Check out this new article

I've recently added an excellent paper on holistic education philosophy to the Resources section of this website, under Writing by Other Authors. See "Systemic, Integral Education" by Anne Adams. Anne recently completed her Ph.D. at the California Institute of Integral Studies and her research involved an extensive study of various schools based on integral (holistic) approaches.
We've had some interesting discussions about whether "integral" means about the same thing as "holistic" (I think it does) or goes beyond it (as Anne maintains). Maybe it's an east coast/west coast thing, and I should start a "Vermont Institute of Holistic Studies" to complement CIIS.
In any case, be sure to take a look at her paper.

Comments from readers

Thanks to each of you who commented on my previous entry. In a way, this revolution really is as simple as two of you put it: "follow the child" and get out of their way so they can learn! If we could accomplish nothing else but to get a significant number of people in our society to appreciate these principles, it would be a huge step. Still, as Jason so eloquently explains, there is value in developing a coherent, comprehensive philosophy that supports not only those who choose to unschool, but people from many different backgrounds and situations who find various other kinds of educational alternatives suitable for their children. Sometimes it does make sense to thoughtfully guide rather than completely follow the child, to provide what Montessori called a "prepared environment" to help them structure their learning rather than completely staying aloof from their learning process. But how do we know when this makes sense, and to what degree? That is where a coherent philosophy helps. And I'll continue to think and write in pursuit of this task.

Jason, I deleted a few earlier blog entries and comments because I wanted to keep this space as current as possible. I'm sorry you lost some entries you wanted to revisit. But I really appreciate your very thoughtful comments as well as your support, and I look forward to our continued dialogue and collaboration. Your ideas for additional sites for discussion and networking are great. Let us know when they're up and running.

The education revolution

I've just returned from the fourth annual conference of AERO--the Alternative Education Resource Organization. Over 300 people were there, representing diverse kinds of schools, learning communities, and homeschooling/unschooling. There was a lot of enthusiasm, and it was clear that momentum is growing for building a completely new system of education that will be more child-centered, democratic and decentralized than the authoritarian and standardizing monstrosity we now have. Parents and teachers are getting together in many parts of the U.S.--indeed, in many places around the world--to figure out how to provide more caring and nurturing learning environments for young people. I believe that an education revolution is in the making. It is almost completely off the mainstream radar, but it is growing at the grassroots.

The rallying cry of this popular rebellion is CHOICE. Parents and student-centered educators want freedom from the oppressive authority of government mandates and corporate-style standards and "accountability." They want room to experiment, innovate, and respond spontaneously to the real and shifting needs of individuals and small communities. There is a healthy streak of individualism in this movement, sometimes bordering on the eccentric and anarchic, but vitally necessary for counteracting the fascist standardization of learning that our culture has sanctioned. The revolution is not exactly a coherent movement; trying to find agreement on any concerted action, beyond calling for "choice" and "child-centered" learning, is very much like herding cats. I've spent my 25-year career trying to describe some unifying principles that might weave these scattered efforts into a social and political force of some kind, but now I'm starting to wonder whether a spontaneous, unchoreographed uprising from the grassroots is exactly how this revolution needs to happen. Readers, what are your thoughts?

I'm working on a new book that will describe this revolution and my vision for the future of education. A lot of good books have come out recently, or are in the works, including Emmanuel Bernstein's The Secret Revolution, Kristan Morrison's Free School Teaching, Chris Mercogliano's In Defense of Childhood, and a new Directory of Democratic Education. These are all available through AERO's online bookstore (see www.edrev.org). I've also just reviewed a manuscript for a book that proposes a sweeping vision of educational freedom, drawing on an unusual but potent blend of ideas from Montessori, Dewey, and Ayn Rand. (I never thought I'd see Dewey and Rand brought together in the same discussion!) So a lot of thoughtful people are envisioning a new educational system, and I hope to weigh in with my own thoughts in the next few months.

Check out the new Ken Wilber bibliography

I've long believed that the work of philosopher Ken Wilber provides the field of holistic education with a comprehensive, sophisticated intellectual foundation, which we have not adequately explored. Wilber himself has written very little specifically on education, and education theorists have not yet adapted his ideas in any significant way. But that is starting to change. One of my correspondents, R. Michael Fisher, has been working with Wilber's ideas for a quarter century, and he recently completed a bibliography that lists all recent references to Wilber's work in the education literature. It is now posted here, at www.pathsoflearning.net. Go to the "Resources" section, then click on "Writing by Other Authors in Holistic Education," where you'll find it at the end of a short list of articles.

