WEBVTT 00:00:00.662 --> 00:00:02.920 Introducer: ... John Holt's work. 00:00:02.920 --> 00:00:05.720 I'm sure that you have read "How Children Learn," 00:00:05.720 --> 00:00:07.840 "How Children Fail," "Teach Your Own." 00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:10.040 You may have had an opportunity to see, 00:00:10.040 --> 00:00:15.040 lots of times on tour, him talking on television or on the radio, 00:00:15.040 --> 00:00:22.280 John Holt, who's probably the best-known, most vocal commentator on unschooling, 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:26.760 and particularly home-based education, in the country right now. 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.160 Also, I understand he's a magnificent cello player. 00:00:29.160 --> 00:00:34.480 So maybe some germane questions about that would be refreshing and useful, as well. 00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:36.269 Here's John Holt. 00:00:36.269 --> 00:00:42.849 [Applause] 00:00:43.919 --> 00:00:45.180 John Holt: Well, thanks very much. 00:00:45.180 --> 00:00:49.360 First of all, we have to delete that "magnificent" part. [Laughter] 00:00:49.360 --> 00:00:52.660 Someday maybe, but not yet. 00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:55.741 How many people still remember 00:00:55.741 --> 00:00:58.882 those instructions about how to get to this – ? 00:00:59.772 --> 00:01:02.960 We'll have a run through again after the meeting, I think. 00:01:08.080 --> 00:01:13.280 We were talking about parking, and something popped into my head. 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:18.360 I was tempted to interrupt and say it, but I didn't, but I'll say it now. 00:01:18.360 --> 00:01:22.350 What popped in was, "Parking is such sweet sorrow." 00:01:22.350 --> 00:01:25.210 [Laughter] 00:01:30.050 --> 00:01:32.570 Well, thank you for coming. Thank you for inviting me. 00:01:32.570 --> 00:01:34.003 It's nice to be here. 00:01:34.610 --> 00:01:41.090 I said I was surprised to see, among a number of good friends of mine, 00:01:41.090 --> 00:01:43.550 a friend that I really didn't expect to see here. 00:01:46.100 --> 00:01:47.770 And I think he probably wins 00:01:47.770 --> 00:01:50.880 the long-distance attendance record for this meeting. 00:01:50.880 --> 00:01:53.600 Now, I'm John Holt from Boston, 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:58.560 but I'd like you to see John Boston from Escondido, 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:00.360 which happens to be near San Diego. 00:02:00.360 --> 00:02:02.160 I couldn't believe he was here for this meeting. 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:04.693 Just wave your hand or say hi. [Laughter] 00:02:04.693 --> 00:02:08.729 John Boston: Hi. [Applause] 00:02:15.349 --> 00:02:18.360 John: I want to talk about a number of things tonight. 00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:25.040 And first of all though, I'm probably saying things 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:28.640 that you've heard me say before or read. 00:02:28.640 --> 00:02:33.680 Now, this young man has the right idea about how to dress for this meeting. 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:35.170 [Laughter] 00:02:38.050 --> 00:02:40.650 Oh, but I guess, even before I get into 00:02:40.650 --> 00:02:44.200 what you might call the body of this formal address, 00:02:44.200 --> 00:02:49.600 I want to ask just a few questions to locate the audience. 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:54.720 And perhaps one way to start would be by saying, 00:02:54.720 --> 00:02:58.880 how many of you – I'm asking here for a "show of hands" response. 00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:02.239 I wonder if we could remove that rattle. 00:03:02.239 --> 00:03:04.250 Woman: Sure. John: Thank you. 00:03:05.920 --> 00:03:09.880 Experience has taught me the good things to bring with little kids, 00:03:09.880 --> 00:03:14.680 and I love to bring bags of it – get it all out. [Laughter] 00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:19.710 This young man is divesting himself of his coveralls. [Laughter] 00:03:21.820 --> 00:03:23.170 I think, very smart. 00:03:26.230 --> 00:03:31.960 Now, how many of you are working with, 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:34.800 in one capacity or another, alternative schools? 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:39.520 All right. Thank you very much. 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:41.560 And another question. 00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:45.860 How many of you are now parents of school-aged kids? 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:48.400 Good. All right. 00:03:50.840 --> 00:03:52.840 How many of those of you 00:03:52.840 --> 00:04:00.140 who are parents of school-aged kids are sending them to alternative schools? 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:03.080 All right. 00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:06.050 How many of you are teaching them at home? 00:04:07.240 --> 00:04:08.267 Big crowd. 00:04:09.860 --> 00:04:15.680 Now, this next one will be for those of you 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.520 who are parents of children who are not yet of school age 00:04:19.520 --> 00:04:23.940 or expect soon to be parents of very young children. 00:04:23.940 --> 00:04:27.440 How many of you are seriously considering 00:04:27.440 --> 00:04:32.090 the idea of, I'd say, teaching them at home? 00:04:33.220 --> 00:04:33.970 All right. 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:36.560 And how many of you are seriously considering 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:38.150 sending them to an alternative school 00:04:38.150 --> 00:04:41.440 if there's one near you that was within reach? 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:44.800 Okay, good. 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:49.680 How many of you are teaching or otherwise working with – 00:04:56.280 --> 00:05:02.160 – with public schools or colleges or universities, 00:05:02.160 --> 00:05:04.730 let's say, in one capacity or another? 00:05:05.290 --> 00:05:08.040 Okay, thank you very much. 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:09.320 The grandparent question. 00:05:09.320 --> 00:05:15.000 How many of you are grandparents of homeschooled or – 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.050 Good! – alternative-schooled children? 00:05:19.050 --> 00:05:19.770 Okay. 00:05:19.770 --> 00:05:24.220 Grandparents are a very important ingredient in this situation. 00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:34.409 There are homeschoolers who are having just about as much with – 00:05:34.409 --> 00:05:35.868 Small child: Hi. John: Hi. 00:05:35.868 --> 00:05:37.327 How are you doing? 00:05:39.892 --> 00:05:42.007 Child: Hi. Hi. John: Hi. 00:05:43.327 --> 00:05:44.930 The famous Jimmy Durante said: 00:05:44.930 --> 00:05:49.070 "Everybody's trying to get into the act!" [Laughter] 00:05:50.190 --> 00:05:53.240 There are folks who are having about as much trouble with grandparents 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:56.210 as they are with superintendents. [Laughter] 00:05:56.210 --> 00:06:00.760 So, it's extremely important to have friendly and supportive grandparents 00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:03.750 in this alternative-education movement. 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.720 Well, let me sum up in a very few words 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:13.350 what I have been saying and writing 00:06:13.350 --> 00:06:19.440 about children and learning now for going on 25 years or more. 00:06:19.890 --> 00:06:23.440 As a result of my experiences, 00:06:23.440 --> 00:06:29.080 first of all as a classroom teacher working in just about every grade, 00:06:29.080 --> 00:06:32.500 sometimes, say, K through G. 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:36.240 I did a little college and graduate school teaching – 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:37.470 not very much. 00:06:38.520 --> 00:06:40.680 K through 12 might be a little more accurate. 00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:42.390 But as a result of, on the one hand, 00:06:42.390 --> 00:06:48.000 working with children in more or less conventional classrooms, 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:51.690 and on the other hand, spending a lot of time 00:06:51.690 --> 00:06:54.160 with babies, infants, little children – 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:55.200 first my sisters', 00:06:55.200 --> 00:06:59.520 then the children of other people, little children in nursery schools, 00:06:59.520 --> 00:07:04.840 and since then, many children of homeschooling parents – 00:07:04.840 --> 00:07:09.440 I came to understand something – certainly to believe something 00:07:09.440 --> 00:07:18.280 about young human beings of which I am more certain 00:07:18.280 --> 00:07:21.640 than I am, I think, about anything in the world – 00:07:21.640 --> 00:07:26.560 and that is that children are, 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:30.200 by nature and from birth, or perhaps before birth – 00:07:30.200 --> 00:07:34.920 though I have no testimony to offer about that – 00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:37.190 natural learning creatures. 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:42.440 There is nothing that they want more. 00:07:42.440 --> 00:07:46.880 They have a desire – more than a desire, a passion – 00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:49.480 to find out as much as they can, 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:54.040 to make as much sense as they can of the world around them, 00:07:54.040 --> 00:07:56.320 or as much of that world as they experience, 00:07:56.320 --> 00:07:58.560 to become competent and skillful in it, 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:02.040 to do things in it, to play a useful part in it. 00:08:02.040 --> 00:08:06.510 This is a truly biological instinct or drive. 00:08:06.510 --> 00:08:11.260 It is as strong as or stronger – 00:08:14.110 --> 00:08:17.400 – at least for children who are not in famine condition – 00:08:17.400 --> 00:08:20.320 it is stronger than the desire to eat. 00:08:21.260 --> 00:08:23.130 Those of you who are mothers 00:08:23.130 --> 00:08:27.200 or attentive and observant fathers of very young children 00:08:27.200 --> 00:08:30.750 will have seen this happen many times, 00:08:30.750 --> 00:08:33.880 that a tiny infant, babe in arms, 00:08:33.880 --> 00:08:36.514 hungry with his little stomach hurting – 00:08:36.514 --> 00:08:39.360 which is what happens when they'te hungry – 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:46.040 and eating, feeding, nursing, will stop eating if something interesting happens. 00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:48.280 If somebody comes into the room, if there's a noise, 00:08:48.280 --> 00:08:50.620 if there's some kind of a change in the situation, 00:08:50.620 --> 00:08:52.800 this hungry little teeny creature 00:08:52.800 --> 00:08:57.140 will stop eating and look around to see what's going on. 00:08:59.310 --> 00:09:04.160 There is probably not a mother in the world who hasn't seen this happen. 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:09.600 And how we can persist in talking about children not being interested in learning 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.920 or needing to be taught to learn or whatever it is, 00:09:11.920 --> 00:09:14.510 is just absolutely beyond me. 00:09:15.270 --> 00:09:16.430 Anyway. 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:21.970 They are extremely good at this – 00:09:21.970 --> 00:09:27.160 this learning, this making sense of the world. 00:09:27.160 --> 00:09:36.020 They're much better at it than we are, or than all but some microscopic fraction. 00:09:36.910 --> 00:09:39.920 If by some accident of who knows what – science fiction – 00:09:39.920 --> 00:09:42.650 were all of us to be dropped into, 00:09:42.650 --> 00:09:46.000 say, the interior of Japan or some exotic part of the world 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:49.290 where nobody spoke a word of English, 00:09:49.290 --> 00:09:52.840 where everybody was speaking some language we had never heard of, 00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:56.720 it's no mystery to us which of us here in the room 00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:00.400 would be talking that language first – 00:10:00.400 --> 00:10:01.640 the little guys would. 00:10:01.640 --> 00:10:03.760 All of them would be talking it. 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:05.480 Most of them talking it fairly soon. 00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:08.200 Most of us – some of us – big ones – 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:10.960 would be struggling along in a kind of a halting way. 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:13.120 And a lot of us would never learn any of it. 00:10:14.160 --> 00:10:15.760 Many of us would never know it. 00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:23.810 Just the problems of learning something totally new without any assistance with it. 00:10:24.280 --> 00:10:25.900 No, they get it first. 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:29.040 But we all know that when we think about it. 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:31.490 They're extremely good at it. 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:38.880 Well, another way of saying what I've come to believe 00:10:38.880 --> 00:10:46.390 is that learning is not the product of teaching. 00:10:49.280 --> 00:10:57.160 Very difficult for me as a paid teacher over a number of years to get that into my thick head. 00:10:57.160 --> 00:11:01.520 I was very good at that whatever you call that thing that goes on in classrooms. 00:11:02.280 --> 00:11:06.700 I was probably a good example of what's called a gifted teacher – 00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:14.040 motivating, clever at devices, good at explaining, 00:11:14.040 --> 00:11:15.400 all that stuff you're supposed to do. 00:11:15.400 --> 00:11:21.200 It took me a long time to figure out that this was not doing anybody any good, 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:23.080 and most people harm. 00:11:25.800 --> 00:11:28.960 Very hard for us to give up the picture of learning 00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:34.560 that it's like pouring something out of a full container into an empty one. 00:11:34.560 --> 00:11:38.720 It's this assumption which lies at the root of absolutely everything 00:11:38.720 --> 00:11:42.030 that's done in schools and under the name of education. 