accomplish when children and their learning are treated as a standardized process.

In the closing chapter of The Little Way, Andres' husband, philosopher Tony Andres, emphasizes that, because the unschooling philosophy is geared so much toward the needs of the individual child, it isn't merely about homeschooling but can have implications for schooling of all sorts:

...[P]arents who unschool might very well have their children take advantage of courses offered at a school.  As long as the parents disregard grades and allow their children to focus on learning for the sake of knowing, they are bringing unschooling into the school.  The essence of unschooling is not the staying away from school buildings, but making education hinge on the desire for knowledge, rather than on rewards and punishments.

And that's a lesson not just for parents, but for educators who work in actual schools.

Could such a philosophy be adapted to brick-and-mortar schools?  Not easily, to be sure.  And it would require a total rethinking of how we fund education and ensure accountability in outcomes (for more on this see my two part discussion of Michael Q. McShane's Education and Opportunity here and here).

But there are huge opportunities for schools to begin shifting their pedagogy from standardized, one-size-fits-all, teacher-directed instruction to something far more personalized and built around individual student interest and need.  Educators have much to learn from unschooling, and Suzie Andres' book (and especially its recommended resources) has greatly extended my own reading list on the topic.

Related Posts:

• Richard Elmore: "I Do Not Believe in the Institutional Structure of Public Schooling Anymore"
• A Journey Into Personalized Learning
• Homeschooling Challenges Schools to Change
• Is Differentiation Really Possible?
• "Education and Opportunity" Makes a Clear, Succinct Case for Rethinking Educational Delivery

Trusting Our Children, Part I

Two of my professional (and personal) interests, Catholic education and unschooling, recently came together through an unexpected path of reading.  First I read Stratford Caldecott's Beauty in the Word: Rethinking the Foundations of Education, which attempts to articulate a new philosophy of Catholic education based on the ancient Trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.  But to my surprise, Beauty in the Word ends with a lovely acknowledgement of homeschooling as a viable - even desirable - method for implementing Caldecott's vision, and he suggests Suzie Andres' book, The Little Way of Homeschooling: Thirteen Families Discover Catholic Unschooling as an exemplary m0del of what's possible.  I'll discuss this book and my reactions to it in two parts.

As a practicing Catholic Christian who spent some of my formative years as a teacher and administrator in Catholic schools, I believe that Catholic schools are one of many viable avenues through which a much-needed revitalization of American education could take place, especially given the excellent record of Catholic schools addressing the needs of low-income minority students (see the Cristo Rey network of schools for an exciting contemporary example). 

This is what brought me to Cadelcott's Beauty in the Word.  But what really struck me was a small chapter at the end of the book in which he reflects on linkages between his theory of Catholic education and the work of John Holt (1923-1985), a former school teacher who created a homeschooling revolution through his radically student-centered philosophy explicated in his books How Children Fail and How Children Learn.  As an example of where his own philosophy merges with Holt's, Caldecott pointed to Suze Andres' profile of 13 Catholic families in The Little Way of Homeschooling.

Andres, whose first book was Homeschooling with Gentleness: A Catholic Discovers Unschooling, takes her inspiration from the "Little Way" spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux.  Her particular style of homeschooling - unschooling - is closely linked to John Holt's and emphasizes giving children an extraordinarily wide latitude in allowing them to choose what they learn, how, and at what pace.

I realize that many of my colleagues and friends who work in K12 education (especially if they are not regular readers of this blog) may find these concepts completely bizarre.  I don't have time or space here to make a case for this kind of radical rethinking of education, but I do refer you to the related posts listed below for more background on how my own understanding of these concepts continues to evolve.  Here I just want to note some general reactions to Andres' book, most of which is taken up with the first-person essays written by the Catholic homeschooling moms in her personal network.

First, I'm most struck by the overwhelming theme of trust in these families' approaches to educating their children.  Unschooling is predicated on the idea that children are natural learners, that they desire to learn and do not require coercion or external rewards to encourage them to do so - as long as you let them direct the process.  This is confirmed by my own experience parenting small children and by my eye-opening encounters with Montessori education. 

But this kind of trust runs directly counter to the typical structures of traditional American schooling, which assume that there is a body of knowledge that all children must learn, and that they must learn it at fairly precise ages and rates under the careful direction of a professional teacher.  Most of this is not intentionally predicated on a distrust of children (though I recently had a teacher insist to me that her second graders never do anything without an extrinsic reward), but rather on an industrial model of education that we have inherited and simply take for granted - and that operates on an unstated assumption that kids won't learn without lots of structure.

The experience of unschooling families (and schools based on the philosophy like the Sudbury Valley Schools) suggests that this distrust of children is damaging and thoroughly unwarranted given the impressive outcomes of kids educated in a more trusting way.

