Deschooling - time

I do a lot of thinking. More than I write. And lately I’ve been realizing some of those thoughts need to get out of my head and onto the page.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the idea of deschooling.

My beliefs about deschooling and schooling are shaped by lived experience and informed by theory. I spent 13 years in conventional school as a student. I worked for 2 years at a Quaker boarding school. I taught in public schools for 24 years. I’ve studied and practiced Restorative Practices. And I’ve been influenced by thinkers like Alan Watts, Daniel Quinn (author of Ishmael), Ivan Illich, John Holt, Alfie Kohn, Steven Levitt, Kerry McDonald, Kenneth Danford, and Peter Block. Some of their ideas overlap. Some build on each other. I try to pay attention to where ideas are just circling back on each other.

Oh boy — this is going to be longer than I originally intended.

Part of the reason is that deschooling can be looked at through at least two distinct lenses.

The first lens is the deschooling of the system.
The second lens is the deschooling of the individual.

Of course, the individual is part of the system. It’s hard to talk about one without talking about the other.

When I talk about deschooling, I find myself moving back and forth between those two lenses.

For now, I’ll focus on a few things that stand out to me.

Schooling is such a part of modern U.S. culture that we are aware of it almost as soon as we are aware of anything. I know people who start saving for college before they even have kids. Most kids in the U.S., and much of the world, are born into a schooled culture. It is simply the air we breathe. So deschooling can be difficult — not because it is strange, but because schooling feels completely normal.

One of the primary things I see needing to be undone when young people come to a self-directed education center like Current has to do with time.

Schools — and schooled culture — tend to hyper-focus on the future, stay stuck in the past, and ignore the present.

The future-focus starts early. Before kids even enter school, we talk about “kindergarten readiness.” They aren’t even in kindergarten yet, and already we’re preparing them for what’s next. When I taught 6th grade, I regularly heard teachers tell students that certain behaviors or levels of understanding “won’t fly in 7th grade.” In 8th grade, the warning shifted to high school. The funny part was that I had spent 14 years teaching at the high school level, and much of what was being said about 9th grade just wasn’t true. At the high school, the focus often turned to college. At one point, our course levels were labeled College Prep, Honors, and AP. College Prep. The assumption built right into the structure was that the baseline goal was college. And I found myself wondering: what about life prep?

Preparation itself is not the problem. The issue is when preparation eclipses presence.

The modern school model has been around for a long time. Most would say its recognizable structure took shape in the mid-1800s, influenced by industrial-era efficiency models and thinkers like Horace Mann. There have certainly been waves of “school reform” since then, but the basic structure is still largely the same. Kids are age-segregated. Content is chosen by someone else. Subjects are siloed, especially at the secondary level. We’ve adjusted around the edges, but the core design hasn’t shifted much in about 175 years.

And what about the present?

Modern secondary schooling often sends the message that the discomfort felt now will be worth it later. Do the disengaging work now for a future reward. Push through the stress now for future success. The pressure students, teachers, and administrators feel in this system is real, and it is felt right now. Many lessons aren’t meant to be useful in the present moment. They are designed for later. Algebra for later. Essays for later. Credentials for later. Some of it may be needed. Some of it may never be. But in the meantime, the present is treated like something to get through rather than something that matters on its own.

I chose the name Current for the education center with all of this in mind. The word current is meant to point to the present. It also carries the idea of flow — of water, of time (and electricity if that’s your jam). The flow matters. There is a past, where the water comes from. There is a future, where it is going. But the movement itself is natural. Gravity pulls the water along. In the same way, curiosity naturally pulls skills and knowledge along for teens. The water isn’t stuck to where it came from, and it isn’t racing to where it’s going. It moves.

I’ve been thinking about alternatives to conventional school for over ten years, and specifically about self-directed education for over two. And I still catch myself slipping into that hyper-focus on the future. I still find myself asking, “But what about later?” Yoga helps. Focused breathing helps. Sometimes I come back to the present. And sometimes I slip.

Maybe deschooling, at least at the individual level, isn’t about rejecting school. Maybe it’s about paying attention to the present and trusting curiosity to pull things along.