00:11:42.720 --> 00:11:44.680 And it's a hundred percent wrong. 00:11:44.680 --> 00:11:47.760 I mean, not even 98% wrong – a hundred percent wrong. 00:11:48.230 --> 00:11:50.380 That is not what happens. 00:11:51.480 --> 00:11:58.560 Learning is the product of the curiosity, the interest, the enthusiasm, the activity, 00:11:58.560 --> 00:12:04.610 the ingenuity, the imagination, the thinking power of the learner. 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:14.000 Now, there are things that outsiders, whether grown-up or whatever, 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:18.290 can do to assist this process, and I'll talk about them in just a few minutes. 00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:24.080 But the work is done by the learner. 00:12:27.610 --> 00:12:36.680 These little people are not empty receptacles into which knowledge is poured. 00:12:36.680 --> 00:12:39.800 They are not sponges soaking up knowledge. 00:12:39.800 --> 00:12:44.200 They are not little lamps to be lighted, as somebody else likes to say. 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:47.120 They are not any of these metaphors. 00:12:47.120 --> 00:12:51.990 They are, in the most strict and literal sense of the word, scientists. 00:12:53.160 --> 00:12:58.040 The things that they do to create knowledge out of experience, 00:12:58.040 --> 00:13:00.230 which is what learning is, 00:13:00.230 --> 00:13:04.840 are exactly the same as the things that the people we think of as scientists 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:06.920 do in their laboratory. 00:13:07.530 --> 00:13:10.200 When they do them, perhaps, there are some differences. 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:12.630 They are probably a good deal less self-conscious. 00:13:12.630 --> 00:13:14.810 A scientist will probably have 00:13:14.810 --> 00:13:17.440 a pretty clear idea of what she or he is looking for, 00:13:17.440 --> 00:13:20.080 whereas little kids are not doing it in that way. 00:13:20.800 --> 00:13:23.480 Nevertheless, they do the same things. 00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:27.300 The first is they observe, they take in data. 00:13:28.400 --> 00:13:31.440 And the second is that they wonder about it. 00:13:32.840 --> 00:13:37.736 And the third is that they ask themselves questions about it. 00:13:39.256 --> 00:13:41.200 The second and third are pretty close. 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:44.540 And then, they begin to make up theories, invent theories, 00:13:44.540 --> 00:13:50.690 maybe that the wind blows because the trees are moving their branches, 00:13:50.690 --> 00:13:55.490 which, on the face of it, is not a bad theory. 00:13:56.650 --> 00:14:01.000 And then, they test these theories with observation, maybe with questions, 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:07.940 LL maybe with experiments, some of which we may welcome and others of which we may not. 00:14:07.940 --> 00:14:13.880 In this connection, I think of the most recent visit to my house of Anna Vandoren, 00:14:13.880 --> 00:14:16.800 of whom you may have read in "Growing Without Schooling." 00:14:16.800 --> 00:14:20.350 Anna's going to be four in June. 00:14:20.920 --> 00:14:22.580 We were in the apartment. 00:14:23.280 --> 00:14:25.630 Her mother and I were doing various kinds of work. 00:14:25.630 --> 00:14:28.690 Her little guy seemed not to be getting in any physical trouble. 00:14:28.690 --> 00:14:30.185 And when the time came to leave, 00:14:30.185 --> 00:14:33.840 I have a door with one of those push-button locks on it. 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:41.200 And as I was leaving, I reached in to push the lock, and my thumb fell into a hole. 00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:43.080 Well, this feels kind of funny. 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:47.260 And I looked, and the push lock wasn't there, 00:14:47.260 --> 00:14:49.410 and it was sitting on the floor. 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:53.300 I said, "Anna, you've taken the lock out of my doorknob!" 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.080 It took me about four or five minutes to figure out how to get it back in. 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:04.620 Children tend to like to do experiments right up into the point 00:15:04.620 --> 00:15:06.890 where no further experimenting is possible, 00:15:06.890 --> 00:15:09.680 I guess you could say, – up to the disaster limit. 00:15:09.680 --> 00:15:16.840 And it's very good on learning, but it's sometimes tough on the lab. [Laughter] 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:20.480 So these experiments are not always welcome, but nevertheless, they do them. 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.530 And then, as a result of what they find out, 00:15:23.530 --> 00:15:27.360 they give up their theories, modify them, change them. 00:15:28.850 --> 00:15:29.840 Let's see. 00:15:30.960 --> 00:15:35.720 Has the GWS gone out which talks about my little friend Helen saying, "gocks?" 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:37.250 Or is that 44? 00:15:37.250 --> 00:15:39.110 Maybe you haven't received it yet. Woman: Yeah. 00:15:39.110 --> 00:15:40.320 Woman: It just arrived. 00:15:40.320 --> 00:15:42.470 John : All right. So here's Helen Vandoren. 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:46.080 Actually, her full name is Helen Maria-Holt Vandoren. 00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:50.600 I had two schools and one baby named after me. [Laughter] 00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:58.955 One of the schools is defunct, but the baby is fine. [Laughter] 00:15:58.955 --> 00:16:00.920 At any rate. 00:16:00.920 --> 00:16:06.470 Helen has been, for some time, using the word "gocks" to say socks. 00:16:06.470 --> 00:16:10.445 And this is a mystery to us because she knows how to say the sound "sss," 00:16:10.445 --> 00:16:12.440 and says it in lots of other connections. 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.240 Indeed, it was one of the first sounds she said, 00:16:15.240 --> 00:16:19.770 and it had multiple meanings, including that she wanted to nurse. 00:16:20.520 --> 00:16:25.830 We simply could not imagine where she got the idea of saying gocks. 00:16:25.830 --> 00:16:27.960 She never heard anybody say it, obviously. 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:28.700 No imitation. 00:16:28.700 --> 00:16:30.480 Her sister had never said it. 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:36.360 If you think of the way sounds are produced in the mouth and throat, 00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:38.720 S and G are not at all alike. 00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:41.980 It's not a small difference. 00:16:42.980 --> 00:16:48.800 At any rate, she must have had some kind of theory about why she wanted 00:16:48.800 --> 00:16:52.800 to do it this way and not some other way – and it was a theory. 00:16:52.800 --> 00:16:56.920 Just the other day, oh, I think maybe not more than about three or four days ago, 00:16:56.920 --> 00:17:00.160 we were all in the office, 00:17:00.160 --> 00:17:01.780 and it was time for the Vandoren family to go home, 00:17:01.780 --> 00:17:04.810 which means rounding up the kids' clothes, shoes, socks, putting them on them – 00:17:04.810 --> 00:17:07.840 an operation you know well. 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:13.720 And we had Helen sitting on the floor getting ready to put her socks on. 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:21.470 And she looked at them thoughtfully, and said, "Zzzzocks. 00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:21.480 Zzzzocks." 00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.480 I said to Mary, "Have you ever heard her say that before?" 00:17:23.480 --> 00:17:27.920 Mary said, "No, first time." 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:29.820 Well, I saw Mary just a couple of days ago and said, 00:17:29.820 --> 00:17:32.840 "How is the 'zocks' going?" Has she said "gocks" since? 00:17:32.840 --> 00:17:33.680 "No," she said. 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:38.880 In fact, she's very quickly converted the "zocks" to "socks," and that's what it is now. 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:42.520 Now, why that difference, which didn't make any difference to her before, 00:17:42.520 --> 00:17:44.800 all of a sudden did make a difference, I don't know, 00:17:44.800 --> 00:17:50.200 you don't know, she doesn't know, we'll never know – except everybody does it. 00:17:50.200 --> 00:17:55.320 All of a sudden, whatever theory of language it was that caused her to say "gocks," suddenly 00:17:55.320 --> 00:18:00.840 seemed unsatisfactory, didn't work, didn't fit – so now she says "socks." 00:18:00.840 --> 00:18:01.840 Well, okay. 00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:07.480 A very small example which we could multiply by the billions, 00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:09.160 and it's what these little people do. 00:18:09.160 --> 00:18:13.960 They are observers, makers, testers, changers of theories. 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:21.240 They are, in the strictest sense of the word, scientists. 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:28.960 And, at least as far as learning goes, all they ask is to be allowed to continue to do this. 00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:33.400 Now, what we can do – I come back to the point about what can adults 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:40.000 do to help? – because we are, in many ways, an essential part of this process. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.880 I don't claim children would ever learn to figure out how 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:45.240 to talk if they were surrounded by deaf-mutes. 00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:50.440 It wouldn't happen. 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:59.120 What we can do, what we do in our normal daily lives before we start thinking about education 00:18:59.120 --> 00:19:09.040 or coerced learning is we provide children with – as much as we can – access to the world around 00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:17.240 them – by which I mean not just places, places that we go, places at the house, the kitchen, 00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:22.120 the yard, the neighborhood, the stores, wherever we go, but also the world of people, the world 00:19:22.120 --> 00:19:32.720 of experience, actions, talk, materials, books, records, tools, people doing things, human life. 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:36.200 Now, what we can do for these little guys is to provide them with as much 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:40.440 as we reasonably can – I say reasonably – I'm not saying you have to make your whole 00:19:40.440 --> 00:19:48.360 life into a field trip – as we reasonably can with access to our own lives as we lead them. 00:19:48.360 --> 00:19:50.080 If you live in the woods, that means the woods. 00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:52.800 If you live in downtown city, that means downtown. 00:19:52.800 --> 00:19:59.960 I mean, wherever we live, whatever we do, as far as we can, we open up that world to children – 00:19:59.960 --> 00:20:03.880 let them see it, let them be part of it – and we answer their questions 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:05.960 when they have them – and they have lots of them. 00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:11.507 Some of you will have discovered that when your children are getting on -- 00:20:11.507 --> 00:20:12.229 Small child: Hi. 00:20:12.229 --> 00:20:13.353 John: Oh, hi again. 00:20:13.353 --> 00:20:20.661 Child: Hi, hi. 00:20:20.661 --> 00:20:21.920 John: Mm-hmm. John: Well, when they're getting on to a year 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:25.520 and a half, when they're beginning to sneak up under – into speech – 00:20:25.520 --> 00:20:27.680 It will be a place where they'll point to 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:33.076 all kinds of things and make some kind of insistent noise: "Mmm mmm." 00:20:33.076 --> 00:20:38.240 The tendency for a lot of people is to think that they're saying that they want that. 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:40.080 They point to the clock, they point to this, and they go, 00:20:40.080 --> 00:20:42.360 "Mmm mmm," and people say, "No, you can't have it." 00:20:42.360 --> 00:20:42.960 They don't want it. 00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:44.720 They want to know what it's called. 00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:46.760 They want to hear the name of it. 00:20:46.760 --> 00:20:47.880 Simple as that. 00:20:47.880 --> 00:20:48.460 I say simple. 00:20:48.460 --> 00:20:52.080 It took me quite a number of years to figure it out. [Laughter] 00:20:54.520 --> 00:20:58.840 So they ask questions – and we can answer their questions when they 00:20:58.840 --> 00:21:18.480 ask them – give help if and when it is asked for, and not too much at a time, 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:23.000 and give a kind of demonstration just by our being there and our doing things – give 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:28.520 the kind of demonstration of various sorts of adult skill and competence, 00:21:31.280 --> 00:21:37.640 and pay a kind of affectionate, respectful attention to what they're doing, without making 00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:45.920 some huge, big deal of it, and give them a kind of moral support in this adventure of trying to make 00:21:45.920 --> 00:21:52.600 sense of the world – and the best way to give this moral support is, in fact, to trust them, 00:21:52.600 --> 00:21:58.680 to understand that they are, indeed, passionately eager to learn about the world, extremely good 00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:05.360 at doing it, and will, in fact, do it – in their own way, in their own time. 00:22:05.360 --> 00:22:07.240 Not to say they're going to know everything about everything, 00:22:07.240 --> 00:22:13.320 but nobody does – and that's how we can help. 00:22:13.320 --> 00:22:20.680 But ours is a very minor role, and theirs is the major one. 