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Janice Campbell
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Articles:
Fictional Learning - Assembly Lines and Warehouses Another bit of fiction we weave into our children's' lives calling it 'school' is the physical environment through which they pass the years of their childhood. We place them in huge, ugly warehouses, isolated from all other people and all real-world productivity. These warehouses are filled with noisy, pushy children who are no more needed than our own children. They spend their hours in windowless rooms, white-walled cubes, fifty minutes, then a bell, then a quick rush through hallways of confusion during which they are 'supposed' to use the restroom, crowds of kids, all at the same time, all going in different directions. Then another fifty minutes in another isolated cube. And so on. Life is ruled by bells, by strict time periods, by separated and unrelated rooms, by chopped up and unrelated activities. There is no growing things, nor raising animals; no changing diapers, nor putting a good meal on the table. The children don't even clean the school they themselves messed up. There is no building of things or fixing things or running things. And if there is, they are always in a 'constructed' environment and never for real. John Gatto explains in The Underground History of American Education how and why and who developed this warehouse - assembly line system we call schooling. It is not an accident and it serves a very real purpose. Is this what we want for our own children? As a teacher rooted in real world thinking [and I do say all these things to my students, by the way], I have a great dislike of textbooks. I thought I abhorred the text books in the public schools, until I had to use the text books in the Christian school and found them even worse. I ask my students, what are the absolutely worst books in the entire world? The answer I get back from them (because I told them the answer) is history text books. What a terrible anti-history way to learn the fascinating drama of human life upon this planet. I teach writing. I use the composition text for one purpose - to show them how not to write. I ask them, "How many of you have written a 'persuasive' essay?" They think they didn't because they don't remember, even though they do it every year. Then I ask them, "How many people took action, changed their lives, did something different, as a result of being persuaded by your persuasive essay?" The answer to that one is easy - no one. Then I ask them the obvious question, "If no one was persuaded to take action by your 'persuasive' essay, was it a persuasive essay?" They quickly learn to chime "NO it was not!" Then I toss the book back on the shelf and proceed to teach them how to persuade people to take action by the words that they craft. As homeschool families, we should not think for one minute that we have to follow any aspect of what is called "education" in our culture. We should make learning fit the real needs of our families and communities. Learning ought to be real and it ought to produce that which is valued and that which works in the real world. Help your child build his or her own business with Micro-Business for HighSchoolers, a nine month course that guides step-by-step in the creation of a real-world business, while learning a whole lot. This course could easily become a central part of your child's high school education. Check it out at http://www.YguideAcademy.com/MicroBusiness.html Copyright 2009 by YGuide Publishing. Freely use without changes, including links. http://www.yguide.org Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daniel_Yordy
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