Overcoming Fear, Building a Future
By Kelly Coyle DiNorcia
Choosing progressive educational opportunities
for our children and our society
Photo © Shutterstock Images |
Wellspring Community School, our small independent school in New
Jersey, has recently hosted a number of outreach events that have brought many
new people into our midst – educators, grandparents, parents, children, and
other members of our community. Parents, especially, frequently comment about
how welcoming and appealing our space and people are, and often leave full of
enthusiasm for our particular embodiment of the philosophy of holistic
education. However, more often than not they ultimately select a more
traditional educational setting for their children.
We often wonder why people are so full of interest after
visiting us, only to later decide that our school is not a good choice for them.
Parents who have a viscerally positive reaction while in our classroom go home
and create a boatload of excuses as to why our school would not fulfill their
children’s needs. Why is this? I ask myself how we can better reach potential
families with our vision of filling the world with inspired children who are
happy, creative, and active members of a local and global community.
This is a vital question for the future of progressive
education, and I imagine it is one asked around the world by those of us seeking
to grow a larger movement while sustaining our schools and life learning
opportunities. I think the answer to this question lies in our willingness as a
culture to abdicate responsibility for our lives and our children in a very
fundamental way. (I would like to insert here a recognition of the fact that not
all families are biological, and that families created by adoption or
other non-biological means often must jump through all manner of hoops in order
to secure their rights as parents, whether they like it or not.)
This begins
before children are even born, when many parents choose a physician and follow
her orders without questioning. Once a child is born, the pediatrician becomes
the arbiter of good parenting in many ways. Many parents are beholden to their
doctors’ advice when it comes time to choose which if any drugs they put into
their children’s bodies, how to ensure that the young people in their care reach
developmental milestones “on time,” even what detergent they use to wash an
infant’s clothing.
For questions that arise between well-visits to the
pediatrician, parents consult any of a burgeoning number of books that can be
found at bookstores or libraries. These books are granted the status of user
manuals (if not religious texts) as parents use the authors’ advice to guide
them through the difficult, messy, and exhausting terrain of living with young
children. If you want sleep, you’re told to leave your child to cry in his crib
for this number of minutes before going in to comfort (but not hold) him, and
then leave him for this number of minutes and so on until he is quiet. A fever
of this particular degree warrants a call to the doctor, and this other
temperature should send you straight to the emergency room. Even clothing for
young children is labeled by age, so that my two-year-old who is still wearing
eighteen month clothing is somehow not quite right, at least according to
Carter’s or Gymboree or Gap Kids.
Soon it is time for the young child to begin school, and parents
are faced with a decision that is often perceived to be the most momentous of
all. Education is seen as preparation for adulthood and career (or at least
work), so the start of a child’s school years is make it or break it time. Most
parents, when faced with this milestone in a child’s life, send their children
to public school or, if they can afford it, to a traditionally-structured
private school.
|
"I wish that there were some easy answer whereby we could quickly
grow a broad and strong progressive education movement based on
respecting children and equipping them with self-confidence,
curiosity, problem-solving skills, and a deeply-ingrained sense of
community. I believe that such a system of education will benefit
not only my own children but the entire Earth and all her
inhabitants." |
A growing number of parents are beginning to have niggling
doubts about what is going on in our schools. Large class sizes, high-stakes
testing, curriculum developed by bureaucrats rather than educators, teachers
hired by their position on the pay scale rather than their qualifications, even
school lunches made from highly processed government-purchased surplus rather
than fresh, healthy, local ingredients – these things make many parents
uncomfortable. However, most parents set aside their discomfort and send their
children off to the neighborhood kindergarten anyway. Some of them are not aware
of the alternatives. Some are aware but simply cannot afford the expense of a
private education or do not have the option of homeschooling due to employment
or other concerns. Other parents are genuinely committed to the ideal of quality
free education for all children and work to improve the system from within. Some
of these parents are the ones who visit progressive schools like ours, are
enchanted by what they see happening there, and still choose public or
conservative private schools.
Why? The short answer, in my opinion, is fear. By abdicating
responsibility, we also free ourselves from accountability. If we do what the
doctor says and things don’t turn out well, it’s the doctor’s fault, or if not
the doctor then it’s the medical system, or the pharmaceutical companies, or the
malpractice insurance providers. In any case, the fault is definitely not ours.