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:23.320 Okay, well, I'm preaching to the converted, I know. [Chuckles] 00:22:23.320 --> 00:22:26.520 If you weren't already half convinced of this, you wouldn't be here. 00:22:26.520 --> 00:22:32.720 But I want to say it anyway. 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:35.280 All right, now, the next part of my talk is about something different. 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:37.360 Much of this conference has to do with the future, 00:22:37.360 --> 00:22:44.960 and I want to talk a little bit about the future of homeschooling and the near-run future – the 00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:54.360 next 10 years or so – and by extension, to some degree, of alternative schools. 00:22:54.360 --> 00:22:57.496 We are – from a legislative – 00:22:57.496 --> 00:22:58.440 [A woman comes forward.] Yes? 00:22:58.440 --> 00:23:00.922 Woman: Is it possible to ask you questions before you go on to the next –? 00:23:00.921 --> 00:23:03.534 John: Yeah, yeah, sure. 00:23:03.535 --> 00:23:03.554 Woman: I see. Okay. 00:23:03.554 --> 00:23:06.000 John: Now, you don't have all these electronics at your disposal, 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:22.563 so you've got to speak up – and not too fast. 00:23:22.563 --> 00:23:22.634 Woman: Okay, I don't have a loud voice, I don't know whether it carries. 00:23:22.634 --> 00:23:22.663 You certainly are convincing. 00:23:22.663 --> 00:23:22.722 I agree with what you say that we are not going to convince. 00:23:22.722 --> 00:23:22.800 On that part, that I'm going to disagree in terms of people connected with you. 00:23:22.800 --> 00:23:29.400 But I wonder what you have to say or how you feel about what I believe is 00:23:29.400 --> 00:23:35.120 a necessity to transmute this imperative. 00:23:35.120 --> 00:23:41.345 And this is perhaps something that can be picked up. 00:23:41.345 --> 00:23:41.393 I agree children aren't all the same, God knows. 00:23:41.393 --> 00:23:53.459 But we also need, I think, some input in terms of direction, guidance and exposure, 00:23:53.459 --> 00:23:53.514 and input in regard to the heritage that is [inaudible]. 00:23:53.514 --> 00:23:55.222 John: All right, that's a good question. 00:23:55.222 --> 00:23:56.520 Woman: Okay. John: I'm familiar with it. 00:23:56.520 --> 00:23:57.680 I've heard it. 00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:00.160 I'd love to answer it, perhaps just take out very, 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:04.520 very briefly now, and we can go back to it later and spend more time on it. 00:24:04.520 --> 00:24:07.480 It's extremely important, in the first place, 00:24:07.480 --> 00:24:11.640 in thinking about these things, to use language accurately. 00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:17.160 And we really have to understand the difference between exposure and coercion. 00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:19.240 Now, there's a big difference between putting – 00:24:19.240 --> 00:24:23.240 I mean, we just went out to dinner. 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:27.240 The Baskins, and I and Heather, we just had dinner together. 00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:31.760 And there was the menu, and there were things on different people's plates, 00:24:31.760 --> 00:24:35.560 and we would say, "Here are some capers in front of my veal." 00:24:35.560 --> 00:24:38.600 And so we said to Heather, "Would you like to try caper?" 00:24:38.600 --> 00:24:41.520 Heather did not want to try a caper. 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:43.260 Well, that's exposure. 00:24:43.260 --> 00:24:46.880 There are different kinds of food there, and we say, "Would you like to try some?" 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:47.320 "No." 00:24:47.320 --> 00:24:47.840 "Okay." 00:24:47.840 --> 00:24:48.040 "No." 00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:52.760 That's not at all the same thing as putting some capers in front of Heather and saying, "You can't 00:24:52.760 --> 00:24:56.160 leave the table until you've eaten them," or, "You can't have any dessert," or holding 00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:06.120 her by the nose and pushing one in, which is exposure as it is practiced in formal education. 00:25:06.120 --> 00:25:08.500 There's no exposure unless you can't say no to it. 00:25:08.500 --> 00:25:11.440 If you can't say no, it's coercion. 00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:16.240 Really very, very, very important to understand that difference, 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:17.800 and it's difficult, apparently. 00:25:17.800 --> 00:25:24.120 Now, I'm just going to assert for the moment that I am opposed to all forms 00:25:24.120 --> 00:25:28.560 of coerced – or all attempts to coerce learning. 00:25:28.560 --> 00:25:32.980 I meant to say after I had said that learning is not the product of teaching, 00:25:32.980 --> 00:25:37.840 I meant to say that teaching which has not been asked for by the learner – 00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:42.240 virtually without exception – impedes and prevents learning, 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:48.040 and before very long will kill most of the desire for learning itself. 00:25:48.040 --> 00:25:54.200 I will say that forced learning is faked learning. 00:25:54.200 --> 00:25:58.960 I had the great traditions of culture, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. – 00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:03.520 by which I suppose we mean Shakespeare or whatever – thrust at me. 00:26:03.520 --> 00:26:05.520 I was clever about playing the school game. 00:26:05.520 --> 00:26:06.600 I could do that trick. 00:26:06.600 --> 00:26:08.240 And so I got my A's and B's, 00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:11.040 and went to high-powered schools and colleges, and so forth. 00:26:11.040 --> 00:26:15.240 Most of the people who are told to play this trick cannot play it, 00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:21.680 don't play it well, fail to play it altogether. 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:23.440 We have to understand, 00:26:23.440 --> 00:26:25.760 we're going to probably have to agree to disagree about this, 00:26:25.760 --> 00:26:28.400 because nobody is going to be – 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:33.040 nobody who walks into a room believing in some kind of forced learning 00:26:33.040 --> 00:26:35.480 is going to walk out of the room not believing in it 00:26:35.480 --> 00:26:39.440 because they've heard me preach this little mini-sermon about it. 00:26:39.440 --> 00:26:41.360 But I want you to be very clear about – 00:26:42.080 --> 00:26:43.200 And I should say, by the way, 00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:51.840 that I suspect that the number of homeschoolers or alternative school people 00:26:51.840 --> 00:26:56.360 who really agree with me is probably well under 50%. 00:26:56.360 --> 00:27:02.120 I mean, I think this is a minority view, even among homeschoolers. 00:27:02.120 --> 00:27:10.480 You don't have to believe what I just said to be a homeschooler or run an alternative school. 00:27:10.480 --> 00:27:15.480 But I'm the one who's sitting up here and that's what I think. [Laughter] 00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:17.520 {I think - you see} 00:27:17.520 --> 00:27:23.600 If it is part of the cultural tradition, it is there. 00:27:23.600 --> 00:27:26.760 Children are very interested in what is there, 00:27:26.760 --> 00:27:31.120 and they're extremely interested in what is most interesting to us. 00:27:31.120 --> 00:27:34.000 And Shakespeare is not interesting to adults, 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:39.600 except a handful of English teachers who make a specialty of teaching, 00:27:40.280 --> 00:27:42.200 and a fairly small handful of actors 00:27:42.200 --> 00:27:45.460 who every so often take a shot at producing one of his plays. 00:27:45.460 --> 00:27:47.480 It usually loses money. 00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:52.029 But other than that, people don't read it. 00:27:52.029 --> 00:27:58.440 All right, I don't want to go on too long [inaudible]. 00:27:58.440 --> 00:28:03.000 But what people really care about – a good example is music. 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:05.920 There are not very many households in the United States 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:10.360 where people read Shakespeare just for the sheer, solid pleasure of doing it. 00:28:10.360 --> 00:28:12.360 They get this. 00:28:12.360 --> 00:28:13.800 I've just been reading some of the plays. 00:28:13.800 --> 00:28:15.600 So, some of the tragedies are lovely. 00:28:15.600 --> 00:28:21.460 But I don't know anything in the world less funny than Shakespeare trying to be funny. 00:28:21.460 --> 00:28:23.200 Mmm! 00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:28.600 Maybe someday, some really bold soul will cut out those ponderous exchanges of puns. 00:28:28.600 --> 00:28:31.400 It will be a great day for the Bard when that happens. 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:34.280 I mean, they rolled in the aisles when he wrote this stuff, and he knew that. 00:28:34.280 --> 00:28:36.840 He was a practical man in the theater. 00:28:36.840 --> 00:28:38.720 He put it in because he knew it would make people laugh. 00:28:38.720 --> 00:28:45.400 It doesn't make people laugh anymore, it just makes you turn the page. 00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:48.920 But there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of families 00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:51.920 where music is a central part of their lives, 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:55.320 as it's a central part of mine, and in those families, 00:28:55.320 --> 00:28:58.040 very, very few children are indifferent to music. 00:28:58.760 --> 00:29:04.640 Or let's say gardening if gardening is your passion – or whatever it may be. 00:29:04.640 --> 00:29:09.960 Children can tell from what we do what sorts of things make the most difference to us. 00:29:09.960 --> 00:29:13.480 And those are the things, generally speaking, that interest them most, 00:29:13.480 --> 00:29:16.200 unless they've gotten into some rebellion kick, 00:29:16.200 --> 00:29:19.000 and that doesn't happen much in homeschooling. 00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:23.520 So I'll ask you to let me leave it at that for the time being. 00:29:24.800 --> 00:29:29.240 No, I do not think this body of whatever it is, 00:29:29.240 --> 00:29:33.760 or this cultural tradition, or whatever it is, needs to be, 00:29:33.760 --> 00:29:42.000 or indeed can be, forced into people under pressure by coercion. 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:43.720 If you really love Shakespeare, 00:29:43.720 --> 00:29:46.400 go see Shakespeare plays where they're performed, 00:29:46.400 --> 00:29:48.040 and take your kids with you, 00:29:48.040 --> 00:29:50.760 or even get a bunch of people together in your neighborhood and town, 00:29:50.760 --> 00:29:56.480 and put on an amateur production, and let your kids be part of the operation. 00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:01.280 In fact, if you really love Shakespeare, you ought to be doing it anyway – 00:30:01.280 --> 00:30:02.240 or whatever it is. 00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:03.640 If you love music, make music. 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:05.280 If you love gardening, grow a garden. 00:30:05.280 --> 00:30:08.200 If you love camping in the woods, go camping in the woods. 00:30:08.200 --> 00:30:10.200 If you love – I don't care what it is. 00:30:10.200 --> 00:30:20.040 But children sense that the world they get from the things that we care most about. 00:30:20.040 --> 00:30:21.840 All right. 00:30:21.840 --> 00:30:27.560 {Let me - } I don't mean by what I say to imply that I've been sort of diverted or something. 00:30:27.560 --> 00:30:28.280 {That's very -} 00:30:28.280 --> 00:30:30.476 It's a very central issue, and I'm glad you asked - 00:30:30.476 --> 00:30:35.320 I'm glad you raised that point. 00:30:35.320 --> 00:30:38.800 The homeschooling movement is in the middle of 00:30:38.800 --> 00:30:41.600 an extremely interesting and important period 00:30:41.600 --> 00:30:52.040 of political and legislative change – and judicial, too, I would say. 00:30:52.040 --> 00:30:55.400 Ten years ago, five years ago, I think you could have said accurately 00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:59.960 that the great majority of people who were teaching their own kids, 00:30:59.960 --> 00:31:05.680 and not just underground, not just hiding out, were doing it - 00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:07.640 were making use of what you would have to call 00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:12.400 loopholes in the law of one kind or another. 00:31:12.400 --> 00:31:15.600 Things which had been put in the law not with homeschooling in mind, 00:31:15.600 --> 00:31:20.080 but with something quite different. 00:31:20.080 --> 00:31:23.200 In many places, in many states around the country, 00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:26.920 the compulsory school attendance laws had some kind of a clause in them 00:31:26.920 --> 00:31:33.160 about kids have to go to school or get some equivalent kind of instruction or education. 00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:38.760 Now, this clause was not put into the law to make things easy for homeschoolers, 00:31:38.760 --> 00:31:40.240 but to take care of children who, 00:31:40.240 --> 00:31:43.880 for mostly medical reasons, were not able to go to school. 00:31:43.880 --> 00:31:48.320 And they were probably thinking of retarded or emotionally disturbed children 00:31:48.320 --> 00:31:50.200 who couldn't go to school because 00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:52.320 the schools didn't want them, or couldn't handle them. 00:31:52.320 --> 00:31:57.560 So they wanted to make some kind of legal alternative. 