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Introducer: ... John Holt's work.

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I'm sure that you have
read "How Children Learn,"

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"How Children Fail,"
"Teach Your Own."

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You may have had
an opportunity to see,

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lots of times on tour, him talking
on television or on the radio,

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John Holt, who's probably the best-known,
most vocal commentator on unschooling,

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and particularly home-based education,
in the country right now.

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Also, I understand he's
a magnificent cello player.

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So maybe some germane questions about
that would be refreshing and useful, as well.

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Here's John Holt.

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[Applause]

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John Holt: Well,
thanks very much.

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First of all, we have to delete
that "magnificent" part. [Laughter]

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Someday maybe,
but not yet.

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``How many people still remember
those instructions about how to get to this – ?

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[Laughter]

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We'll have a run through again
after the meeting, I think.

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[Laughter]

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We were talking about parking,
and something popped into my head.

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I was tempted to interrupt and say it,
but I didn't, but I'll say it now.

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What popped in was,
"Parking is such sweet sorrow."

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[Laughter]

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Well, thank you for coming.
Thank you for inviting me.

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It's nice to be here.

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I said I was surprised to see,
among a number of good friends of mine,

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a friend that I really didn't
expect to see here.

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And I think he probably wins the long-distance
attendance record for this meeting.

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Now, I'm John Holt from Boston,

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but I'd like you to see
John Boston from Escondido,

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which happens to be
near San Diego.

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I couldn't believe he was
here for this meeting.

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Just wave your hand or say hi.
[Laughter]

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John Boston: Hi.
[Applause]

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John Holt: I want to talk about
a number of things tonight.

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And first of all though,
I'm probably saying things

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that you've heard me
say before or read.

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``This young man has the right idea
about how to dress for this meeting.

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[Laughter]

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Oh, but I guess, even before I get into what
you might call the body of this formal address,

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I want to ask just a few questions
to locate the audience.

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And perhaps one way to start
would be by saying,

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how many of you – I'm asking here
for a "show of hands" response.

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I wonder if we could
remove that rattle.

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John Holt: Thank you.

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Experience has taught me
the good things to bring with little kids,

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and I love to bring bags of it –
get it all out. [Laughter]

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This young man is

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divesting himself of his coveralls.

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I think, very smart.

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Now, how many of you
are working with,

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in one capacity or another,
alternative schools?

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All right.

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Thank you very much.

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And another question.

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How many of you are now
parents of school-aged kids?

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Good.

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All right.

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How many of those of you

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who are parents of school-aged kids
are sending them to alternative schools?

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All right.

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How many of you
are teaching them at home?

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Big crowd.

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This next one will be
for those of you

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who are parents of children
who are not yet of school age

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or expect soon to be
parents of very young children.

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How many of you are
seriously considering

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the idea of, I'd say,
teaching them at home?

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All right.

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And how many of you
are seriously considering

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sending them to
an alternative school

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if there was one near you
that was within reach?

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Okay, good.

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How many of you
are teaching or otherwise

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working with public schools
or colleges or universities,

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let's say, in one
capacity or another?

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Okay, thank you very much.

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The grandparent question.

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How many of you
are grandparents of homeschooled or –

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Good! –
alternative school children?

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Okay.

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Grandparents are a very important
ingredient in this situation.

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There are homeschoolers who are
having just about as much trouble with –

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Small child: Hi.
John Holt: Hi. How are you?

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Child: Hi. Hi.
John Holt: Hi.

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A famous Jimmy Durante storyline:

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"Everybody's trying to
get into the act!" [Laughter]

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There are folks who are having
about as much trouble with grandparents

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as they are with superintendents.
[Laughter]

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So, it's extremely important to have
friendly and supportive grandparents

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in this alternative-education movement.

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Well, let me sum up in a very few words

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what I have been
saying and writing

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about children and learning now
for going on 25 years or more.

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As a result of my experiences,

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first of all as a classroom teacher
working in just about every grade,

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sometimes, say,
K through G.

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I did a little college and
graduate school teaching,

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not very much.

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K through 12 might be
a little more accurate.

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But as a result of, on the one hand,

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working with children in
more or less conventional classrooms,

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and on the other hand,
spending a lot of time

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with babies, infants,
little children –

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first my sisters',

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then the children of other people,
little children in nursery schools,

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and since then, many children
of homeschooling parents –

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I came to understand something –
certainly to believe something

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about young human beings
of which I am more certain

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than I am, I think,
about anything in the world –

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and that is
that children are,

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by nature and from birth,
or perhaps before birth –

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though I have no testimony
to offer about that –

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natural learning creatures.