I hope this paper will stimulate new scholarship on the philosophical foundations of holistic education, specifically on the relevance of Wilber's ideas. Please write to me (or directly to Michael) if you are interested in this topic or would like to comment.

The Case Against "No Child Left Behind"

Congress is currently considering the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which it first passed in 1965 and modified, in 2002, by adopting the Bush administration's standards-and-testing agenda, called "No Child Left Behind." NCLB has enjoyed bipartisan support--indeed, Senator Edward Kennedy defends it passionately in today's Washington Post--because it promises to improve educational opportunities for America's poorest children, who have for many years been the victims of what Jonathan Kozol famously called the "savage inequalities" of American education.

But NCLB is the wrong way to promote a more fair and democratic education system. NCLB forces schools to adopt a transmission mode of teaching: the authorities determine what bits of knowledge need to be learned, they package it into textbooks and curricula, and then relentlessly drill and test young people to ensure that this version of the world is transmitted into their minds. Paulo Freire called this approach "banking" education, where pre-determined knowledge is deposited into the passive vaults of students' minds. Freire, like John Dewey and most progressive educators, saw that a transmission/banking model of education is antithetical to genuine democracy. It encourages rote memorization rather than creative or imaginative thinking, selfish competition rather than collaborative problem solving, and obedience to authority rather than critical inquiry. Educators across the U.S. are astutely aware that NCLB has drastically curtailed creative and critical inquiry, and narrowed the process of education to a mechanical technique of fact-retention, with the facts pre-selected by policymakers, not by the educators who are most intimately familiar with young people's aspirations, concerns and challenges.

NCLB is more accurately labelled "No Child Left Untested," or even more to the point, "Childhood Left Behind," because the ways that children most naturally learn--through play, hands-on engagement with materials and projects that truly matter to them, and unfettered inquiry--are completely stymied by the unforgiving standardization of learning promulgated by NCLB. The politicians think schools should be "accountable," and they believe that comparisons of test scores and assessments of "adequate yearly progress" are meaningful. They believe that the purpose of public education is to crank out workers, managers, and technicians who will keep the American corporate economy competitive with the rest of the world. These are all flawed assumptions, because they utterly neglect the developmental needs of growing human beings. They turn children into standardized automatons.

Educators are organizing to oppose NCLB and to stand up for a more truly democratic and learner-focused approach to education. A group called the Educator Roundtable has issued a sophisticated critique of the standardization agenda and is circulating a petition to defeat NCLB. See www.educatorroundtable.org for more information, and please consider signing their petition.

Additional writings that expose the flaws and fallacies of NCLB can be found at www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/index.shtml

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An expanded version of this blog posting will be published as my editorial in the spring, 2007 issue of Education Revolution magazine. See www.edrev.org/aeromagazine.html for information about subscribing and ordering individual copies.

Is the pendulum swinging back?

Some historians have pointed out that modern social and political movements seem to follow a rhythm of ebb and flow. A period of innovation and revision is followed by a conservative reaction, which eventually produces a hunger for renewed change. These cycles seem to take twenty or thirty years to play themselves out.
Well, the last period of radical change in education came in the late 1960s and early 1970s--about 35 years ago. Since then, the right wing counter-revolution has effectively forced progressive, humanistic, and holistic approaches to the margins of educational policy and practice. A Nation at Risk, Goals 2000, and now the policy of No Child Left Untested (sorry, I mean "Behind") have turned schools into a mechanical arm of the corporate state. Education becomes ever more controlled, narrowed, and standardized.
Yet there are signs that this reactionary cycle is reaching its zenith and may be heading into decline. Opposition to the No Child Left Untested (excuse me, "Behind") agenda is growing across the nation. Parents and educators are discovering that children who are denied freedom and self-expression, artistic experiences, and even recess in an obsessive quest to meet ironclad standards are truly unhappy in their learning. There is a growing rebellion against the cult of homework. And hundreds of thousands of families are turning to homeschooling and diverse alternative schools to provide their children with an educational experience that honors their dignity and the fullness of their humanity.
I have watched the alternative education movements struggle in isolation against the corporate juggernaut for my entire 25-year career. But something new has been happening in the last few months. They are talking to each other. They are showing interest in collaborating. They are sensing the possibility of reaching the mainstream public with their ideas for the first time. A few of us have begun an email and now a phone conference discussion to consider a "think tank" or some sort of center that could speak on behalf of progressive/democratic/holistic education to journalists, parents and policymakers who are beginning to realize that educational fascism is unsustainable (and just plain wrong) but don't know what educational freedom might look like. What might happen if we relax "standards" and eliminate ruthless testing? Alternative educators have many important stories to tell, and data to back up their stories, and we're going to go public with them in the coming months.
It's time to come together and get involved. This year, consider attending the conferences being hosted by the Alternative Education Resource Organization and International Association of Learning Alternatives. (See the Resources section of this website -- www.pathsoflearning.net -- under useful websites. ) Read about the new collaboration in the magazine Education Revolution, of which I am editor. A new cycle has begun--and you ought to join in.