00:31:57.560 --> 00:31:59.760 The farthest thing they could have had from their minds, 00:31:59.760 --> 00:32:02.680 the legislatures, when they put these clauses in, 00:32:02.680 --> 00:32:06.240 was that people who had the choice of sending their kids to school, 00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:11.640 people whose kids were, as they say, normal, 00:32:11.640 --> 00:32:13.480 would decide that they didn't want to send them to school 00:32:13.480 --> 00:32:15.320 so they could teach them themselves. 00:32:15.320 --> 00:32:16.960 Nevertheless, there was that loophole. 00:32:16.960 --> 00:32:20.600 And for a while, in lots of places, people were slipping through. 00:32:20.600 --> 00:32:23.680 The other great loophole was the private school loophole 00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:27.840 where many states in the country in which private schools were not regulated by law 00:32:28.440 --> 00:32:32.600 or not regulated by the compulsory school attendance law – 00:32:32.600 --> 00:32:36.800 Now, that was not done to make homeschooling possible. 00:32:36.800 --> 00:32:41.480 It was done for quite other sorts of reasons. 00:32:41.480 --> 00:32:45.160 When legislators decided that private schools would not be regulated, 00:32:45.160 --> 00:32:50.720 it was to a large degree because private schools had their own police mechanisms, 00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:55.720 they - what you would call a non-alternative independent or private schools. 00:32:55.720 --> 00:32:57.320 The rich folks' private schools have 00:32:57.320 --> 00:33:01.120 their own National Association of Independent Schools, 00:33:01.120 --> 00:33:03.400 Midwestern Association of Independent Schools – 00:33:03.400 --> 00:33:04.352 New England – 00:33:04.352 --> 00:33:07.720 I mean, they have their own inspectors, and their own checkers-uppers-on, 00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:11.600 and so forth, and so forth. 00:33:11.600 --> 00:33:13.960 So, they were not sort of flying free in the air. 00:33:13.960 --> 00:33:17.480 Also, legislators, I think, tend to operate on the assumption 00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:22.920 that rich people know what they're doing – you know? 00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:27.000 They say, "Private schools are expensive," 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:30.160 or at least they used to be thought of that way, 00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:37.400 and that's what legislators were thinking when they decided not to try to regulate them. 00:33:37.400 --> 00:33:41.360 And they said, "If you've got 50 or a hundred fairly wealthy families, 00:33:41.360 --> 00:33:43.840 and they're all satisfied with the school, 00:33:43.840 --> 00:33:47.080 chances are something has got to be going on there.". 00:33:47.080 --> 00:33:52.794 Rich people are not terribly innovative, as a general rule. [Laughter] 00:33:52.794 --> 00:33:55.200 John: "And in any case, since they're rich, even if their kids goof up, 00:33:55.200 --> 00:33:56.840 they'll always be able to take care of them, 00:33:56.840 --> 00:33:59.160 so we don't have to worry about their being on welfare. 00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:04.440 So generally speaking, we can let them alone." 00:34:04.440 --> 00:34:07.400 But the farthest thing in the world they had in mind 00:34:07.400 --> 00:34:11.280 was that this would be used in the way that homeschoolers started to use it. 00:34:11.280 --> 00:34:14.600 Well, that's where we were roughly five or six years ago, 00:34:14.600 --> 00:34:19.240 we were all happily crawling under this fence, as it were, 00:34:19.240 --> 00:34:25.025 pulling up the barbed wire, and slipping under the bottom strand 00:34:25.025 --> 00:34:26.920 [chuckles] – and it was very nice while it lasted. 00:34:26.920 --> 00:34:31.600 I mean, there was no regulation, and no tests, and no papers to fill out. 00:34:31.600 --> 00:34:33.840 Some states built a one-page something or other 00:34:33.840 --> 00:34:41.360 about "my home is a private school," and it was very nice, 00:34:41.360 --> 00:34:45.320 but it perfectly obviously wasn't going to last. 00:34:45.320 --> 00:34:47.100 It was obvious to me that it wasn't going to last. 00:34:47.100 --> 00:34:51.120 It could not be made to last – that as we got bigger and stronger, 00:34:51.120 --> 00:34:55.400 and got to be heard more of in one thing or another, 00:34:55.400 --> 00:34:59.120 that people, the courts, the public schools themselves, 00:34:59.120 --> 00:35:02.200 the legislatures were going to begin to pay attention and say, 00:35:02.200 --> 00:35:07.800 "Hey, what about this? 00:35:07.800 --> 00:35:16.517 Well, roughly about two or three years ago, we began to see – I say roughly – 00:35:16.517 --> 00:35:21.480 it differs rom state to state – but we began to see the beginnings of attempts – 00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:23.480 in some cases in the form of laws, 00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:27.320 and in some cases in the form  of administrative regulations – 00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:31.877 attempts to make homeschooling illegal or virtually impossible – 00:35:31.877 --> 00:35:38.680 in Maryland, and Georgia, and in other states – for a while in California, 00:35:38.680 --> 00:35:42.120 which had been one of our chief homeschooling states – 00:35:42.120 --> 00:35:48.880 the authorities began to try to think of ways of making this very difficult. 00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:52.840 And a couple of years ago, we at Growing Without Schooling 00:35:52.840 --> 00:35:59.340 certainly felt that the homeschooling movement was in a kind of fight for its life. 00:35:59.340 --> 00:36:01.440 Well, I don't mean to say that the fight isn't over, 00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:07.520 but in fact, none of those attempts to rule out homeschooling, stamp it out, 00:36:07.520 --> 00:36:10.600 make it impossible, none of them succeeded. 00:36:10.600 --> 00:36:18.040 In no place has a legislature written a kind of anti-homeschooling law in that sense. 00:36:18.040 --> 00:36:26.600 We've been under lots of pressure, lots of pressure to do so. 00:36:26.600 --> 00:36:27.840 {What they did start doing is} 00:36:28.560 --> 00:36:34.200 I should say a similar thing was happening in the courts in a number of states 00:36:34.200 --> 00:36:37.640 in which people had been homeschooling through the private school option. 00:36:37.640 --> 00:36:41.200 The courts began to say a home all by itself can't be a private school. 00:36:41.200 --> 00:36:45.920 That was our situation in Virginia before the law was passed there. 00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:48.720 So the loopholes were being closed up. 00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:54.360 The fence was being repaired so that animals couldn't get up through the bottom. 00:36:54.360 --> 00:36:59.600 But at the same time, the legislatures began to put some kind of a gate in the fence. 00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:03.720 One way or another, they  began to try to legitimize 00:37:03.720 --> 00:37:06.560 homeschooling, to make it  explicitly legal, and say, 00:37:06.560 --> 00:37:12.160 "Yes, people can teach their own kids if they do this, that, or the other." 00:37:12.160 --> 00:37:16.480 Since then, there've been a considerable number of these kinds of laws passed. 00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:17.400 I lose track. 00:37:18.200 --> 00:37:22.880 In GWS 44, I think – in fact, when we sent it to press, 00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:26.120 we said there were 14 states considering such laws. 00:37:26.120 --> 00:37:29.080 I believe that since then, at least three of them, maybe four – 00:37:29.080 --> 00:37:34.760 Arkansas, Wyoming, New Mexico, state of Washington – 00:37:34.760 --> 00:37:37.680 we had a very tough time in the state of Washington – 00:37:37.680 --> 00:37:46.120 have passed one or another kinds of legislation 00:37:46.120 --> 00:37:50.120 making homeschooling explicitly legal with this, that, or the other condition. 00:37:50.120 --> 00:37:53.680 And we expect many more states to do that. 00:37:53.680 --> 00:37:57.600 We'll probably see more even before the end of this legislative session. 00:37:57.600 --> 00:37:59.000 And I would hazard a rough guess 00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:03.360 that we'll continue to see half a dozen or a dozen states a year doing this, 00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:07.160 and dozens, perhaps, to many a year. 00:38:07.160 --> 00:38:14.200 And I would say that, oh, within five years, we will probably see very few states 00:38:14.200 --> 00:38:22.920 in which there is not some explicit reference to homeschooling in the law. 00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:27.600 Now, I consider this an extraordinarily important move forward, even though, 00:38:27.600 --> 00:38:33.320 in many cases, I'm not happy with the qualifying restrictions. 00:38:33.320 --> 00:38:40.480 Many of them talk about the use of standardized achievement tests. 00:38:41.600 --> 00:38:45.640 Though that is not a problem for probably 80% of homeschoolers, 00:38:45.640 --> 00:38:47.400 it can be a very serious problem 00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:53.800 for people whose children are late starters in reading, or in whatever else it may be, 00:38:53.800 --> 00:38:57.440 or happen not to like arithmetic, or be a little afraid of it, or something. 00:39:01.160 --> 00:39:05.440 And I think it's a very important step forward 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:19.480 that legislators are beginning to see homeschooling as a legitimate activity, 00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:25.240 rather than some kind of weird, strange, outlaw idea. 00:39:25.240 --> 00:39:32.080 Now, what I think we have to do, along with getting more of these kinds of laws passed – 00:39:32.080 --> 00:39:40.440 and we'll probably be 10 or 15 years at it – is educating the legislatures, 00:39:40.440 --> 00:39:44.600 and particularly the individual legislators – 00:39:44.600 --> 00:39:51.160 away from rigid curriculums, standardized achievement tests, 00:39:51.160 --> 00:39:55.840 all kinds of attempts to reduce human beings to numbers. 00:39:58.040 --> 00:40:01.400 I think a lot of them are ready to say now, in fact, 00:40:01.400 --> 00:40:02.880 "Well, yeah, people can teach their own kids 00:40:02.880 --> 00:40:04.680 if they do it just the way the schools do it." 00:40:04.680 --> 00:40:07.640 But that's obviously not satisfactory. 00:40:07.640 --> 00:40:11.560 But we have to get them to see – in one way or another, 00:40:11.560 --> 00:40:14.840 to get into law at least some of the spirit 00:40:14.840 --> 00:40:16.920 in which I talked to you at the beginning of this meeting – 00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:26.240 some feeling that there are other ways besides the rigid curriculums of schools, 00:40:26.240 --> 00:40:28.560 and the endless little numerical tests. 00:40:28.560 --> 00:40:33.200 There are other ways of observing and taking note of learning, 00:40:33.200 --> 00:40:36.300 of observing children's growth in the world, and so forth. 00:40:36.300 --> 00:40:40.680 Now, this is already being done, of course, in some places. 00:40:40.680 --> 00:40:45.160 But I would like to see, for example, something in the law, 00:40:45.160 --> 00:40:48.960 some kind of amendment somewhere down the line 00:40:48.960 --> 00:40:54.040 saying that parents and educational authorities, in evaluating the learning of children, 00:40:54.040 --> 00:40:59.040 may use, but shall not be required to use or restricted to using, 00:40:59.040 --> 00:41:03.880 standardized and other numerical tests. 00:41:03.880 --> 00:41:09.760 I don't think very many legislatures would pass such a resolution if we introduced it tomorrow. 00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:11.840 But I think if we do the right sorts of things, 00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:14.000 that it's very possible that a great many of them 00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:22.600 will do so by, let's say, a decade from now. 00:41:22.600 --> 00:41:26.880 I speak of educating legislators, and I'm not at all thinking of lobbying groups. 00:41:26.880 --> 00:41:29.820 What I have in mind is that homeschoolers – 00:41:29.820 --> 00:41:34.660 and also, again, insofar as they are encumbered by the law – 00:41:34.660 --> 00:41:39.760 alternative schoolers must get to know their own legislators personally, 00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:42.320 individually, meet them, go see them, 00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:46.320 take their children, become a kind of pen pal, 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:48.800 write them occasional letters saying, 00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:52.160 "Thought you might be interested to hear what my kids are up to recently. 00:41:52.160 --> 00:41:53.800 The other day we went, 00:41:53.800 --> 00:41:58.360 and my eight-year-old child took 25 books out of the library, 00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:04.240 which is more books than most school kids read in a year, or two, or five." 00:42:06.240 --> 00:42:12.160 We have got to begin to get into a kind of continuing communication with these people, 00:42:12.160 --> 00:42:15.360 so they begin to understand, as we understand, 00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:19.960 how this organic, natural learning takes place. 00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:22.720 And of course, if bad bills get introduced, of course, 00:42:22.720 --> 00:42:26.200 we all have to hustle down to the state capitol and do that number – 00:42:26.200 --> 00:42:29.520 and obviously, we've been very good at it. 00:42:29.520 --> 00:42:30.520 But that's not all. 00:42:30.520 --> 00:42:34.760 I mean, "I don't write my legislator except when some kind of legislation 00:42:34.760 --> 00:42:36.520 is coming up that I'm worried about," 00:42:36.520 --> 00:42:38.040 this doesn't seem to me to be enough. 00:42:38.040 --> 00:42:42.840 I really think we have to try – as far as we can – 00:42:42.840 --> 00:42:47.640 we have to try to bring these people into the homeschooling family – 00:42:47.640 --> 00:42:52.520 and it is a family – a collection of families. 