Finding an Educational Paradigm that Works for your Family

A couple people have asked me to share my thoughts on education. I think mostly new friends. I guess it's been a while since I talked about it. I was sitting here thinking about how I could go at the topic from another angle. I can talk about it for days, but I like to look at it from different views. I decided I wanted to really just go through the line of questions starting from the very beginning of what we are actually trying to accomplish with education and take it step by step to the most logical way for that to happen. Then I realized there is a great variety of outcomes people are hoping for for their children, so I will really only be speaking for what I want for my children. Hopefully some things will resonate with you.

For the time being we will ignore the fact that children are actually sentient beings who should actually possibly have some say about how they spend the vast majority of their waking hours for 14, 18, 20 years. Instead we will talk about what I want for them. By no means am I saying that I agree with this. I actually let my kids make the vast majority of decisions for their lives, and family decisions are made by the whole family. However, parents thinking in terms of what they want for their children is certainly the norm, and I want to have a useful conversation that builds bridges and expands people's minds about what education is and what it could be.

• I want my kids to be independent
• I want my kids to be free thinkers (authority questioning radical activists!! No pressure, though ;)
• I want my kids to be kind and loving
• I want my kids to follow their passions
• I want my kids to be able to navigate the turns and bumps of life
• I want my kids to be confident
• Most importantly, I want my kids to be happy

This is what I meant when I said I can only speak for myself. If a parent wants their child to be a doctor or CEO of a company or have a really enormous house or take care of them when they're old, the answers and maybe even some of the questions will look a little different. The process is essentially the same, so make your list, and let's go at it. This is not a full list of the things I want for my kids, and I don't think yours needs to be either. Patterns will emerge, and I don't want to turn this into a book. Basically with every desired outcome, I'll talk a little about the what and why, how the modern education system is faring with that particular outcome, and then ask what structure would best nurture that outcome. You can do the same with your list and look to see what patterns emerge.

This is a fiercely independent boy right here.

• Independent
  I'd venture a guess this one applies to just about every parent. It's a genetic thing, an animal instinct. The offspring needs to know how to care for itself, right? Our current education system fosters total and complete dependence. Children don't decide anything - what to learn, how to spend their time, nothing. They are told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it all day long. It's a serious problem. I had no clue how to manage my life when I went to college. And when I graduated and had a child, I had even less of a clue about all that was involved in that.

So what does it take to foster independence in our children? Personally, I think the best way is to leave kids alone and let them figure things out. As they move through life, they will stumble on something they want or need to know but don't. At that point they will ask someone for some kind of help. Or they will look it up on the Internet. Knowing how to search for knowledge and information and knowing how to ask for help are critical steps toward independence. That's right. Interdependence is crucial for independence.

All day long children are told what they will need to know to "make it" in this world. They are spoon fed knowledge, some useful, some arguably absolutely useless, and some arguably totally false. They never have a moment to even encounter the experience of not knowing what is next, of discovering what the missing pieces are. This drive is absolutely the source of science, invention, entrepreneurship, and innovation. And the world is changing much too fast for anyone to know what anyone needs to "make it" or honestly what that even means.

My girl getting her first tattoo

• I want my kids to be free thinkers
  Well, we know what kind of environment doesn't work for that. The modern education system is essentially straight from the Middle Ages. There is a king or queen, lords and ladies, and peasants. Children are told to sit down and shut up all day long. They are told their thoughts and ideas are wrong or unimportant. They are seen as lesser beings. They are told to obey authority and don't dare question it. It's. Madness.

So, what kind of educational system will inspire free thinking? I know it's crazy, but I think we're gonna have to let kids think. They need time, in fact, to just think. Without interruption. Without a goal in mind even. They need time to write and to draw and to play and explore. They need to be around adults who know and acknowledge they aren't right all the time, people who will encourage their natural questioning. Their ideas, opinions, and suggestions need to be honored and taken seriously. Teenagers in particular will naturally begin to question dumb stuff. That's why they're always at the forefront of rights' movements. They need an environment where they can spend time developing new ideas, have time and space to converse with others to hash things out, and to be taken seriously.

