It seems to me that the foundational assumptions of traditional school are: that children, left to their own devices, cannot and will not learn; that children are basically helpless and stupid and deficient in curiosity; that children must therefore be taught, by a competent authority, or they will fail to grasp concepts and gain skills.

I think anyone who has ever spent any time with a child can attest that all of these ideas are patently false. Anyone who was ever spent time around a child who is learning to talk can attest as much with even greater confidence — tiny babies, unable even to feed themselves, crack the code of language with a speed and an enthusiasm most adults could envy. The reality, as far as I can tell, could not be farther from those assumptions.

And I do believe those are the underlying ideas. We would have to believe that children must be forced to learn in order to ask ourselves, “Is our children learning?”

That is an insane question. I know it’s also a much-mocked one, but no one would have laughed at it if our Ivy Leagued-educated* soon-to-be-former President had managed to formulate it correctly. And that’s absurd. There is no such thing as a child who isn’t learning. The only questions is, “Are our children learning things in the arbitrary order and at the arbitrary pace the school system requires?” If that’s more important to us than whether children are happy, healthy, curious, and engaged — and it certainly seems to be — we have our priorities precisely backward.

Instead of creating a safe, engaging environment where young children can explore, we create sterilized institutions where children are policed, herded like cattle. Instead of recognizing children as humans, with interests and desires, we treat them like identical robots, worrying whether they’ve learned to perform the right tricks instead of worrying whether they’ve learned to make friends, have conversations, critically evaluate ideas, express themselves through writing and art.

I know this has been said before. It’s been said so often it was already cliche when I was born in 1989. These things had been said, written, published in many places when, in 1998, I threw up in the bathroom after my first timed math test. Yes, these were well known ideas in 2005, when my incredibly intelligent twelve-year-old brother was identified as a “problem” by his teachers for such offenses as having unkempt hair, a messy backpack, and unsharpened pencils. I’m quite sure these ideas were familiar to the “head learner” (principal) of my high school when he sat me down and, having seen my SAT scores, proceeded to lecture me at length about the importance of attending a prestigious school, in total indifference to my thoughts, feelings, existence. He repeatedly interrupted me as a I tried to explain myself — to explain that I had more than a few misgivings about running off to spend a fortune for the privilege of joining the system currently destroying the world. His unwavering, self-interested concern for his own ability to use my accomplishments in future fund-raising was shockingly transparent. And this was at a small, artsy, alternative charter school. I do not want to imagine the lives of my cohorts in crueler institutions.

These ideas are well known, but the system continues. I have a lot of ideas about what would make a better school system, but very few about how to get out of the mess we’re in. The machine seems unbreakable, and I am terrified that with each passing year my memories will fade, I will care a little less, and eventually put my children through the same thing, safe in the socially acceptable conviction that it’s good for them. That the best training ground for this cruel world, this cruel capitalist economy, is the schoolyard with its bullies, its asphalt, its sand kicked by wind into little eyes, little mouths.

I’m sorry. I don’t have any suggestions. The point of public education is a very laudable and necessary one: we must have an educated populous in order to have a functioning democracy. But while we have a schooled populous, we don’t have an educated one. And while things are looking up for this country in recent months, the state of our republic is still dubious.

And I’m not just talking about public schools here, though that’s where I received most of my primary and secondary education. It’s the strange project of school itself, the centralization of childhood. It’s the strange truth that we live in a society in which young people, like old people, are useless — are unable to contribute anything we consider to be of value — and so must be occupied by pointless, deadening tasks.

I’m still in school now. In many ways college in depressingly similar to high school — the kids are the same as ever — but in others, it is a great improvement. The single greatest thing about college, the single thing that differentiates it from high school, is the fact that my professors respect me. My professors acknowledge me as a human being, with both the ability and the right to make choices for myself. No one is trying to go over my head. No one is trying to deny me my most basic authority over my own time, my own body. No one treats me a like a robot or an animal. No one treats me like a child.

Further reading.

In the comments to this post, I was offered two invaluable links that helped to catalyze my thinking on this subject. My aunt Stephanie recommended this amazing speech by John Taylor Gatto — it’s his acceptance speech for the New York City Teacher of the Year Award, which he won in 1990. Please read it.

Next, ballgame me suggested Compulsory Miseducation by Paul Goodman — that’s a PDF of the 1964 book. It’s a fast, engaging read; much of the language is dated, but the ideas are still timely and revolutionary.

