patrick farenga

suggestions for schoolers from unschoolers  (posted on the coop)

Illich defined education as “learning under the assumption of scarcity,” but, as anyone watching an infant or a preschool-age child can see, learning is abundant. This is why education is not the same as learning.

learning is not the result of teaching, but the result of the activities of learners. Unschooling is not antithetical to asked-for teaching at all; but education appears to be antithetical to free will.

Holt notes in Instead of Education, while some of his fellow teachers complained how their students wanted their classes to be more like Holt’s, it was ultimately the parents who demanded that Holt stop making his classes so engaging and be “more like school.”

It isn’t educational techniques that will ultimately help children learn, but rather sincere relationships with other people.  (declaration of interdependence)

As my friend John Holt knew so well, and exemplified so well in his life, it all boils down to trust. That he (and Illich) believed in: trust, not education.”


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