My two boys love each other so very much

• I want my kids to be kind and loving
  Oh boy. This is a tough one. For sure we know it's not happening now. The modern educational system and I guess parents as well are totally failing here. We know this because bullying and suicide are nearing epidemic levels. So what are they doing? I think there are still some teachers who ignore what's happening. I know when my daughter was in school, she was being absolutely tormented, and the teachers were definitely ignoring it. In fact many of them were also basically overgrown bullies. So, there's one failure. The next bit is a little counterintuitive. Stay with me. This whole thing of forcing kindness is not helpful. Things like - you can't give party invitations to one kid in the classroom unless you invite them all. My recent favorite is that a school in Utah told girls they were not allowed to turn down boys who asked them to dance at the school dance. Just for starters, that's rape culture. Here's the thing. Forced worship is false worship. Forcing children to do things we consider nice does not actually make them nice.

Clearly this is largely the fault of parents. Often kids are already douchebags when they start school. We definitely need to do a better job teaching healthy parenting skills - a major area of cultural failure right now, imho. However, schools can facilitate this. How? Well, after nearly 20 years of parenting, raising some super amazing kids around lots of other badass parents and their amazing kids, and helping start an alternative school, I have some thoughts. I don't force kids to play with other kids. I don't have to hang out with people I don't like. They shouldn't either. I think this is actually a good reflection for the child they are not wanting to play with. Sometimes it's just personality differences, but there are also genuine asshole kids. We had one at the school, and kids not playing with her actually eventually helped her be less of a twat waffle brat. I also don't force them to share. When they are mean, I don't tell them they can't be mean. I do try to ask, sometimes at a different time, how it makes them feel. Same for when someone is mean to them. I always make sure to let them know that what other people say and do says far more about them. Mostly, though, this is all about modeling. Children need to be around adults who model kindness and love, toward each other and toward children. I think that's often not the case. Teachers are overworked and underpaid. Educating children is not valued by our society, and that's sad. Ultimately, the more it is valued, the higher the caliber of people. Of course there are good teachers, but I think even they have to acknowledge that there are also an awful lot of shitty ones.

The last painting my daughter sold

• I want my kids to follow their passions
  This is one of modern education's worst failures in my opinion. Most adults don't even know what their passions are. Again, children spend all day, every day, doing what others tell them to do. It doesn't matter what they do and don't like or are and aren't good at. It's seen as absolutely irrelevant. You can't choose anything at all until middle school, and then you get the life altering choice of art or orchestra, home ec or shop. Even in college there are all these required classes and ridiculously few options for majors. They get no time to figure out what it is that they love and are good at. If you've never watched this Alan Watts talk animated by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park), I highly recommend it.

So what can schools do to facilitate this? This is an incredibly easy fix. Leave them alone. Let them explore. Surround them with other interesting people with interesting passions and interests. Actually one of the best ways for them to figure out what they love is boredom. Boredom is one of the best teachers. I always cheer when my kids say they're bored. I tell them that it's a great opportunity to figure out what it is they really want to do. Then, once they figure out what it is they want to do, they need time and resources to dive into it. My 16 yo is a brilliant artist. I'm so glad she didn't waste thousands of hours in school. She's already selling paintings and getting ready to design a line of dolls.

Music is a good way to navigate bumps

• I want my kids to be able to navigate the turns and bumps of life.
  Again, a current failure. This is another that is a combo of parenting and a broken educational system. There's a good bit of psychological research about children's total lack of resilience at this point. I highly recommend reading basically everything Peter Gray has ever written, but this is one topic he has a good bit to say on. I really had no idea any of this was happening at all. I have been sort of out of the mainstream for a while now, but apparently kids are going to college and having total breakdowns when they get a B or have a roommate that doesn't like them. That's a problem. This life has thrown some really ugly shit at me, and I have dealt with feeling broken and depressed. I have dealt with it in shitty ways like lashing out at others or feeling sorry for myself, but I have always gotten back up. I always press forward. I never give up on my dreams. Some might say I am, in fact, stubborn to the point of my own detriment.

Now what makes this all worse is that apparently university administrations have put pressure on professors to artificially up kids' grades so they won't transfer to another school. Let me say first that I think grades are stupid. Changing a grade because a child's self esteem is dependent on it is even more stupid. And of course the fact that the child's self esteem is dependent on it is incredibly problematic. There are almost too many problems here to even dissect what they are.

What kind of educational environment will facilitate resilient kids? Well, this requires some massive cultural shifts about how we see failure for starters. Failure is how we succeed. Failure is beautiful. Failure needs to be celebrated as the victory it is. Another major cultural shift - our worth as human beings isn't based on some kind of external, material thing like grades, status, or money. In the mean time, children have to be allowed to fail even when it's hard. Parents and teachers have to stop rescuing them. We have to support them through the process while the world changes, but they have to be allowed to fail. They have to learn how to get back up and move on, and the only way to learn that is to do it. It's so much easier to learn this when you are young and have parents and other adults to support you.