* You know, enough said, really. That’s my whole point right there.

When I was in 10th grade, Emily and I started going to the bookstore during our free periods. We’d get coffee, and then just wander, reading title after title, picking up anything that interested us. We often read whole books in a single sitting, crouched on the carpet at the back of one aisle or another, sometimes reading silently to ourselves and sometimes out loud to one another. We read novels, collections of poetry, nonfiction volumes about science and history and feminism. This was fun — it was great, unadulterated fun, and the things we learned are immeasurable. I would learn more in ninety minutes, exploring an interesting topic with my best friend, than I did in an entire semester in any of my classes. Overall I’m sure I’ve learned significantly more reading with Emily — in bookstores, bedrooms and the blogosphere — than I did in my three* years of high school combined.

Being forced back into class every day after this was incredibly demoralizing. I’ve always been an A student and liked school more than most, but this exposed the great hypocrisy of what I was being forced to do. I was learning, passionately — and it felt nothing like sitting in those classrooms. That framework of school was actively hostile to my education, actively preventing me from learning, by forcing me to sit in my plastic chair as an often pathetic teacher tried and failed to gain control of the classroom, and as the other kids joked and flirted in their stupidly transparent ways.

(Emily simply sat silently reading through every single class, managing to get some value of that wasted time.)

To add insult to injury, those school officials would regularly force me into discussions and activities about “learning how to learn.” Learning how to learn! As if they new the first thing about it! As if learning is some trick children must be trained, like dogs, to perform!

Needless to say, there is something profoundly wrong with the school system when it inhibits learning. There is something profoundly wrong with the school system when the bookish, academic kids hate it.

So what are we doing here?

We’re treating children and teenagers like they aren’t people. People — human beings — are sensitive, curious, self-aware, self-motivating, cooperative creatures. We treat children like they’re numb, stupid, belligerent, apathetic animals, and then we complain when they act that way.

And what happened to Emily and me?

We figured out that we were people. We discovered we were smart, caring, inquisitive and enthusiastic. We discovered we were human beings.

Once the kid knows she’s a person, you can’t expect her to sit back down and shut back up again.

(Thanks to Dave at How to Save The World for reminding me of this a few weeks ago.)

In the next installment, more about the fundamental assumptions of school, plus a suggestion for further reading. Finally, in Part III if it fits or IV if it doesn’t, some ideas about what school should do and be.

* At the end of junior year I started attending college under an arrangement in which both schools agreed to let me count college credits toward my high school graduation.

I’m at my high school, sitting in the gathering space — the hall where we had our weekly, school-wide assemblies. All my friends are there, and all my teachers. Guest speakers have come in. They are talking and talking, lecturing us about some subject, passing a microphone back and forth. They are saying something that infuriates me — some lie, some bigoted untruth that the teachers and administrators are nodding along to. I’m exchanging glances with my friends, my classmates, uneasy sideways glances as we slowly realize how wrong these lecturers are. They talk on and on and it gets only worse, I get angrier and angrier. I raise my hand to speak but they ignore it. My hand is up for what feels like hours, until my arm is shaking and exhausted and my face contorted. I start to yell, begging to be allowed to speak. I need to speak. I know that no one will correct these liars if I don’t and I can’t let them talk like that to my friends, to all these kids. I love these kids and I can’t let them do this. But they ignore me. I start screaming, and I’m crying, choking around my sentences, my pathetic little points that I need to make so badly. I need only to say them, to be heard. How can they make us sit here like this? Forced to gag on their sentences and not allowed to feel anything, not allowed to respond.

This is when my teachers decide they have had enough of it. They grab my arms, my hair, my shoulders. They put duct tape over my mouth.

It’s more than a year already that I’ve been out of high school, but I have these dreams about once a week. That’s a more mild one. A few month ago I dreamt that the school administration was keeping us locked in rotting facilities on an isolated island a la Lost, and they performed surgeries on us when we were sleeping, putting machines into our bodies. My parents, both in their forties, still have high school nightmares, too.

These nightmares are evidence of trauma. I wake up crying, my hands stuck in tight fists. If my parents are any indication, I may have these nightmares all my life.

What the hell is going on here? What are we doing? What is this system, this methodology, that we refuse to break away from? It’s incredible to me — truly incredible — that virtually everyone has a horrible, permanently scarring experience in school, only to force their own children through the same thing.