00:42:52.520 --> 00:42:58.480 So I see this as the main part 00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:04.560 of the future of homeschooling in the next decade or so. 00:43:04.560 --> 00:43:08.480 I think alternative schools can play a very important part in this – 00:43:08.480 --> 00:43:11.840 as indeed the Clonlara School and the Santa Fe Community School 00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:14.080 and a number of others already have – 00:43:14.080 --> 00:43:21.080 by providing a kind of support for homeschooling families. 00:43:22.040 --> 00:43:24.713 I don't know if Santa Fe was the first school to do that. 00:43:24.713 --> 00:43:27.120 It was the first one I knew about that was doing it – but anyway. 00:43:28.720 --> 00:43:36.080 And by now, we have a number of independent alternative schools around the country, 00:43:36.080 --> 00:43:41.920 which not only have their own buildings and classes – 00:43:41.920 --> 00:43:43.560 there's a physical school there in place – 00:43:43.560 --> 00:43:51.000 but they also provide a kind of legal and educational support to homeschooling families. 00:43:51.000 --> 00:43:55.320 Many of you might be on the other end of the country. 00:43:55.320 --> 00:44:01.520 I would like to see a much larger network of these kinds of schools. 00:44:01.520 --> 00:44:05.840 We now have – oh, I guess around the United States – several dozen. 00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:11.600 But we'd be in a very much stronger position if we had many hundreds of them. 00:44:11.600 --> 00:44:15.840 Let's see here. 00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:22.960 Excuse me a sec here. 00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:26.040 Amazing machines here. 00:44:26.040 --> 00:44:29.160 I think these small tape recorders – 00:44:29.160 --> 00:44:34.080 and they now have really quite astonishing sound quality – 00:44:34.080 --> 00:44:37.000 are one of the great educational tools of our time. 00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:39.960 And for all the talk about computers, 00:44:39.960 --> 00:44:44.000 I think this is a gadget which has many other kinds of possibilities, 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:48.320 which I don't think we have done as much with as we might. 00:44:48.320 --> 00:44:53.400 Like typewriters, this is a machine which is really fascinating to a lot of children – 00:44:53.400 --> 00:44:59.320 the experience of saying things into it and then hearing them back – 00:44:59.320 --> 00:45:01.040 very strange, very powerful. 00:45:05.640 --> 00:45:09.080 All right. Now, let's see. 00:45:09.080 --> 00:45:13.240 So, I was talking about a very large network – 00:45:13.240 --> 00:45:18.120 hundreds, thousands – of alternative schools, 00:45:18.120 --> 00:45:22.832 independent schools around the country – in some cases, public schools – 00:45:22.832 --> 00:45:25.720 because there are public schools that also offer this kind of support. 00:45:25.720 --> 00:45:33.960 The number is not very large, but it's also growing. 00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:34.320 All right, now. 00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:39.960 I want to switch to a different – in the last part of this talk, 00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:43.000 to a look at the future in a quite different sense – 00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:46.280 not the future of homeschooling, or the future of alternative schooling, 00:45:46.280 --> 00:45:53.760 but the future of the world – particularly of this country. 00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:57.480 First thing I have to say is that everybody who talks about the future is guessing. 00:45:57.480 --> 00:45:58.040 Nobody knows. 00:45:58.040 --> 00:45:58.800 There is no future. 00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.080 It doesn't exist. 00:46:00.080 --> 00:46:05.200 It isn't as if we're riding along on a train and 20 miles down the track 00:46:05.200 --> 00:46:07.120 there was a station that we were going to pull into, 00:46:07.120 --> 00:46:09.720 and it was just a matter of talking about what it was. 00:46:09.720 --> 00:46:12.240 The future isn't there. 00:46:12.240 --> 00:46:20.680 We make it as we live. 00:46:20.680 --> 00:46:21.480 {Most of the people} 00:46:21.480 --> 00:46:23.520 I'm extremely skeptical, I have to say, 00:46:23.520 --> 00:46:25.360 of most of the people who are making a living – 00:46:25.360 --> 00:46:29.200 and quite a lot of them are, and they're living a lot fancier than I am – 00:46:29.200 --> 00:46:31.200 talking about this future. 00:46:31.200 --> 00:46:35.440 And mostly what they do is they find some kind of a graph that goes up to 1985, 00:46:35.440 --> 00:46:38.080 and then they just keep running it up the page. 00:46:38.080 --> 00:46:42.080 Well If predicting the future were that easy, we'd all be billionaires, 00:46:42.080 --> 00:46:44.360 because we'd just look at the stock market quotations, 00:46:44.360 --> 00:46:47.600 and see what stock had been going up for the last week, and then buy it. 00:46:47.600 --> 00:46:55.200 The problem is the graph doesn't always keep going up. 00:46:55.200 --> 00:46:59.800 There are an awful lot of high-powered people in this country connected with the oil business, 00:46:59.800 --> 00:47:04.000 connected with the government, connected with the defense industry 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:08.320 who made it their business to know what was going on in the world of oil. 00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:11.780 And none – not one, not a single one of these people – 00:47:11.780 --> 00:47:16.840 predicted what came to be called the "oil crisis – when was it, ten years ago? 00:47:16.840 --> 00:47:19.400 Nobody predicted it. 00:47:19.400 --> 00:47:22.660 And nobody, with a few possible exceptions – 00:47:22.660 --> 00:47:25.600 maybe Amory Lovins, maybe a few conservationists – 00:47:25.600 --> 00:47:28.720 once we were in the middle of that terrible crisis – 00:47:28.720 --> 00:47:33.200 predicted that in five or less than 10 years we were going to be out of it, 00:47:33.200 --> 00:47:38.120 because we would smarten up and start saving energy. 00:47:38.120 --> 00:47:43.400 The oil crisis came by surprise and went by surprise. 00:47:43.400 --> 00:47:45.320 So, it's not easy. 00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:49.473 One of the big future books that's – 00:47:49.473 --> 00:47:53.640 boy, I wish I had 10% of the money that it's made – 00:47:53.640 --> 00:47:58.480 talks about the Sun Belt and the motion of industry, 00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:01.160 the economic flight from the North to the Sun Belt, 00:48:01.160 --> 00:48:06.040 and it says this is a major trend in American history, 00:48:06.040 --> 00:48:08.000 and it's irreversible, and it's going to continue. 00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:09.760 We can just see more and more of this happening. 00:48:09.760 --> 00:48:13.080 Well, I get a certain wry amusement out of this. 00:48:13.080 --> 00:48:16.720 I come from the old Frost Belt up there in New England, 00:48:16.720 --> 00:48:20.791 and we are the most – as regions go at the moment – 00:48:20.791 --> 00:48:23.760 probably the most economically prosperous region of the country. 00:48:23.760 --> 00:48:25.440 We have the lowest unemployment rate. 00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:27.480 My home state of Massachusetts has 00:48:27.480 --> 00:48:32.360 the lowest unemployment rate  in any industrial state. 00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:36.980 My home city of Boston has what they call an office vacancy rate of 1%. 00:48:36.980 --> 00:48:41.120 Of course, Houston has about 30%. 00:48:42.480 --> 00:48:47.280 So, the old Frost Belt isn't doing too bad. 00:48:47.280 --> 00:48:50.720 Right now what we're worried about is drought. 00:48:51.920 --> 00:48:56.000 But that's going to be a big problem for the whole country. 00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:56.920 Very, very hard. 00:48:56.920 --> 00:48:59.080 But there are some indicators. 00:48:59.080 --> 00:48:59.880 Nothing is certain. 00:48:59.880 --> 00:49:02.200 There are some indicators that give us, I think, 00:49:02.200 --> 00:49:06.840 a pretty strong indication of the way some things are likely to go. 00:49:06.840 --> 00:49:11.360 There are really big, big, deep sort of trends, 00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:15.280 and I want to talk about just one of them tonight. 00:49:15.280 --> 00:49:21.160 [Coughs] Excuse me. 00:49:21.160 --> 00:49:31.320 The Boston Globe, our local bladder, [laughter] is a kind of nice paper. 00:49:31.320 --> 00:49:32.880 I don't know how much news is in it, 00:49:32.880 --> 00:49:34.040 but it has a lot of good writers, 00:49:34.040 --> 00:49:35.800 and they have quite a lot of fun. 00:49:35.800 --> 00:49:45.320 So, it's an entertaining sheet, and not bad, as these things go. 00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:48.320 It had an article a year and a half ago, maybe, 00:49:48.320 --> 00:49:53.920 about wages in different parts of the world – industrial wages. 00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:59.640 And there's a map, a nice big-page article. 00:49:59.640 --> 00:50:03.760 And they were comparing a verage hourly industrial wages 00:50:03.760 --> 00:50:09.080 in the world's manufacturing countries. 00:50:09.080 --> 00:50:12.240 Now, economists, I guess, could spend the whole weekend 00:50:12.240 --> 00:50:14.040 talking about how you achieve these figures, 00:50:14.040 --> 00:50:16.000 and how you balance out this versus that, 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:19.320 how you figure out benign climates versus cold climates, 00:50:19.320 --> 00:50:21.760 and what do you do about fringe benefits, 00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:22.720 and this, that, and the other. 00:50:22.720 --> 00:50:26.640 And I'm going to accept those figures more or less as they were given to me. 00:50:27.200 --> 00:50:32.720 And what it said was that the United States had the highest average hourly industrial wage. 00:50:32.720 --> 00:50:35.940 They didn't say what is industrial and what isn't – 00:50:35.940 --> 00:50:37.560 not to get into that. 00:50:37.560 --> 00:50:40.960 And it was something like $10.77 an hour. 00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:43.440 And there was Canada pretty close behind, 00:50:43.440 --> 00:50:47.200 and Switzerland, and then a bunch of the Western European nations – 00:50:47.200 --> 00:50:48.640 $8.00 or so – $7.50. 00:50:49.160 --> 00:50:52.560 And then, Japan, $5.50. 00:50:53.120 --> 00:50:58.880 And then Mexico, Brazil, some down to the $2.00, $2.50 range. 00:50:58.880 --> 00:51:03.200 And then we got down to what they call the Pacific Rim nations: 00:51:03.200 --> 00:51:10.560 Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, a couple of others maybe, 00:51:10.560 --> 00:51:15.600 and these were running $1.25, $1.50 an hour. 00:51:15.600 --> 00:51:17.916 And then India – 00:51:17.916 --> 00:51:20.520 the figure they gave was $0.39 an hour – 00:51:20.520 --> 00:51:24.760 and Sri Lanka – which us old cats used to call Ceylon – 00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:28.960 near India – was $0.21 an hour. 00:51:28.960 --> 00:51:32.440 Now, those are very, 00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:36.280 very, very significant figures their legs will carry them – 00:51:36.280 --> 00:51:42.160 At one point in the article, they quoted a young woman 00:51:42.160 --> 00:51:45.680 who's working in one of these new electronic shops in Hong Kong 00:51:45.680 --> 00:51:48.400 where the American computer manufacturers 00:51:48.400 --> 00:51:51.680 are fleeing just as fast as their legs will carry them – 00:51:51.680 --> 00:51:54.920 those that are still in business at all, I should add. 00:51:55.480 --> 00:52:01.800 And that little future balloon went down in a big hurry, 00:52:01.800 --> 00:52:06.120 and has yet further to go, I will add. 00:52:06.120 --> 00:52:10.960 That revolution lasted about two or three years. 00:52:13.800 --> 00:52:15.880 But someone was talking to this young woman 00:52:15.880 --> 00:52:22.720 who's earning $1.22 an hour, making whatever it is, 00:52:22.720 --> 00:52:26.320 and just happy as a clam to be enjoying this wage 00:52:26.320 --> 00:52:29.320 which was probably ten times, five times higher 00:52:29.320 --> 00:52:32.760 than anything they had seen a decade before. 00:52:32.760 --> 00:52:37.360 And she said, "Of course, we know it's only going to be a matter of time 00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:43.400 before the jobs all go to someplace like Sri Lanka, 00:52:43.400 --> 00:52:49.560 where they only have to pay $0.21 an hour. 00:52:49.560 --> 00:52:58.280 And the picture for me is of jobs as a kind of great flock of migratory birds, 00:52:58.280 --> 00:53:02.260 which fly from one place to another 00:53:02.260 --> 00:53:08.280 and settle down and deposit a certain amount of wealth there while they're there, 00:53:08.280 --> 00:53:09.840 but soon they'll take off again 00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:13.560 l ooking for some other place where the wages are even lower. 00:53:13.560 --> 00:53:15.240 And that's not a bad figure of speech. 00:53:15.240 --> 00:53:18.920 We saw that happen in this country when the northern industries – 00:53:18.920 --> 00:53:22.400 this was certainly true of the mills in New England – 00:53:22.400 --> 00:53:27.400 went down south where they could get non-union and cheaper labor. 00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:35.000 With the modern mobility of capital in the multinational corporation, 00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:38.880 jobs do in fact tend to – many of them anyway – 00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:42.440 are pretty free to migrate to where the wages are lowest, 00:53:42.440 --> 00:53:46.340 and that's where they're going to roost. 00:53:46.340 --> 00:53:52.280 Now, one of the things that struck me about that article was that nothing was said about China. 00:53:52.280 --> 00:53:53.260 And I found myself wondering, 00:53:53.260 --> 00:53:55.160 "Hey, where do the Chinese fit into this picture?" 00:53:55.160 --> 00:53:59.240 Why, they're probably under a dollar an hour, $0.50 an hour maybe, I thought. 