This quiet, beautiful confidence took a nasty blow in the dark trenches of the modern school system

• I want my kids to be confident
  This one depends on the gifts of the child. If it's one of those children who likes to please adults and has gifts in academic subjects, they may come through with confidence. Or of course if they're a star athlete. Even in these cases there is a good chance they feel their worth is tied to these gifts. Believe me. I know of what I speak. I'm talking about real confidence, though, that they are wonderful and worthy simply because they exist and bring a special and unique set of gifts to this world. Many kids come through with zero confidence. They may learn in a different way or have talents in art, music, acting, dance, nurturing others, even entrepreneurship - all things given zero value by the modern school system.

There's a lot that will need to change here for an educational system to facilitate this goal. Of course it's tied to the whole section about kids being kind and loving. An absolute end to external evaluation of any kind is a good start. As I said above, I think grades are stupid. Children have a natural drive to want to do their best. Watch a child learn to walk or ride a bike or play a video game or an instrument. They wil go and go and go and go until they have it right, and it's still often not good enough. An external evaluation simply convinces them to drive themselves until they're empty, give up entirely in devastation or fight the power by striving for failure. I always love those kids that buck the system. I love the rebels. When my daughter was in a regular school for two years, she just filled in bubbles on all standardized tests. She refused to even read the questions. Proud mama right here.

They need to be left alone to dive into the things that they enjoy and are good at. They need freedom to explore things that are challenging to them in a supportive environment, like I talked about above with supporting kids through the gifts of failure. They need to be appreciated for their talents, whatever they are. They need to be able to evaluate themselves and reflect on those evaluations with others who support them in becoming the best for them.

One of these days when I have faster internet, I'll do a video of him. It makes him so happy

• Happy
  One more time for the kids in the back. Another failure of modern education. It certainly doesn't seem like most children are very happy these days. Children are depressed, medicated for all kinds of things that could easily fall into the classification of normal childhood behaviors if only children weren't required to sit in a very abnormal situation for an inordinate amount of their day. One of my best friends has an 8 year old son who says he's suicidal. It's crazy. Children have no time for play. Their days are structured top to bottom - often including weekends and summers. I'm only 43, and I remember spending an awful lot of time wandering the neighborhood on my bike and exploring the woods with my friends, my dog, and my dad. It makes me cry for kids right now. On top of it all, there are significant numbers of adults who tell children that their whole generation is awful, worthless, whiny, snowflakes. As if they raised themselves

What kind of education system best assists me in raising a child who can easily find their way to happiness, even after times of trouble. This is an enormous question, and obviously much of this falls on me as a parent and of course them as an autonomous human. I have to teach my kids that they are responsible for choosing their own happiness despite outward circumstances. I have to teach them to nurture themselves, etc., but how can an education system foster this? Leave them alone. Let them play. Let them explore. Let them have a childhood. Stop evaluating them every moment of every day. Appreciate their gifts. Model love and kindness. Model bouncing back from struggle. Model taking responsibility for your own happiness. And teach them to take responsibility for theirs.

It probably seems obvious that I already have a lot of opinions formed on this topic. It's true. My oldest is 20. I've been thinking about this for a really long time. You may go through your list and come to totally different conclusions about what type of educational environment would best facilitate your child reaching adulthood with the qualities you hope they will have. And that's cool. We all have different opinions, and that only makes the world more beautiful. I do hope you will honor your children and take them, their gifts, and their hearts into consideration when you work your way through this process.

As for me, reading back and looking to see where the common threads are, I see a lot about leaving children alone and appreciating them for who they are. That's pretty much the gist of what I do. And there's a leap of faith element there. I know that. Especially if it's your first child, it's scary to sit and wonder if they will learn to read or do basic math or whatever to make it in this world. It's getting easier because I've watched a lot of kids do it. Eventually any child in a nurturing and supportive environment will find a reason to learn to read. My daughter didn't learn until 9, and it's hard, especially when everyone is up in your damn grill about it all the damn time. FYI, she's now 16 and reads at college level. They learn when they decide it's time. Give them money or crypto or teach them to cook, and watch them learn math. Nothing better than a kid at a thrift store or a toy store with $5. It's a joy to watch. They learn. I promise.

Love ya. Mean it. Bye.

All pictures are mine this time.

I'm a passenger on the ecoTrain. For awesome content from some beautiful, world changing, amazing writers, check out @ecotrain.