Which is not to say this kind of trust is easy for adults indoctrinated in the traditional way of schooling.  I'll say more on this, my reflections on the Little Way of Homeschooling, and its implications, in my next post.

Related posts:

• Richard Elmore: "I Do Not Believe in the Institutional Structure of Public Schooling Anymore"
• A Journey Into Personalized Learning
• Homeschooling Challenges Schools to Change
• Is Differentiation Really Possible?

Education and Opportunity, Part II

In the first part of my two-part review of Education and Opportunity, I described how American Enterprise Institute research fellow Michael Q. McShane lays out an argument for school choice, calling for "a vibrant marketplace of education options."

McShane succinctly argues for improving schools as an economic and moral imperative.  And he shows how some of the most commonly-advocated remedies (increasing school funding, reducing class size, and universal pre-school) may have merit but nevertheless do not provide sustainable, long-term solutions.

McShane also lays out research demonstrating the positive impacts of school choice alternatives like charter schools and voucher programs, but concludes that even these market-based reforms are insufficient for drastically improving student learning.  These programs are simply too few and far between, and above all the bureaucratic structures of school regulation and accountability, which are designed to direct a government-run monopoly, place a significant "ceiling on their ability to effect large-scale change."

Specifically, the current stifling, micro-managing, top-down structures of school accountability are designed for a system in which the government operates a monopoly on educational delivery.  "Because students as consumers don't have the option to leave, we hold the schools accountable with student test scores, attendance rates, and a variety of other metrics to ensure that providers are effectively fulfilling their role," McShane writes.

But if families had a genuine choice of where their children attend school, such draconian oversight becomes uncessary because schools would face the ultimate form of accountability: closure for lack of customers:

A market-based regulatory structure would look similar to how we regulate restaurants, home purchases, and automobiles.  The government sets minimum health and safety requirements, determines certain floors of performance, establishes financial reporting rules to make sure money is actually going to the appropriate schools, and then allows people to choose between these vetted options.  This protects people from harm without defining for them what a good school looks like.

McShane shows how, under such an accountable-but-consumer-driven system, there would no longer be a need for local school districts as we currently know them.  Local educational authorities would essentially become regulatory agencies, but a wide variety of private and non-profit education vendors might emerge to actually deliver educational options to families.

This could be facilititated through the establishment of K-12 educational savings accounts (ESA), which families could use to send their children to the school of their choice, or used to purchase educational services from a variety of vendors (I've previously written about a la carte education here; McShane calls them "course choice programs"). 

To put this in Kentucky terms, rather than send the state-allocated amount of per pupil funding (called SEEK) to local school districts, each family would receive this funding directly through an ESA.  And just like with the current SEEK formula, the amount of the ESA could be adjusted based on a student's particular needs (disability, free/reduced lunch status, etc.).  Families would then use these funds to obtain educational services from a specific school or combination of schools and other vendors. 

McShane also calls for the establishment of social impact bonds to encourage start-ups for new educational ventures, something that would be critical in a new, consumer-oriented educational market.  Opponents of school choice often imagine that the only competitors would be the combination of public, charter, and private schools that currently exist.  But in fact, a genuine educational market could see the flowering of a wide variety of schools and learning options that cater to more specific individual student needs and interests.

Ultimately, Education and Opportunity helps make the case that education, while a public good, does not have to be delivered directly by institutions run by the government. 

This should go without saying, of course.  Recipients of Medicaid use what is essentially a government voucher to obtain health care from private doctors of their own choosing; recipients of food stamps may select the grocery where they use their benefit; recipients of Pell grants choose among a variety of public and private colleges and universities - in none of these cases do most Americans consider the system would be more just or effective if there were only government run hospitals, grocery stores, or universities from which to choose.  How is K12 education different?

I hope taxpayers and policymakers will heed the wisdom of Michael Q. McShane's powerful little treatise, Education and Opportunity, and I especially hope that professional educators will too.  As I've written before, I am not aware of anyone who chose the vocation of teaching because they wanted to work for a state-run monopoly. 

To the contrary, we work for these monopolies because they are the only mechanism for educational delivery for the vast majority of families.  But it doesn't have to be this way, and we have the opportunity to deliver an even better learning experience for children, far better tailored to their individual desires and needs, if we consider a different way of thinking about schooling.  Education and Opportunity is an excellent place to start.

Related Posts:

• Is the "End Near" for Education as We Know It?
• Can "Educational Pluralism" End the Schooling Wars?
• Remembering "Who Pays the Piper" for Public Ed: Some Questions to Ponder
• Educational Paternalism: What Do Super-Size Softdrinks Have to do with School Choice?