00:53:59.240 --> 00:54:03.080 At any rate, it had to be a pretty low figure. 00:54:03.080 --> 00:54:11.400 Under a billion people in that country. 00:54:11.400 --> 00:54:18.360 Recently, my question was answered more or less reliably by another article, 00:54:18.360 --> 00:54:23.640 this time in the "Christian Science Monitor," and this wasn't about economics at all, 00:54:23.640 --> 00:54:26.120 it was about a British rock group called "Wham," 00:54:26.120 --> 00:54:32.880 which has just gone to China and caused a great upheaval of various kinds there. 00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:37.640 But like all things Western, it's very popular with the young people in the new China. 00:54:37.640 --> 00:54:43.840 The article described a young Chinese workman standing in line for five or six hours – 00:54:43.840 --> 00:54:49.240 just like his American counterparts – to buy a ticket to hear Wham. 00:54:49.240 --> 00:54:52.000 And it said in passing that he had to pay – for this ticket – 00:54:52.000 --> 00:55:06.480 he had to pay 5 yuan – parenthesis, $1.75 – or 2 days' wages. 00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:09.840 Two days' wages. 00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:18.560 If you figure an 8-hour day, we're talking about just a little bit more than $0.10 an hour. 00:55:18.560 --> 00:55:20.680 And there are a billion people over there, 00:55:20.680 --> 00:55:26.320 most of whom are ready and eager to work at that kind of wage. 00:55:29.640 --> 00:55:34.520 Now, this is bound to have a lot to say about not only our future, 00:55:34.520 --> 00:55:36.680 but the future of all of what we think of 00:55:36.680 --> 00:55:44.280 as the highly-developed wealthy countries of the North Atlantic, let's say, community. 00:55:44.280 --> 00:55:48.600 Given, again, the mobility of capital, 00:55:48.600 --> 00:55:54.000 there is no possible way that the  wealthy countries of the world 00:55:54.000 --> 00:56:02.940 are going to be able to employ their populations at $10 or $9 or $8 or $7, 00:56:02.940 --> 00:56:06.480 or for that matter Japan, $5.50 an hour. 00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:11.080 They're not going to be able to do it. 00:56:11.080 --> 00:56:14.880 In other words, as nearly as one can say anything about the future, 00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:17.000 it is certain that the rich countries of the world 00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:26.240 are going to get a lot less rich, as we have defined rich. 00:56:28.880 --> 00:56:32.240 And what the consequences of that may be, we've talked for a long time – 00:56:32.240 --> 00:56:33.880 there could be whole conferences – 00:56:33.880 --> 00:56:37.600 I hope someday here will be if there are not any yet – 00:56:37.600 --> 00:56:39.760 about what this really means. 00:56:39.760 --> 00:56:44.320 None of the people who were running for election in the last campaign – 00:56:44.320 --> 00:56:47.240 even those who talk glibly about new ideas – 00:56:47.240 --> 00:56:51.400 none of them seem to have the faintest idea that this is going on, 00:56:51.400 --> 00:56:54.120 or what this means, or what they might do with it. 00:56:54.120 --> 00:56:56.240 This is going to call for a lot of hard thinking. 00:56:56.240 --> 00:56:59.260 To say just a very short thing about us, 00:56:59.260 --> 00:57:01.840 I'd say we're going to have to rediscover thrift in this country. 00:57:01.840 --> 00:57:10.960 We're going to have to discover that efficiency is not the same thing as making a lot of stuff. 00:57:10.960 --> 00:57:14.680 We're going to have to rediscover – 00:57:14.680 --> 00:57:16.880 learn how to do the most with the least. 00:57:16.880 --> 00:57:21.000 Old New England motto: "Wear it out –" 00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:21.640 Let's see, no. 00:57:21.640 --> 00:57:24.760 "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without" – 00:57:24.760 --> 00:57:26.400 the old Yankee saying. 00:57:26.400 --> 00:57:30.720 Or old Ben's, "A penny saved is a penny earned." 00:57:30.720 --> 00:57:32.480 We're going to rediscover the truth of that. 00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:38.040 We're going to start learning how to darn socks again. 00:57:38.040 --> 00:57:39.440 I don't think that's a bad thing. 00:57:39.440 --> 00:57:48.120 I think we'll be probably a very much better, more interesting, more equitable country 00:57:48.120 --> 00:57:55.240 if we learn to revise our ideas about what is true wealth, what is true efficiency. 00:57:55.240 --> 00:58:00.480 But that's a big topic, and it's not really the topic we've come here to discuss.{I just} 00:58:00.480 --> 00:58:03.080 If we're going to be talking or thinking about the future, 00:58:03.080 --> 00:58:09.240 I think this is an element in it that we can't afford to neglect. 00:58:09.240 --> 00:58:12.400 Okay, well that's all for the big formal speech, 00:58:12.400 --> 00:58:15.680 if it struck you that way. 00:58:16.880 --> 00:58:23.200 So now we can move into some kind of questions, discussion, 00:58:23.200 --> 00:58:26.840 comment on whatever you want to talk about. 00:58:26.840 --> 00:58:28.960 I mean, we can talk about any of the things I've talked about, 00:58:28.960 --> 00:58:31.440 or if you came here wanting to talk about something else, 00:58:31.440 --> 00:58:32.680 we can talk about that too, 00:58:32.680 --> 00:58:34.800 unless I don't know anything at all about it, 00:58:34.800 --> 00:58:37.360 I will tell you. 00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:39.840 I can tell you how to begin on the cello. 00:58:39.840 --> 00:58:43.800 I can't tell you how to become a "magnificent" player. 00:58:43.800 --> 00:58:50.880 Well, as soon as I learn, I will tell you that. 00:58:50.880 --> 00:58:52.160 Sir. 00:58:52.160 --> 00:58:52.708 Jerry Mintz: Hi. 00:58:52.708 --> 00:58:53.464 Jerry Mintz from 00:58:53.464 --> 00:58:55.114 Shaker Mountain School in  Vermont. {We can't hear you.} 00:58:55.114 --> 00:58:58.760 John: Oh, hi, Jerry. {I just hope} 00:58:58.760 --> 00:59:01.000 Jerry:One thing I was thinking about is that you missed, 00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:03.240 somewhere between Ceylon and India, 00:59:03.240 --> 00:59:10.279 the wages of alternative school people. 00:59:10.279 --> 00:59:10.289 [Laughter] 00:59:10.289 --> 00:59:10.304 John: Yes. Yes. 00:59:10.304 --> 00:59:12.920 Jerry Mintz: It may mean that the industry may flock to the free schools. 00:59:12.920 --> 00:59:16.680 I'm not sure. [Laughter] 00:59:16.680 --> 00:59:21.840 One thing I was wondering about is what you think the difference is 00:59:21.840 --> 00:59:27.440 between parents who are exposing their kids to education 00:59:27.440 --> 00:59:29.560 or to learning without coercion 00:59:29.560 --> 00:59:34.320 and schools that are exposing their kids to learning without coercion. 00:59:34.320 --> 00:59:38.320 And our school doesn't require kids to go to any particular classes. 00:59:38.320 --> 00:59:40.240 And on the other side of the coin, 00:59:40.240 --> 00:59:43.240 the difference between parents who are coercing their kids 00:59:43.240 --> 00:59:46.260 and schools that are coercing their kids. 00:59:46.260 --> 00:59:49.560 John: Well, the key difference for me is the difference 00:59:49.560 --> 00:59:52.360 between coercion and non-coercion. 00:59:52.360 --> 00:59:58.000 In other words, if I thought that the homeschooling movement 00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:00.760 was made up largely or entirely 01:00:00.760 --> 01:00:03.240 of people who wanted to coerce their kids 01:00:03.240 --> 01:00:05.760 and just thought they could do a better job of it than schools could, 01:00:05.760 --> 01:00:09.440 I wouldn't have spent two minutes on this activity. 01:00:09.440 --> 01:00:11.160 My interest in homeschooling, 01:00:11.160 --> 01:00:12.840 and, for that matter, alternative schooling – 01:00:12.840 --> 01:00:14.760 and I was interested in alternative schools 01:00:14.760 --> 01:00:19.120 before I became interested in homeschooling – 01:00:19.120 --> 01:00:23.120 my interest in it is that it makes it at least possible – 01:00:23.120 --> 01:00:25.320 for those people who want to give their children 01:00:25.320 --> 01:00:29.600 a natural, organic, uncoerced learning experience – to do so. 01:00:29.600 --> 01:00:32.280 Not everybody is going to use it that way. 01:00:32.280 --> 01:00:37.120 People start schools which they hope will be 01:00:37.120 --> 01:00:39.920 even more coercive than the schools that exist. 01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:42.640 There are certainly some people who teach their children 01:00:42.640 --> 01:00:45.400 thinking that they can pound in learning faster than 01:00:45.400 --> 01:00:47.040 the local schools were doing it. 01:00:47.040 --> 01:00:48.960 I don't think many of them stick it out very long 01:00:48.960 --> 01:00:53.160 because they find out it doesn't work. 01:00:56.560 --> 01:01:02.600 No, I mean, if I look far enough down the line, 01:01:02.600 --> 01:01:12.400 I like to think of schools as learning-experiment activity centers, 01:01:12.400 --> 01:01:14.480 somewhat analogous to public libraries, 01:01:14.480 --> 01:01:17.000 although rather wider in scope, 01:01:17.000 --> 01:01:20.240 places to which people can come if they feel like coming, 01:01:20.240 --> 01:01:22.320 to do the things that they want to do 01:01:22.320 --> 01:01:24.920 for as long as they want to do them. 01:01:24.920 --> 01:01:31.360 And {I kind of – } I would hope that somewhere we would find a way 01:01:31.360 --> 01:01:34.840 to call these places something other than schools 01:01:34.840 --> 01:01:37.160 because they're really very fundamentally very different. 01:01:37.160 --> 01:01:42.520 "Club" would be nice if we just kind of dared to do it. [Laughter] 01:01:42.520 --> 01:01:44.680 We have a film that a friend of mine, 01:01:44.680 --> 01:01:45.720 my friend Peggy Hughes, 01:01:45.720 --> 01:01:48.320 made in Denmark of the preschool there. 01:01:48.320 --> 01:01:51.160 The film was called "We Have to Call It School." 01:01:51.160 --> 01:01:54.200 And the film begins with this young Danish teacher 01:01:54.200 --> 01:01:56.920 there saying in English, 01:01:56.920 --> 01:02:00.120 "We have to call it school because if we didn't, 01:02:00.120 --> 01:02:01.720 they wouldn't let the children come here." 01:02:01.720 --> 01:02:03.680 [Laughter] 01:02:03.680 --> 01:02:06.600 But it would be nice if, in our minds, 01:02:06.600 --> 01:02:12.560 we thought about these non-coercive gathering-and-activity places 01:02:12.560 --> 01:02:15.080 as something other than a school. 01:02:15.080 --> 01:02:15.920 I like "club." 01:02:15.920 --> 01:02:18.380 I mean, club has a – 01:02:18.380 --> 01:02:20.800 But you can pick what word you like, 01:02:20.800 --> 01:02:24.000 or invent a brand new one. 01:02:25.040 --> 01:02:29.520 Ultimately, I suppose I'd like to see all schools evolve this way. 01:02:29.520 --> 01:02:32.640 I don't think, certainly not in my lifetime, 01:02:32.640 --> 01:02:34.880 and not in any future that I can see, 01:02:34.880 --> 01:02:38.160 can I imagine legislatures striking 01:02:38.160 --> 01:02:42.320 compulsory attendance laws off the books. 01:02:42.320 --> 01:02:44.640 But I can imagine more and more schools 01:02:44.640 --> 01:02:48.240 defining attendance in just the way you define it, 01:02:49.880 --> 01:02:51.640 so that the difference 01:02:51.640 --> 01:02:53.880 between being in school and not being in school 01:02:53.880 --> 01:02:55.080 gets so fuzzed over 01:02:55.080 --> 01:02:56.920 that you can't tell any longer 01:02:56.920 --> 01:03:02.040 when somebody is in or when somebody is out.{now I don't} 01:03:02.040 --> 01:03:03.240 Have I spoken to your point, 01:03:03.240 --> 01:03:05.140 or was there something other you'd like to get out? 01:03:05.140 --> 01:03:07.560 Jerry: In other words, do you consider 01:03:07.560 --> 01:03:10.760 that it would be advantageous for a parent 01:03:10.760 --> 01:03:14.000 to homeschool their kid in a non-coercive way, 01:03:14.000 --> 01:03:19.945 rather than let them go to a school that was non-coercive? 01:03:19.945 --> 01:03:21.480 John: Well, if you're a homeschooling parent 01:03:21.480 --> 01:03:24.080 and there was in your area 01:03:24.080 --> 01:03:27.400 a non-coercive school that kids could go to, 01:03:30.200 --> 01:03:33.440 I would be ready to leave it up to those children and those parents 01:03:33.440 --> 01:03:35.840 to decide how much they wanted to make use of it. 01:03:35.840 --> 01:03:40.120 Some families, the kids would be there a lot of the time, 01:03:40.120 --> 01:03:42.480 and other families, they might not be there much of the time. 01:03:42.480 --> 01:03:44.680 I think of my friends, the Wallaces in Ithaca, 01:03:48.080 --> 01:03:51.720 their public school system, as a matter of fact, said to them, 01:03:51.720 --> 01:03:53.360 "You're free to come and use us 01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:56.000 anywhere you want or anytime you want to." 01:03:56.000 --> 01:03:56.960 In fact, there's nothing in 01:03:56.960 --> 01:03:58.720 the public school for them to do there. 01:03:58.720 --> 01:03:59.720 These are, by now, 01:03:59.720 --> 01:04:01.720 two extraordinarily accomplished musicians, 01:04:01.720 --> 01:04:05.480 and they spent six, seven, eight, nine, ten hours a day working on music. 01:04:05.480 --> 01:04:07.440 What in the world are they going to do? 01:04:08.160 --> 01:04:09.520 What has school got to offer them? 01:04:09.520 --> 01:04:13.120 But if you were very interested in the kinds of things 01:04:13.120 --> 01:04:16.200 that are likely to be done at school, or something that needed more people – 01:04:16.200 --> 01:04:20.880 let's say drama, which is a hard thing to do in small groups – 01:04:20.880 --> 01:04:28.350 well, then it might be very interesting for you to. 01:04:29.720 --> 01:04:31.240 So if these resources were there, 01:04:31.240 --> 01:04:34.280 we'd say to people, children, their parents, 01:04:34.280 --> 01:04:36.200 "Those of you who want to use them a lot, use them a lot. 01:04:36.200 --> 01:04:39.680 Those of you who want to use them occasionally, use them occasionally. 01:04:39.680 --> 01:04:43.150 I wouldn't try to make that decision for anybody. 01:04:45.040 --> 01:04:47.240 I think most homeschoolers would be very glad 01:04:47.240 --> 01:04:50.450 to have some kind of gathering resource. 