Learning is bigger than schooling

I’ve only made it through the first half of this video so far and have virtually no time to consider this post properly right now, so it’s inevitably going to come out as a brain dump, undoubtedly omitting important points in the process, yet George’s response to Robin Good (above and discussed here) has really set me off on a train of thought…

Referring to the notion of institutionalised schooling, George comments that institutional structures are everywhere in life, and indeed part of society’s fundamental framework, and as such you can’t break one part of your life – that of schooling – away from this. So instead, the question is not one of how would you go about deschooling society, but rather how do you make schools better – keep the best aspects of them, but discard the worst aspects of them.

While I do see where George is going with this argument, I partially disagree with him. The prospect of society as a whole deschooling is indeed a very complicated idea, but the prospect of specific individuals, networks or communities deschooling on the smaller scale is not.

In fact I would go so far as to argue that it is conceivably that, should deschooling occur in sufficient pockets at a grassroots level, you might begin to see broader societal changes – if only regionally, and not completely. Just because change is challenging doesn’t mean that you discard the notion or the ideal.

Indeed, in the homeschooling community my family is a part of, learning is embedded in life – it’s not seen as somehow devolved from it, or delegated its own unique structures (e.g. school), learning is anywhere and everywhere, and learning opportunities are identified and explored as they arise. As such the way the community approaches life in general is inherently different and less compartmentalised from what we see in other, more traditional communities or families.

In that sense, deschooling is more of a distinct culture than just a pedagogical concept. Those who embrace the idea inevitably begin to recognise and embrace a different way of living, working and being, in which there is recognition of the need for more flexibility – even at the level of career and profession.

As George has suggested though, there are distinct clashes when deschooling society meets society at large, which is perhaps why the communities that embrace the idea are so close-knit and supportive of one another.

This support – and the need for it – does arises from the pursuit of an ideal to be sure, and yet there is also the reality of the relatively high social investment costs associated with deschooling. These include financial challenges, commonly resulting from one parent remaining at home; changes to the family dynamic; political sensitivities of a complete divergence from “accepted educational models”; and indeed the need for a complete philosophical and pedagogical change (some would call it an awakening). Yet in our case it has been the best decision we ever made, and I truly believe our children are better of for it.

That said, my family is in the interesting position of having two educators as parents – one former formal educator, one current formal educator. In terms of the discussion on the challenges of deschooling this is particularly clear in our case, because my wife has deschooled completely, yet I have not.

To be fair, in many ways this does support George’s argument on how difficult it is to deschool society. My involvement within an institutionalised educational setting has rendered it impossible for me to deschool completely, however Lisa’s break from UNSW a number of years ago has given her the space and time to decompress and begin to see things differently. This does pose some logistical challenges for us at times, but ultimately I use her as a compass point.

Furthermore, and as I’ve said before, I don’t believe the approach my family has taken to homeschooling and deschooling would work for everyone, so George’s point about the importance of changing institutionalised schooling is absolutely critical. Opportunities need to exist for families or students who prefer more structured methods of learning, such as scaffolding – or are otherwise incapable of breaking that one part of their lives away from institutionalised society, for the reasons George argued.

I do believe that schools serve an important role in society, but their structure and orientation needs to fundamentally change, and they shouldn’t be seen as the only way that we learn, and the only means through which children can receive an education. When we talk about learning, the conversation needs to be far, far broader than just school.