Monday 29 October 2012

Uncollege forever

Yesterday I caught a young American dude on the radio talking about real education in a way that was both refreshing and comforting.He's begun a kind of social movement called Uncollege. Its really an unschoolers manifesto: give a human a chance to go their own direction,doing what they love and you'll find a happier person with motivation to burn,contributing to society using their innate an developed talents.And all this outside of the tertiary education system where in American the average student debt is $60,000-and ours not far behind. Refreshing because it was a change from the numbed out uncreative monologues of the Ministry of Education,who all advocate more and earlier testing,staying at school longer and starting it earlier.He spoke eloquently of the"12 year prison sentence" that is school.The fact that schools were set up for the industrial age factory workers to teach them how to do a repetitive task,meet deadlines and follow orders.And now there isnt even those type of jobs out there.Not that I.see school as feeder for the workplace.The paradox is that teacher charters (I still belong to an organisation of teachers!) all say how its all about the individual and child-centred learning blah blah. Meanwhile at school the same people fixated with power and control are magnetised into the profession,where they proceed to live out their neurosis with the blessing of the system.
Comforting for me because it reflects my and other's views and confirms that humans, somewhere, somehow are alive and well and waiting for everyone else to wake up.

No comments:

Post a Comment