If we send our child to school and she doesn’t read “on time” or fails to
achieve acceptable scores on standardized tests, then the school has failed her
despite our best efforts. After all, we did what the experts told us to do. We
did our part. Once we take on the responsibility of researching our options and
making our own choices, we become responsible for the outcome as well. We have
no one to blame but ourselves if things turn out to be less than perfect. That
scares most parents.
When parents come to visit our school, they do not ask us if our
students are content, or motivated, or curious. Naturally, visitors do not
really have to ask because they can clearly see that our students are all these
things. But the sad truth is that these are not the things parents are really
concerned with anyway. They want to know when the children learn to read and
write, and how they compare to their public school contemporaries in
mathematical abilities. They want to know if their children, if educated in this
way, will be able to compete with their traditionally-schooled peers when it
comes time for high school or college or “life.”
Even parents who realize that a
child’s learning and potential cannot and should not be quantified still find
some reassurance in assigning numbers as indicators of educational performance
and possibility. They are comforted in the belief that test scores provide some
useful information, as well as providing a clear, attainable goal. Eschewing
statistics in favor of more esoteric things like portfolios and subjective
observation takes a leap of faith. That scares parents, too.
As a parent, I can certainly relate to the fear. Of course, I
worry that my children may not find success and happiness. I want them to be
safe, healthy, and fulfilled. But in the words of Antoine De Saint-Exupery,
“Those of us who understand life couldn’t care less about numbers!” As an
educator, I know that numbers are less a guarantee and more a security blanket. I
know that doing things the way they have always been done is often a sign of
stagnation rather than success. I know that children are better served in the
long-term by learning about cooperation and community than conformity. Most
importantly for me, as a product of the traditional school system who was
considered a model student – a “gifted” student, even – I know that I have spent
the entirety of my adult life trying to overcome the training I received there.
More and more parents are choosing progressive educational
settings for their children, both in schools and at home. Instead of being
motivated by fear of what they do not want for their children, these parents are
courageously setting their sights on what they do want. It is encouraging to see
the availability of educational alternatives growing, yet the original question
still remains. How can we get more people to set aside the fear, step outside
their comfort zone, and join us as we build a new system of education where
children’s bodies, minds, and spirits are valued and nurtured?
In the end, when visitors to our school ask how our students
compare to traditionally-schooled children, the true answer is that we really do
not know. Insofar as we reject the quantification of children’s essential
qualities, we may never be able to answer this question to anyone’s
satisfaction, since the evidence we offer is anecdotal. Yet on the other hand,
the very fact that the traditionally schooled individual is held up as the
benchmark against whom alternatively schooled children are measured is based on
a rather bold assumption that the predominant system for schooling children is
effective. In our rapidly changing world, no one can say with any degree of
certainty that any system of education will adequately prepare young people to
be adult members of society in ten or twenty years. No one even knows what that
means; much less does anyone know how to prepare children for it. We are all
taking a huge leap of faith when it comes to raising and teaching our children,
albeit some of us with a greater sense of security (false or otherwise) than
others.
I wish that there were some easy answer whereby we could quickly
grow a broad and strong progressive education movement based on respecting
children and equipping them with self-confidence, curiosity, problem-solving
skills, and a deeply-ingrained sense of community. I believe that such a system
of education will benefit not only my own children but the entire Earth and all
her inhabitants. I am grateful that our movement is gaining traction and
momentum, even if this is happening at a slower pace than I would like.
We must continue to grow a movement for progressive educational
alternatives by seeking out educational communities that speak to us as parents,
educators, and individuals while recognizing that this means something different
for each child and family. We must support all manner and type of alternatives,
because freedom is only meaningful when options exist. We can spread the word
within our circle of friends, family, and acquaintances about the choices we
make and the reasons behind these choices. We should make use of the tools of
social media to reach an even wider audience with our ideas.
The people who
share our vision will find us, and we will continue to grow as a grassroots
movement of people seeking a stronger, more sustainable future for our children
and our planet. As Krishnamurti says, true revolution “comes about through
cultivating the integration and intelligence of human beings who, by their very
life, will gradually create radical changes in society,” and we must continue to
cultivate our young children to bring about change.
Kelly Coyle DiNorcia is a writer, educator, and
mother of two children: a daughter who is a student at Wellspring Community
School in Gladstone, New Jersey and a son who is two years old and still doing
his learning at home. She earned her M.Ed. from Cambridge College through their
partnership with the Institute for Humane Education. This article was published
in 2010.
|