01:04:51.240 --> 01:04:52.840 One of the advantages of such a place 01:04:52.840 --> 01:04:53.400 is that, of course, 01:04:53.400 --> 01:04:57.800 a gang of people can get together and buy things 01:04:57.800 --> 01:05:00.880 which none of them by themselves might be able to afford, 01:05:00.880 --> 01:05:02.200 – make sufficient use of. 01:05:02.200 --> 01:05:04.000 Well, they can do it now, but the question is then, 01:05:04.000 --> 01:05:05.120 "Whose house is it at?" 01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:07.400 There get to be problems like that. 01:05:08.120 --> 01:05:11.280 If there is a central gathering and meeting place, 01:05:11.280 --> 01:05:12.960 well that's all the handier. 01:05:14.590 --> 01:05:16.960 Now, one of the reasons that I went from 01:05:16.960 --> 01:05:19.920 thinking about alternative schools to thinking about homeschooling 01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:26.440 is that most of the alternative schools, in the sense that we're using it here – 01:05:26.440 --> 01:05:28.360 I mean, the word has gotten so fuzzed up 01:05:28.360 --> 01:05:29.840 in the public-education system 01:05:29.840 --> 01:05:32.200 that it no longer has any real meaning. 01:05:32.200 --> 01:05:35.720 Most of the true alternative schools of the late '60s and the early '70s 01:05:35.720 --> 01:05:38.240 have long since gone, mostly for lack of money. 01:05:38.800 --> 01:05:40.240 You know how hard a struggle it is, 01:05:40.240 --> 01:05:44.890 even with Sri Lankan wages. [inaudible]. [Laugha] 01:05:46.360 --> 01:05:48.480 Even with those kinds of sacrifices, 01:05:48.480 --> 01:05:51.600 very few schools were ingenious enough, 01:05:51.600 --> 01:05:54.880 or resourceful, or lucky, or whatever to keep going. 01:05:54.880 --> 01:05:56.600 We had a gang up in the Boston area. 01:05:56.600 --> 01:06:00.960 I don't think one – maybe one, right? – 01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:01.800 they've all disappeared. 01:06:01.800 --> 01:06:03.240 A lot of them were doing wonderful work. 01:06:03.240 --> 01:06:08.040 So I began thinking, what can people do 01:06:08.040 --> 01:06:11.320 who are not able to get one of these places going 01:06:11.320 --> 01:06:13.000 and keep it together? 01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:15.040 I suppose one of the things we have to learn is 01:06:15.040 --> 01:06:17.920 how can we do this in a way that costs less money 01:06:17.920 --> 01:06:22.040 without starving and not going into Ethiopian wages, 01:06:22.040 --> 01:06:23.680 or something like that. [Laughter] 01:06:23.680 --> 01:06:24.960 We don't want to do that. 01:06:27.320 --> 01:06:30.720 All right, now I'm going to do a little number thing with hands, 01:06:30.720 --> 01:06:33.640 just so I don't forget, or so we keep some kind of order. 01:06:33.640 --> 01:06:34.480 Is it one here? 01:06:34.480 --> 01:06:35.889 Did you all –? I thought so. 01:06:35.889 --> 01:06:37.472 Woman: I'm going to ask a question. 01:06:37.472 --> 01:06:38.940 John: All right. You'll be number one. 01:06:38.940 --> 01:06:42.000 And the second? All right, second here. 01:06:42.000 --> 01:06:43.670 Third here. 01:06:43.670 --> 01:06:47.510 Fourth? Lady in the red dress shirt. 01:06:47.510 --> 01:06:48.356 Okay. 01:06:49.720 --> 01:06:51.210 All right. Five. 01:06:55.880 --> 01:06:57.640 Okay. Now, you have to remember. 01:06:57.640 --> 01:06:58.600 Six? Okay. 01:06:58.600 --> 01:07:00.280 You have to remember your numbers, 01:07:00.280 --> 01:07:02.500 and you have to remember where I am in the numbers, 01:07:02.500 --> 01:07:06.310 because I'm not going to remember either of those things! [Laughter] 01:07:09.560 --> 01:07:10.269 Yes. 01:07:10.269 --> 01:07:12.080 Woman: I'm number one. 01:07:12.080 --> 01:07:14.400 If our children are most interested in 01:07:14.400 --> 01:07:17.124 the things that we are most interested in – 01:07:18.044 --> 01:07:19.480 John: They aren't hearing you. 01:07:19.480 --> 01:07:21.437 Woman: They're not hearing? John: No way in the world. 01:07:21.437 --> 01:07:22.540 [Laughter] Woman: Okay. 01:07:23.160 --> 01:07:24.840 John: Got to sing out. Woman: Okay. 01:07:24.840 --> 01:07:26.487 John: I mean, it is possible. 01:07:26.487 --> 01:07:29.520 Woman: [Laughs] There are a lot of people here. 01:07:29.520 --> 01:07:31.390 Woman: If our children are most interested 01:07:31.390 --> 01:07:33.880 in the things that we are most interested in, 01:07:33.880 --> 01:07:38.464 are we not then as homeschoolers rearing lopsided children? And – 01:07:38.464 --> 01:07:40.334 John: Everybody's lopsided. Woman: Okay. 01:07:40.334 --> 01:07:42.020 John: I'm lopsided. You're lopsided. 01:07:42.020 --> 01:07:45.113 All God's children are lopsided. [Laughter] 01:07:45.113 --> 01:07:46.600 Woman: And will they fill out? 01:07:46.600 --> 01:07:48.030 John: Yeah. Woman: Okay. 01:07:48.030 --> 01:07:50.670 John: That doesn't mean to say they're going to wind up 01:07:50.670 --> 01:07:53.480 knowing everything about everything, because nobody does. 01:07:53.480 --> 01:07:55.120 But your life is not just you. 01:07:55.120 --> 01:07:56.860 You've got friends. They come here. 01:07:56.860 --> 01:07:58.650 You know people. They have interests. 01:07:59.800 --> 01:08:03.600 The child lives in kind of bunch of concentric circles of family, 01:08:03.600 --> 01:08:06.520 and then larger family, and close friends of family, 01:08:06.520 --> 01:08:08.450 and neighbors, streets. 01:08:10.280 --> 01:08:13.520 And this world, as I say, has many different layers in it. 01:08:13.520 --> 01:08:17.800 And some of your children may meet people 01:08:17.800 --> 01:08:19.290 who happen to be very interested 01:08:19.290 --> 01:08:21.420 in things that you're not much interested in, 01:08:21.420 --> 01:08:23.080 and they may pick up that interest. 01:08:23.080 --> 01:08:25.040 That's okay. 01:08:25.040 --> 01:08:27.920 As long as – as I say, as long as – 01:08:27.920 --> 01:08:29.120 as far as we're able to, 01:08:29.120 --> 01:08:32.120 we make it possible for children to move into the world 01:08:32.120 --> 01:08:33.880 in whatever ways they want to do it, 01:08:33.880 --> 01:08:35.500 they're going to find enough there. 01:08:35.500 --> 01:08:37.250 Nobody's going to die of starvation. 01:08:37.250 --> 01:08:39.640 I don't care whether you live on an isolated farm, 01:08:39.640 --> 01:08:42.920 or this sterile suburb that everybody loves to talk about, 01:08:42.920 --> 01:08:45.800 or the wicked big city that I live in, 01:08:45.800 --> 01:08:50.240 the fact is that human life, as people live it, 01:08:50.240 --> 01:08:53.800 has got more than enough food for thought 01:08:53.800 --> 01:08:56.080 for children to bite into and to grow. 01:08:56.080 --> 01:08:57.600 As they feel the need of more, 01:08:57.600 --> 01:09:00.690 they're going to know more about where to go to look for it. 01:09:03.900 --> 01:09:05.690 All right. Now, let's see, two? 01:09:07.490 --> 01:09:09.400 Woman: May I just say to my friends here, 01:09:09.400 --> 01:09:10.970 wait until they get married. 01:09:11.990 --> 01:09:13.530 John: The chldren? Woman: Right. 01:09:13.530 --> 01:09:15.000 Then their lives will widen up. 01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:17.120 Because our first just did. 01:09:17.120 --> 01:09:19.640 I'm still at homeschooling with a six-year-old. 01:09:19.640 --> 01:09:22.320 I just want to thank you, John, from my heart 01:09:22.320 --> 01:09:24.200 for having helped us very much here. 01:09:24.200 --> 01:09:25.720 And I don't have a question. 01:09:25.720 --> 01:09:26.980 But I wanted to tell you 01:09:26.980 --> 01:09:29.680 that today, my sister-in-law had to hang up the phone 01:09:29.680 --> 01:09:34.080 in order to go across the street to walk her third-grader home 01:09:34.080 --> 01:09:38.280 because she has been molested within 400 feet of her own home. 01:09:38.280 --> 01:09:41.190 And this doesn't even state how I feel about the fact 01:09:41.190 --> 01:09:43.420 that they're not learning going to these places 01:09:43.420 --> 01:09:47.950 that are supposed to be teaching – or pouring it in, as you say. 01:09:48.440 --> 01:09:51.320 I don't think that we have to defend ourselves 01:09:51.320 --> 01:09:53.560 any more than if you're walking down the street 01:09:53.560 --> 01:09:55.400 and someone starts to kill you, 01:09:55.400 --> 01:09:57.560 because I believe taking my children out of 01:09:57.560 --> 01:09:59.960 the public school system saved their lives, 01:09:59.960 --> 01:10:05.200 not just morally, religiously, mentally – every way possible. 01:10:05.200 --> 01:10:07.880 And I appreciated the story in GWS 01:10:07.880 --> 01:10:11.480 about the little girl who was diagnosed as terminally ill 01:10:11.480 --> 01:10:15.880 because this was worth all the pennies I paid, 01:10:15.880 --> 01:10:17.930 the pink wage we pay you for GWS. 01:10:17.930 --> 01:10:20.465 Thank you, John, very much. 01:10:20.465 --> 01:10:25.095 John: Well, you're welcome. [Applause] 01:10:25.385 --> 01:10:28.160 We had an interesting story in the Globe the other day. 01:10:29.260 --> 01:10:30.520 I cut out the clipping. 01:10:30.520 --> 01:10:33.480 We always have about three times as much stuff to print in GWS 01:10:33.480 --> 01:10:36.200 as we ever have room to print, which is frustrating. 01:10:37.220 --> 01:10:38.555 This was about a young man – 01:10:38.555 --> 01:10:46.167 he's now 18 – and he was autistic, 01:10:46.167 --> 01:10:48.200 which is, to this day, 01:10:48.200 --> 01:10:51.710 by the supposed official experts, called "incurable". 01:10:52.280 --> 01:10:54.800 "Autistic" and "retarded," they're not the same thing. 01:10:54.800 --> 01:10:58.475 I mean, he just had a whole bunch of these labels stuck on him. 01:10:58.475 --> 01:11:01.330 It's hopeless – "vegetable," "institutionalized." 01:11:01.330 --> 01:11:03.500 If you can get him in and out of the bathroom, 01:11:03.500 --> 01:11:05.400 that's probably as much as you can do. 01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:11.670 And somebody got interested in this boy 01:11:11.670 --> 01:11:13.040 when he was seven or eight, 01:11:13.040 --> 01:11:18.240 noticed that he seemed pretty energetic and lively, and liked moving, 01:11:18.240 --> 01:11:24.320 and they got him started running – and running distances. 01:11:25.660 --> 01:11:27.907 Took him on long runs or this, that, the other 01:11:27.907 --> 01:11:29.920 – and they got him into this running world. 01:11:29.920 --> 01:11:31.880 The boy's now 18, I think. 01:11:31.880 --> 01:11:34.210 I don't remember whether this was because he was 01:11:34.210 --> 01:11:36.680 getting ready to run in the Boston Marathon or not. 01:11:36.680 --> 01:11:39.760 But at any rate, he's become an extremely good runner. 01:11:39.760 --> 01:11:44.080 Incidentally, he has not caught up with his age, 01:11:44.080 --> 01:11:47.680 but he talks intelligently and intelligibly, 01:11:47.680 --> 01:11:48.830 reads – I don't know – 01:11:48.830 --> 01:11:50.570 something on a 6th, 7th grade level. 01:11:50.570 --> 01:11:52.480 But all this is going up. 01:11:52.480 --> 01:11:55.960 He's become a fully-functioning human being – 01:11:55.960 --> 01:11:57.800 because he was allowed and helped 01:11:57.800 --> 01:12:00.780 to do the things that he liked best. 01:12:02.490 --> 01:12:05.240 People grow through their strengths, not their weaknesses. 01:12:05.240 --> 01:12:06.700 One of the many simple truths, 01:12:06.700 --> 01:12:11.840 which the giant educational, psychological, medical, etc. institutions 01:12:11.840 --> 01:12:13.920 don't seem to be able to learn is just that: 01:12:13.920 --> 01:12:17.560 that people learn by and grow through their strengths, 01:12:17.560 --> 01:12:20.840 not by having people pound away at their weaknesses. 01:12:20.840 --> 01:12:22.770 Somebody had the wit and the imagination 01:12:22.770 --> 01:12:25.160 to see that this boy had a talent, 01:12:25.160 --> 01:12:27.820 a gift, a love, something he wanted to do. 01:12:29.990 --> 01:12:32.680 And then all this other stuff kind of went along with it. 01:12:32.680 --> 01:12:35.140 Well, we know that, 01:12:35.140 --> 01:12:37.696 and they don't know it out there. [Chuckles] 01:12:37.696 --> 01:12:41.059 And it's going to be a long time before they do – 01:12:42.819 --> 01:12:42.840 which is interesting. 01:12:42.840 --> 01:12:44.400 Okay, now let's see. 01:12:44.400 --> 01:12:45.880 Yes. 01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:50.760 Woman: I have a lot of resentment against my public school education 01:12:50.760 --> 01:12:54.000 and further education here at the University of Michigan, 01:12:54.000 --> 01:12:55.680 although I learned, as you said, 01:12:55.680 --> 01:12:58.770 to play the games very well and got good grades, 01:12:58.770 --> 01:13:01.960 but felt that I didn't develop a lot of interest, 01:13:01.960 --> 01:13:04.240 because I was too busy playing the games. 01:13:04.240 --> 01:13:08.160 But I wondered how you would answer the question, 01:13:08.160 --> 01:13:09.560 if I hear you correctly, 01:13:09.560 --> 01:13:13.140 that you allow a child to choose what he wants to learn. 01:13:14.240 --> 01:13:17.000 I can't imagine how a person would ever choose 01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:20.200 to learn things like trigonometry, 01:13:20.200 --> 01:13:24.010 or things that they say maybe later that you're going to need. 01:13:24.010 --> 01:13:25.800 John: Well, you will need trigonometry 01:13:25.800 --> 01:13:28.750 if you're a surveyor – in no other place and way. 01:13:28.750 --> 01:13:29.980 I'm glad you picked that. 01:13:29.980 --> 01:13:31.850 Woman: Well, I didn't take trigonometry, 01:13:31.850 --> 01:13:33.693 but the algebra I used, for example. 01:13:33.693 --> 01:13:34.693 John: Now, now [inaudible] – 01:13:34.693 --> 01:13:37.450 Woman: I didn't enjoy learning it, but I've used it a lot. 01:13:37.450 --> 01:13:39.235 John: Okay, well, if you had not learned it, 01:13:39.235 --> 01:13:41.020 and if you got to a place in life 01:13:41.020 --> 01:13:43.400 where you needed it to do something you wanted to do, 01:13:43.400 --> 01:13:45.130 then you would learn it very quickly. 01:13:45.130 --> 01:13:47.080 It's no mystery. It's not hidden. 01:13:47.080 --> 01:13:48.753 The time to learn stuff is – 01:13:48.753 --> 01:13:50.907 Woman: So you learn things when you need them, 01:13:50.907 --> 01:13:53.599 not when the school system says, "This is geometry year." 01:13:53.599 --> 01:13:55.946 John: Right, right. You learn things when you – 01:13:56.560 --> 01:13:58.320 As a species, as a living creature, 01:13:58.320 --> 01:14:01.080 we human beings are incredibly good 01:14:01.080 --> 01:14:02.840 at learning stuff when we need to – 01:14:02.840 --> 01:14:06.960 if we have not been convinced that we're so stupid that we can't do it – 01:14:06.960 --> 01:14:10.040 which, unfortunately, in a great many places, does happen. 