rethinking school

Posted on March 30th, 2009 at 7:52 am by admin

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schoolSchool and Sensory ProcessingI’m starting to wonder if the whole concept of school is a bit like a rotary dial telephones.

Public schooling was developed in the mid 1800s to early 1900s to give reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic to the masses. Most people were farmers, hence the summers off.

It was a system where teachers hit kids who didn’t cooperate and labelled unsuccessful kids “dunces” and humiliated them. There were no learning disabilities, no disadvantaged parents, no social skills training, no autism spectrum. There wasn’t even much kindness.

All kids faced the front because they had to watch and listen to the teacher, who was the main source of information. They could also look at books, the alternative source. They sat at desks because the point of education was to write. They were supposed to sit still, not run around, even if that’s what their bodies were screaming at them to do.

And here we are today, past year 2000, still with more or less the same model.

Despite what we know about differences in child development

And neurodiversity.

And the problems with age groupings.

Despite the internet.

Despite changes in the family structure, parenting, parent education levels, and the urban work schedule.

Sure, some people have experimented with alternative schools and home schools.But the majority of kids still go to schools.

Where learning is painfully slow if you are bright, and painfully fast if you are learning disabled.

Where extroversion is rewarded and introversion denigrated.

And where ASD kids have suffered for decades.

The problem with school is something called Normal.

Normal doesn’t exist, yet it’s the thing school revolves around. And if you’re not in or near this Normal, school ends up making you feel like a freak. It takes years to shake it off.

I don’t know what the alternatives are. Sometimes I picture a hybrid learn/work program, where kids shadow adults part of the time, learning work-based skills, and then learn from school and the internet at other times. Or maybe all kids belong with their parents at work, in separate classroom areas, where they do lessons by internet based on their own interests, and work the rest of the time by their parents side. When kids don’t want to do school and learning, they do something else.

But maybe that’s too organic for our culture.

I know my kid would be happier.