We tend to want people to tell us what to do.
Even the more demand-avoidant among us, are so often looking for teachers.
And in doing so, we uphold and legitimize schooling culture. We allow our dominant culture of binaries, experts and disconnection from ourselves to continue - not only that, but we actively embody it and perpetuate it.
This to me is partly the result of going through the school system, and living in a society where we are essentially schooled from day 1, in preparation for attending actual school, and then proceed to be schooled until we are declared adults, and can now be free and autonomous.
Except we can’t really be free, because we are now constrained by the way our assumptions and thoughts have been shaped and influenced. And also we’re not free because the whole point of growing up was for us to become productive workers, and now we get to go out and find a job.
So we are launched into the world a little bit lost, a little bit brainwashed, and still very much looking for people to tell us how to do the things we don’t know how to do.
Perhaps we become successful at something, and then we realize we are now the teacher.
Or perhaps we try and fail a lot, or at least that’s what it looks like, and end up wanting someone to give us a method. Or we embark upon something new, like parenting, or homeschooling, and we follow people who coin words for things that many of us were doing anyway. We pay good money for validation. We want scripts and steps and someone to tell us this is the right way.
We want “10 ways to do xyz.”
If we aren’t teachers of it, then clearly we are in need of teachers. It’s either one or the other, we’re either student or teacher, that we have learned.
So we go out and look for teachers, once again. Even though we made a whole child, or two, or more. Even though we are keeping ourselves alive. Even though we may even have birthed a child, or gone through a complex, excruciating process of becoming a parent. Even though we are keeping our child alive, every single day. Even though we know ourselves best, and we know our child really well. Even though we love them the most. Even though we are the person they trust.
In spite of all that, we still want someone to tell us how to do it.
Look - I’m not different. I set off reading every single parenting book I could get my hands on, taking courses, reading all the blogs, following all the unschoolers and home educators to see how they did it. I still do some that - we all want to learn, and I am always open to learning more.
But I’ve come to see there is a difference between learning from others, taking in information, hearing a diversity of opinions, and expecting someone, or some method, or some expert, to tell me what to do.
I’ve come to see how teaching and learning are woven together; as Paulo Freire writes (and I’m paraphrasing this from memory because I left The Pedagogy of Freedom in Bangkok!), you can’t teach without also learning, and whenever you’re learning from someone, you’re also teaching them.
You are never only a teacher or only a student; you are always both.
And I’ve come to recognise how when we throw ourselves into unschooling but then continue to rely on following dogma, on sticking to a specific definition of unschooling, of doing things a certain way because someone said so, or because the method tells us to - then what we are doing is bringing schooling culture into unschooling.
We want out children to be autonomous, and free and un-influenced and self-directed, and yet here we are, always needing someone to follow. Always needing a teacher. Always feeling like if we only took that course, then everything would fall into place.
And sure - there are times we will need a teacher. When I wanted to learn crochet someone taught me how to do it.
But unschooling, and a life unschooled, is not crochet. There is no one interpretation of unschooling, one way to practice it, one way to unschool or be unschooled (and even crochet can look different depending on who’s doing it!)
And yes, there are times we will need support, or coaching, or simply someone who has our back.
Perhaps what we are all seeking is in fact that - someone who has our back. And instead we fall for the person who seems to know The Things, and seems to want to tell us what to do (for a price, obviously).
I am not bashing people who run courses. Perhaps you or someone you know is an expert in something! They are absolutely entitled to share that knowledge. Perhaps one day, I’ll be teaching someone (other than my children) something. (But like, when do you know that you know enough? I have no idea).
But what I am saying is that perhaps we don’t need all of this teaching. At least not in the mainstream sense of teaching - where one person imparts knowledge and another receives it.
Perhaps we need people who are teaching while also learning, and people who want to learn while also teaching.
Perhaps we need people. We need groups - big ones and small ones. We need open conversation in spaces that feel safe. We need people who love us AND have the guts to gently call us out when we’re wrong (I’m lucky to have several of those people in my life, ykwya).
We need gathering. We need people who will listen, and people who will share things, and people who will say Read this, or Listen to this, or What about this idea?
We need spaces where we can voice our biggest fears and someone will catch them and hold them.
We need people that we can rely on, and who rely on us.
I’ve had enough of teachers but I’m pretty sure we can ever have enough of people who have our back.
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Well, I actually don't like to be told what to do. BUT, I do think in some certain areas, for example considering safety, it is essential to be able to do tell people, old or young, what to do. Also, we never know enough.
How do you know when you know enough? Well, hopefully you never really know enough and you continue to learn throughout life. I do think that there are natural pauses where you feel compelled to act on what you’ve learned, have time to process, and try things out.
I teach creative writing classes for homeschoolers. I like to give a small bit of guidance, discuss and try it out with the class, and then let them write/draw/think. This cycle repeats with each class. Some children will incorporate the guidance I give immediately, some after a few weeks, and some mostly do their own thing. All of these are okay! In the end, their writing improves over the semester because of the spent time on it, and because they got feedback from other students or me about what they are doing well and what needs improvement.
I think we can avoid duplicating school by allowing children to choose the classes they want to try. They should be there because they have chosen to learn more, as you said, from someone who is an expert or has special knowledge. The teacher should be there to openly share but not to demand any particular thing. Sometimes a child just sits and takes it in. As long as they aren’t unhappy, this is fine, too.