In the next segment, I will explore the nature of formal education — what it is we’re actually doing here.

The title, by the way, comes from here.

At about 30 strong, the crowd of children gathered outside the metro entrance in Arlington were an overcrowded-classroom full of energy and enthusiasm.  A few parents waded through the Obama/Biden signs, yet this was all the work of one 11 year old student: Mariah Brescia-Weller.

Mariah had put together an impressive show of force.  I talked briefly with her about the rally (note to self: should have brought a tape recorder!  I will paraphrase from my notes).  As we glossed over initial motivations (Excitement about the election, and wanting to channel that excitement and energy into persuading people to vote for Obama), issues came up.  Education, Health Care, Woman’s Right’s, Taxes, Immigration.  I found that last one rather interesting coming from an eleven year old.  So I inquired further.  Mariah had friends who were in various stages of immigration, and it was very important to her that the next president be someone who would help them.  The idea of the personal driving the political occured again when another Obama supporter, Jeremy, chimed in.  He knew a 5th grader who broke her arm, and had no health insurance.

I spoke with one of the mothers, Sandra, about where political beliefs come from at such a young age.  She acknowledged that some were sure to come from parents, but kids have their own ideas on things.  Pressed further she shared that she’d noticed with her son this year, when they watched the debates, he’d become incredibly animated and engaged around the issues that struck him.

Two elections from now these children will be voting, and they are a part of Northern Virginia’s continuing journey to blue state status.  Its easy during an election to focus purely on those eligible to vote.  But an election is an opportunity to invite people into the process of active citizenship.  All of the kids at that rally have taken a wonderful step into a life of civic engagement.  In particular Mariah, who at 11 was articulate, to the point, and organized a political event.  Her mother is a wonderful person for encouraging and nurturing her daughter’s political expression.  She’s also wise.  We can all use this election to meet future senators, community organizers, and activists.  In 7 years children like Mariah will be voting.  Imagine where they will be in 27.

The level of discourse from McCain is truly awe inspiring, if by awe inspiring one means lower than whale shit.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax cuts and tax credits McCain says would merely shuffle wealth rather than creating it. “At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives,” McCain said in a radio address. “They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Sen. Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it’s just another government giveaway.”

Now I don’t want to worry the passport averse US populace but erm Europe is not um ‘socialist‘ neither are any of its ‘leaders‘. Jeebus knows that if it was we would be in a lot less shit over the Neoliberal created crisis in global capital. Certainly there are remnants of social democracy still persisting in Europe against the free market onslaught by and for the wealthy, but socialist? Not even fucking close. And that’s another thing, McCarthyism may have done its job in the US but socialist is not a dirty word.

So what might the American record on poverty be? Has the ‘wealth creation‘ and ‘trickle down‘ of the Neoliberal policies of Reagan, Bush, Clinton & Bush (W) meant an equal society? The simplest measure is the Gini coefficient-

Click to enlarge

Yes you’re the yellow line, notice how it meandered along until 1980 then it began climbing steadily through both Republican and Democrat administrations. That is because all of them adhered to Neoliberal economic policy. Look at the climbs for other countries and they also coincide with the introduction of Neoliberal dogma. Or how about pay disparity as a rough guide-

In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to “Executive Excess,” an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies. That’s not the highest ever. In 2001, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay hit a peak of 525-to-1. Still, it’s quite a leap year over year, and it ranks on the high end historically. In 1990, for instance, CEOs made about 107 times more than the average worker, while in 1982, the average CEO made only 42 times more.

Obama’s plans are better than McCain’s who is using a straw man argument of an imaginary pinko Europe and thinks society is best served by growing inequality as the rich become richer than they have ever been. His preferred newspeak for this is ‘wealth creation‘ and his demonisation of even modest stabilising measures becomes ‘government giveaway‘ which tells you his attitude to democracy. Government is the one powerful institution the people have some control over, thus he wants to weaken that tiny speck of power redistribution, also perversely as the government is only spending the people’s money it is not a giveaway, it is returning capital to the populace. That it might in some small fashion do this in a way that does not amplify the growing inequality is what he objects to.