Let's imagine an educational rights movement

Thanks to the several people who posted comments in response to my introductory entry. It seems that my idea of an "educational rights movement" has some appeal, though of course it also raises questions. Let's explore the possibilities together.

For me, the notion of an "educational rights movement" arose from my research on the social movements of the 1960s that gave rise to the free school and homeschooling movements. It is quite clear that the activism of that era was largely inspired by the vision and courage of African-Americans' struggle for legal and social equality --the civil rights movement. I was particularly struck by a statement of Vincent Harding, a theologian who worked with Dr. King and recounted the struggle in his book Hope and History. He said that the civil rights movement should not be understood as simply an effort to gain rights for black people, that in a larger sense it was "a powerful outcropping of the continuing struggle for the expansion of democracy in the United States" and "for the freeing of all of our spirits." This is why it moved so many young people, black, white, and every other color, in the 1960s, and this is essentially what I believe the diverse movements for educational alternatives are about--the expansion of democracy and the freeing of our spirits.

Whether one supports "free" or "democratic" schools, Montessori or Waldorf models, homeschooling, charter schools, progressive ideals in public education, or other alternatives, I think we share these core values: democracy, and freedom of the human spirit. The differences in our teaching styles, classroom design (or lack thereof), choice of educational heroes, and so on are superficial in the context of these fundamental goals. The key question is what we mean by "democracy" and what we mean by "the freeing of our spirits."

For me, democracy means more than personal liberty. It involves a commitment to social responsibility, to collaborative community decision making. Sometimes such cooperation means that we willingly yield some of our personal preferences in order to serve a common good that ultimately serves us as well. (This is the Deweyan/progressive response to standard conservative notions of "liberty" and the "free market.") In his comments on this blog, "CZALE" (who I think is my friend Coop, am I right?), emphasizes liberty as an antidote to overly concentrated power, and while I agree that in many contexts, such as the founding fathers' rebellion against colonial domination, liberty is a "key" value, I think that a holistic understanding of democracy recognizes common purposes and social endeavors in balance with personal autonomy.

As for "the freeing of our spirits," I think this points to the mysterious, active, creative source of human consciousness and experience. Something stirs within each human soul, which cannot be explained by biological, social or psychological categories alone. Many people have definite ideas about what this source is (e.g. Rudolf Steiner's complex and esoteric cosmology), but I don't. I think it's enough to acknowledge that something spiritual, something mysterious, animates our lives, and that a truly good society, and a truly good education, respects this mystery enough to support children and youths to discover and express their own deepest true selves. Although an unschooler does this one way and a Waldorf educator in an entirely different way, can we not agree that their goals are similar, and that they can be allies in a broader movement for human liberation?

So this is the basis for my idea of "educational rights." Ruth's comments (hi Ruth--I'm glad you're connected!) show us that there are still a lot of questions to work out, and I'm interested in people's thoughts.

Finally, I want to thank Jason for his comments. All of his ideas for expanding the movement are important to pursue. Some of us are working to bring the idea of non-authoritarian education to the attention of Bioneers and other "cultural creatives" who have brilliant holistic solutions to many cultural problems but who often seem absolutely clueless about holistic educational alternatives. This could be an ongoing topic of this blog, so please share your thoughts about this issue, too.