01:14:10.190 --> 01:14:12.180 Man: I don't know who you're on right now, 01:14:12.180 --> 01:14:15.430 but I just want to point out that I'm enjoying learning algebra. 01:14:15.430 --> 01:14:17.246 I'm alternatively educated. [Laughter] 01:14:18.676 --> 01:14:19.866 Woman: [Inaudible] 01:14:19.866 --> 01:14:21.370 John: Good. And thank you. 01:14:21.370 --> 01:14:23.380 Woman: What kind of school are you in now? 01:14:23.380 --> 01:14:24.760 Man: Well, actually, it's a public school, 01:14:24.760 --> 01:14:28.440 but it's an attempt at being an alternative school. 01:14:28.440 --> 01:14:32.960 And it's not as close as the school I went to before it, 01:14:32.960 --> 01:14:37.600 but it's closer than the standard public schools, 01:14:37.600 --> 01:14:40.400 and it has the atmosphere of an alternative school. 01:14:40.400 --> 01:14:47.120 But many of our classes are chosen, 01:14:47.120 --> 01:14:48.660 I mean, rather than – 01:14:49.980 --> 01:14:53.250 Beyond the state requirements that the public schools have to follow, 01:14:53.250 --> 01:14:54.830 most of our classes are chosen. 01:14:54.830 --> 01:14:58.420 Woman: Do you have friends in regular public school? 01:14:58.810 --> 01:15:01.440 What I wonder is if you feel, in comparison, 01:15:01.440 --> 01:15:03.740 that you're getting a far better education. 01:15:03.740 --> 01:15:05.940 Man: Well, the – Woman: Obviously, you do. 01:15:05.940 --> 01:15:08.280 Man: I was in the public schools until 7th grade. 01:15:08.280 --> 01:15:10.360 And 7th grade, I jumped around, 01:15:10.360 --> 01:15:12.790 and it was because of just 01:15:12.790 --> 01:15:15.320 all sorts of problems I was having in public schools. 01:15:18.280 --> 01:15:21.540 Yeah, I think my education since I've gone into alternative schools 01:15:21.540 --> 01:15:23.510 has been infinitely better. 01:15:25.300 --> 01:15:27.280 John: Good. Well, I'm glad to hear that. 01:15:27.280 --> 01:15:30.920 But I do want to make clear, as far as I'm concerned, 01:15:30.920 --> 01:15:34.240 I'm not trying to make – never have tried to make 01:15:34.240 --> 01:15:38.630 a distinction between public and conventional private schools. 01:15:39.040 --> 01:15:41.920 If you remember "How Children Fail," 01:15:41.920 --> 01:15:46.960 you'll remember that somewhere along in the book I wrote, 01:15:46.960 --> 01:15:49.850 "School is a place where children learn to be stupid." 01:15:49.850 --> 01:15:50.590 [Laughter] 01:15:50.590 --> 01:15:53.620 Now, let me tell you about the school about which I was writing. 01:15:53.620 --> 01:15:54.729 I was not writing about 01:15:54.729 --> 01:15:59.480 some poor old PS 111 in the middle of the downtown, 01:15:59.480 --> 01:16:03.680 I was talking about an extremely exclusive, 01:16:03.680 --> 01:16:07.400 high-powered, selective, private elementary school, 01:16:07.400 --> 01:16:09.680 one of the two or three outstanding such schools 01:16:09.680 --> 01:16:12.480 in the whole Boston-Cambridge area – 01:16:12.480 --> 01:16:15.070 the top of the top of the top of the top! 01:16:16.640 --> 01:16:19.000 They had an admissions policy 01:16:19.000 --> 01:16:21.440 under which a kid could not get into the school 01:16:21.440 --> 01:16:24.170 if she or he did not have an IQ of 120. 01:16:24.520 --> 01:16:25.950 That was the cut-off! 01:16:27.120 --> 01:16:31.200 It was at that school that I wrote, 01:16:31.200 --> 01:16:33.760 "School is a place where children learn to be stupid." 01:16:33.760 --> 01:16:36.590 So I'm not drawing a line – [chuckles] never have drawn it. 01:16:36.590 --> 01:16:38.090 I'm not drawing it here saying, 01:16:38.090 --> 01:16:41.490 "Ooh, look at all these terrible, rotten public schools on one side. 01:16:41.490 --> 01:16:42.640 Ooh, look at these –" 01:16:42.640 --> 01:16:45.520 What I was saying then is that what I came to realize 01:16:45.520 --> 01:16:47.240 in that school with these kids 01:16:47.240 --> 01:16:51.800 is that you cannot coerce learning or attempt to coerce it 01:16:51.800 --> 01:16:54.160 without making people stupid – 01:16:54.160 --> 01:16:57.960 without making them afraid, shifty, evasive, clever tricksters. 01:16:57.960 --> 01:17:01.960 Yeah, the cleverest tricksters, they'll sail on to Harvard, MIT, Yale – 01:17:01.960 --> 01:17:03.800 I did that game. 01:17:03.800 --> 01:17:07.040 Dope out the teacher, guess the exam. 01:17:07.040 --> 01:17:09.680 Everybody knows how it goes. 01:17:09.680 --> 01:17:12.440 And everybody who does it knows that 90% of that stuff 01:17:12.440 --> 01:17:17.120 you throw out just like dirty dishwater as soon as the exam is passed. 01:17:17.120 --> 01:17:19.360 How many people on any university faculty 01:17:19.360 --> 01:17:20.960 could pass an exam – 01:17:20.960 --> 01:17:24.200 other than, perhaps basic English reading and writing – 01:17:24.200 --> 01:17:26.280 outside of their own specialty? 01:17:28.440 --> 01:17:33.720 I mean, just very, very few – and they know it. 01:17:33.720 --> 01:17:36.800 I mean, this idea that there's some great body of knowledge 01:17:36.800 --> 01:17:38.960 which they all share – it's just nonsense! 01:17:38.960 --> 01:17:40.440 Never was true – not true now. 01:17:40.440 --> 01:17:42.120 It's a fraud. 01:17:42.710 --> 01:17:44.540 I mean, I think a lot of people say it sincerely. 01:17:44.540 --> 01:17:46.640 I don't think they're lying when they say it. 01:17:46.640 --> 01:17:49.440 But I mean, it's a fraud because it's just not so! 01:17:49.440 --> 01:17:51.280 Nobody remembers that stuff. 01:17:53.880 --> 01:17:54.840 Harvard University – 01:17:55.440 --> 01:17:59.600 if you're taking some big course, they announce an exam. 01:18:00.440 --> 01:18:04.430 Some professor's going to have an exam in his or her course. 01:18:04.430 --> 01:18:05.550 Professor announces it: 01:18:05.550 --> 01:18:07.940 "We will have such an exam on such and such a day, 01:18:07.940 --> 01:18:10.280 and it will cover such and such and such a topic." 01:18:10.280 --> 01:18:14.600 And then you spend a certain amount of time discussing this in review. 01:18:14.600 --> 01:18:17.160 Nobody springs surprise exams on their students 01:18:17.160 --> 01:18:19.600 because they know perfectly well what would happen. 01:18:20.800 --> 01:18:22.405 No, it's a very – 01:18:23.475 --> 01:18:24.962 All right. [Laughter] 01:18:24.962 --> 01:18:27.081 I'll get out of that. I'll go on all night. 01:18:27.081 --> 01:18:29.200 [Laughter] 01:18:29.200 --> 01:18:31.260 Let's see, now, where are we in our numbers? 01:18:31.260 --> 01:18:32.180 John: Yes. 01:18:32.180 --> 01:18:33.579 Dorothy: I'm 4. John: Good. 01:18:36.399 --> 01:18:37.340 Dorothy: I help coordinate 01:18:37.340 --> 01:18:40.340 a homeschooling support group in Chicago, 01:18:40.340 --> 01:18:45.880 and I'm noticing more and more 01:18:45.880 --> 01:18:50.440 the split that you have alluded to in homeschooling as well 01:18:50.440 --> 01:18:54.480 between those who wish to coerce learning and those who don't. 01:18:54.480 --> 01:18:59.010 And those who do are very much interested – 01:18:59.010 --> 01:19:00.720 as it happens in Illinois – 01:19:00.720 --> 01:19:04.480 in keeping those of us who don't want to coerce 01:19:04.480 --> 01:19:08.680 in a semblance of unity with them vis-à-vis the state. 01:19:09.960 --> 01:19:11.960 And it's becoming more and more difficult, 01:19:11.960 --> 01:19:13.920 I think, for that to happen. 01:19:13.920 --> 01:19:17.520 And I wonder if you would comment on that, and also on – 01:19:17.520 --> 01:19:20.720 There is a definite one-way flow of energy happening 01:19:20.720 --> 01:19:26.090 because those of us who do not wish to coerce 01:19:26.090 --> 01:19:32.920 give support and assistance very often to those who do, 01:19:32.920 --> 01:19:35.350 because they believe they have the right to choose. 01:19:35.750 --> 01:19:38.080 And those who wish to coerce 01:19:38.080 --> 01:19:41.280 really don't think that the rest of us do have the right because, 01:19:41.280 --> 01:19:43.480 "We're not doing it the right way, you see." 01:19:44.340 --> 01:19:46.880 So, would you comment on that? 01:19:46.880 --> 01:19:50.990 This is not a problem I want solved because I don't see it being [inaudible] 01:19:50.990 --> 01:19:52.528 John: That's good, because it's – 01:19:52.528 --> 01:19:54.310 Dorothy: – we're not going to do that. 01:19:54.310 --> 01:19:57.050 But I would like a comment from you, if you will, on that, 01:19:57.050 --> 01:20:01.160 especially vis-à-vis legislation, and that sort of thing, 01:20:01.160 --> 01:20:07.000 when our interests tend to be moving further and further apart. 01:20:07.000 --> 01:20:11.464 And what would you think we should do in terms of strategies about this? 01:20:12.354 --> 01:20:13.840 John: Thank you, Dorothy. 01:20:15.210 --> 01:20:18.000 I first think of something a friend of mine used to say: 01:20:18.520 --> 01:20:20.530 "This isn't a problem, it's a predicament." 01:20:21.144 --> 01:20:22.110 Dorothy: Right. [Laughter] 01:20:25.710 --> 01:20:28.600 John: The word "problem" kind of cooks up in our mind 01:20:28.600 --> 01:20:31.000 a picture of something which we could make go away 01:20:31.000 --> 01:20:33.440 if we could just figure out the right thing to do. 01:20:33.440 --> 01:20:35.808 Things like death and taxes are predicaments, 01:20:35.808 --> 01:20:37.460 and they're just part of reality. 01:20:38.040 --> 01:20:41.550 Yeah, this is a part of reality, and we are living with it, 01:20:41.550 --> 01:20:45.110 and we're going to be living with it as far in the future as I can see. 01:20:47.400 --> 01:20:50.640 It doesn't trouble me that – 01:20:50.640 --> 01:20:54.400 I'm going to respond in several sections. 01:20:54.400 --> 01:20:55.650 First place, I don't think 01:20:55.650 --> 01:20:58.820 it's a cause for worry or concern or distress 01:20:58.820 --> 01:21:01.240 that we may be helping people 01:21:01.240 --> 01:21:05.960 to get rights which they would not help us to get. 01:21:05.960 --> 01:21:07.708 Dorothy: I'm not worried about that. 01:21:09.628 --> 01:21:11.820 John: Now, there's no reason in the world 01:21:11.820 --> 01:21:13.640 not to work together with people 01:21:13.640 --> 01:21:16.720 with whom we disagree about many things 01:21:16.720 --> 01:21:19.120 on those things about which we agree. 01:21:19.120 --> 01:21:23.160 Because when we improve the legislative situation, 01:21:23.160 --> 01:21:25.160 then we've made things easier for all of us. 01:21:33.350 --> 01:21:36.155 Another thing I would have to say is – 01:21:37.555 --> 01:21:39.360 Well, first of all, 01:21:39.360 --> 01:21:44.200 a lot of the people who begin as coercive homeschoolers change. 01:21:44.200 --> 01:21:46.434 Dorothy: I've seen a lot of that [inaudible]. 01:21:46.434 --> 01:21:51.640 John: Their children teach them [laughter] about how learning really works. 01:21:51.640 --> 01:21:54.240 And if – and this is very, very often true – 01:21:54.240 --> 01:21:58.880 if they care enough about their children to pay attention to their feelings 01:21:58.880 --> 01:22:04.640 and pick up these messages, they become educated, 01:22:04.640 --> 01:22:08.840 and they become less and less coercive – 01:22:08.840 --> 01:22:10.630 minimally coercive. 01:22:11.320 --> 01:22:13.840 My experience is that the people who do not make that change 01:22:13.840 --> 01:22:16.390 don't stay in homeschooling very long. 01:22:17.280 --> 01:22:19.240 That is, people who – 01:22:19.240 --> 01:22:21.360 whether for reasons religious or other, 01:22:21.360 --> 01:22:24.680 believe in high-pressure coercion, 01:22:24.680 --> 01:22:27.880 soon find ways to get together with other people who feel the same way 01:22:27.880 --> 01:22:30.000 and they start some kind of coercive school. 01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:31.720 I don't think you're very likely 01:22:31.720 --> 01:22:35.280 to find people doing coercive homeschooling 01:22:35.280 --> 01:22:37.720 for four or five years in a row. 01:22:37.720 --> 01:22:39.480 I mean, their children would hit the road, 01:22:39.480 --> 01:22:43.566 if nothing else happened. [Laughter] 01:22:46.926 --> 01:22:49.990 I'm untroubled by having people start 01:22:49.990 --> 01:22:53.230 in a position which is very far from my own, 01:22:53.230 --> 01:22:56.330 partly because I believe people should have the right to do this 01:22:56.330 --> 01:22:59.130 however they want to do it, not just if they agree with me, 01:22:59.130 --> 01:23:01.840 and partly because I have a lot of confidence, as I say, 01:23:01.840 --> 01:23:03.770 that they will learn from their children, 01:23:03.770 --> 01:23:05.800 that they will move away from coercion. 01:23:05.800 --> 01:23:09.040 As I have said at teachers' colleges, 01:23:09.040 --> 01:23:11.760 one reason homeschooling works well in practice 01:23:11.760 --> 01:23:15.460 is that the home is an absolutely splendid teacher-training institution. 01:23:15.460 --> 01:23:17.420 [Laughter] 01:23:17.420 --> 01:23:18.860 The numbers are small enough 01:23:18.860 --> 01:23:23.600 so you can really hear the messages that your children are sending. 01:23:24.470 --> 01:23:27.000 And you're in a position where, if you choose to, 01:23:27.000 --> 01:23:28.570 you can learn from them. 01:23:28.880 --> 01:23:32.240 Now, when I first discovered, as a fifth-grade classroom teacher, 01:23:32.240 --> 01:23:34.440 that a lot of children were so scared 01:23:34.440 --> 01:23:36.600 of the weekly arithmetic test 01:23:36.600 --> 01:23:39.120 that they couldn't think about arithmetic, 01:23:39.120 --> 01:23:40.480 I stopped giving the tests. 01:23:40.480 --> 01:23:41.960 And it wasn't more than about two weeks 01:23:41.960 --> 01:23:43.280 before the school administration 01:23:43.280 --> 01:23:45.120 told me that I had to start giving them again, 01:23:45.120 --> 01:23:47.610 and they fired me at the end of the year. 01:23:48.560 --> 01:23:50.600 So I was not in a position to do 01:23:50.600 --> 01:23:53.600 what my conscience and intelligence and instincts 01:23:53.600 --> 01:23:55.120 told me needed to be done. 01:23:55.120 --> 01:23:56.960 Parents aren't in that position. 01:23:56.960 --> 01:23:58.610 "You can start with a little desk, 01:23:58.610 --> 01:24:01.290 an American flag, a schedule on the blackboard – 01:24:01.290 --> 01:24:03.460 [Laughter] 01:24:03.460 --> 01:24:06.170 – but the day you find out it isn't working, you can say, 01:24:06.170 --> 01:24:08.050 "We're going to do something different." 01:24:08.050 --> 01:24:09.822 You have that freedom to move – 01:24:09.822 --> 01:24:10.541 [Recording ends prematurely]