Much has been made of the racism, belligerence and ignorance of McCain supporters at rallies but this is only to be expected for a party that governs in the interests of a tiny elite of the very wealthy. They cannot rule on the votes of 1% of the nation so they very deliberately target the least informed, worst educated who will not be aware they are voting against their own best interests. Of course their polices, in a feedback loop, further create uninformed poorly educated people who cannot share in the wealth of the nation but have been convinced that government is bad and rich people are accorded godlike status. People are encouraged to look upon a billionaire’s wealth not as a theft from the public commons but a sign of achievement and probable moral superiority to the ‘undeserving poor’. It is also not unexpected that conservative religious charlatans have invented the ‘prosperity doctrine‘ which assigns divine right to the pursuit of riches in a remarkable reading of the bible that is akin to walking out of Star Wars with the impression the Empire is the good guy.

Speaking of which it is interesting that imperialism remains largely absent from popular discourse, America is the only Imperial power on Earth spending more on its military than the rest of the world combined and with 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries, yet it’s citizen’s are kept largely unaware of the dynamics of imperialism. When blowback occurred on 911 many asked why do they hate us? Few perceived it to be a form of resistance albeit monstrous and from a millionaire trained by the CIA who had succumbed to fundamentalist fantasies that estranged him from his well connected family. But that’s ruling classes for you, pursuing disputes for power and wealth causing themselves little harm but resulting in the deaths of the lower classes. Look at George W. Bush in his champagne unit (before he went AWOL) and Cheney with his deferments while the poverty draft supplies the murder machine overseas.

Why no universal healthcare- look at the military budget. Why poor education- look at the military budget. Why ineffective welfare- look at the military budget. And now we can add look at the billions the banks got immediately, but there is no money for institutions that would benefit the people. Choices have been made, the global armed robbery that is imperialism at its simplest takes precedent over nurturing human beings. It’s the elephant in the room (usually communicated in the newspeak of ‘a strong America‘) , it took a shattering world war and the collapse of our empire before Britain got some institutions of human necessity, a health service, welfare, a less unequal education system, incidentally all things now under threat thanks to the economic imperialism of the market fundamentalists. Neoliberal dogma evangelised by Milton Friedman and whose implementation in Latin America was deemed justification for the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of people (helpfully sped along with American training, funding and military ‘advisors’) is the neoconservatism of economics and attempts to make it palatable (risible bilge like ‘Freakonomics’) persist in corporate media even as its failure is manifest in the collapsed financial markets. Its end stage authoritarianism is now emerging in the homeland of the ideology, interrogation has replaced the word torture in the corporate media lest it offend the elite who legalised it, police at the RNC had insurance against brutality claims and Iraq traumatised troops are now deployed domestically for the first time ever.

From ‘socialist‘ Europe it appears quite clear McCain heads a movement that could easily be termed crypto fascist. Obama is a centrist, a conservative in some respects but given the choice (such as it is) it is not unsurprising the world wants to see him heading the American Empire. Being as the rest of the world has to live with this leviathan we would at least like someone who doesn’t enjoy jokes about bombing countries (not surprising for a man who dropped bombs on civilians, Kurt Vonnegut noted that quality also in George Bush snr. such pilots never see the death they cause, they have a different perception of war from the lowly infantry private).

But liberals/progressives/leftists will remain disappointed with the people they get elected (if they still can) until the two great underlying pressures on any administration, Neoliberal economic policy and imperialism, are challenged. This is even more pressing with the crisis caused by the ideology of free market fundamentalists, with a recession settling in societies react by becoming more authoritarian/fascist or they embrace social democracy with government by and for the people. That the barest hints of social democracy are hysterically called socialist or Marxist is simply a sign of how far to the right the conservative movement has moved in America and of their likely intentions underneath the spin (and their historical animus toward FDR, Prescott Bush (before he laundered the Nazis money) was involved in planning a fascist coup against his administration and removing the last vestiges of the New Deal is still among conservatives list of priorities).

If you are a migrant in America you already know what the state will do to the powerless, paramilitary raids, detention in camps, deaths in custody and pervasive hate propaganda in the media. As money continues to accrue at the top of society so does power, McCain is showing he is all in favour of this, which means more people will become powerless. An Obama win is but one step towards fighting that process, that in a way is the only revelation ‘socialist‘ Europe can send America, leaving it to people in power to govern is an invitation to tyranny, constant engagement and keeping democratic processes healthy are essential. Otherwise as billionaire Warren Buffet admitted, the class war exists and will continue to be won by the rich. Those billionaires, bunch of Reds.