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There is nothing
that they want more.

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They have a desire –
more than a desire, a passion –

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to find out
as much as they can,

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to make as much sense as they can
of the world around them,

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or as much of that world
as they experience,

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to become competent
and skillful in it,

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to do things in it,
to play a useful part in it.

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This is a truly biological
instinct or drive.

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It is as strong as or stronger –

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at least for children who
are not in famine condition –

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it is stronger than
the desire to eat.

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Those of you
who are mothers

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or attentive and observant fathers
of very young children

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will have seen this
happen many times,

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that a tiny infant,
babe in arms,

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hungry with his
little stomach hurting –

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which is what happens
when they are hungry –

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and eating, feeding, nursing,
will stop eating if something interesting happens.

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If somebody comes into the room,
if there's a noise,

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if there's some kind of
a change in the situation,

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this hungry little teeny creature

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will stop eating and look around
to see what's going on.

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There is probably not a mother in the
world who hasn't seen this happen.

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And how we can persist in talking about
children not being interested in learning

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or needing to be taught to learn
or whatever it is,

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is just absolutely beyond me.

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Anyway.

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They are extremely good at this –

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this learning, this
making sense of the world.

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They're much better at it than we are,
or than all but some microscopic fraction.

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If by some accident of
who knows what – science fiction –

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were all of us
to be dropped into,

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say, the interior of Japan
or some exotic part of the world

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where nobody spoke
a word of English,

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where everybody was speaking some
language we had never heard of,

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it's no mystery to us
which of us here in the room

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would be talking
that language first –

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the little guys would.

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All of them
would be talking it.

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Most of them
talking it fairly soon.

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Most of us –
some of us – big ones –

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would be struggling along
in a kind of a halting way.

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And a lot of us would
never learn any of it.

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Many of us would
never know it.

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Just the problems of learning something
totally new without any assistance with it.

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No, they get it first.

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But we all know that
when we think about it.

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They're extremely
good at it.

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Well, another way of saying
what I've come to believe

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is that learning is not
the product of teaching.

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Very difficult for me as a paid teacher over
a number of years to get that into my thick head.

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I was very good at that whatever you call
that thing that goes on in classrooms.

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I was probably a good example
of what's called a gifted teacher –

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motivating, clever at devices,
good at explaining,

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all that stuff you're
supposed to do.

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It took me a long time to figure out
that this was not doing anybody any good,

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and most people harm.

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Very hard for us to give up
the picture of learning

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that it's like pouring something out of
a full container into an empty one.

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It's this assumption which lies at
the root of absolutely everything

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that's done in schools and
under the name of education.

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And it's a hundred percent wrong.

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I mean, not even 98% wrong –
a hundred percent wrong.

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That is not what happens.

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Learning is the product of the curiosity,
the interest, the enthusiasm, the activity,

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the ingenuity, the imagination,
the thinking power of the learner.

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Now, there are things that outsiders,
whether grown-up or whatever,

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can do to assist this process, and
I'll talk about them in just a few minutes.

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But the work is
done by the learner.

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These little people are not empty receptacles
into which knowledge is poured.

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They are not sponges
soaking up knowledge.

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They are not little lamps to be lighted,
as somebody else likes to say.

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They are not
any of these metaphors.

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They are, in the most strict and
literal sense of the word, scientists.

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The things that they do to create knowledge out
of experience, which is what learning is,

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are exactly the same as the things
that the people we think of as scientists

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do in their laboratories.

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When they do them, perhaps,
there are some differences.

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They are probably
a good deal less self-conscious.

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A scientist will probably have a pretty
clear idea of what she or he is looking for,

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whereas little kids
are not doing it in that way.

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Nevertheless, they
do the same things.

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The first is they observe,
they take in data.

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And the second is that
they wonder about it.

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And the third is that they ask
themselves questions about it.

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The second and third
are pretty close.

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And then, they begin to make up theories,
invent theories, maybe that the wind blows

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because the trees are moving their branches,
which, on the face of it, is not a bad theory.

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And then, they test these theories
with observation, maybe with questions,

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maybe with experiments, some of which we
may welcome and others of which we may not.

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In this connection, I think of the most
recent visit to my house of Anna van Doren,

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of whom you may have read in
"Growing Without Schooling."

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Anna's going to be four in June.

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We were in the apartment.

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Her mother and I were doing various kinds of work.

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Her little guy seemed not to be
getting in any physical trouble.

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And when the time came to leave, I have a door
with one of those push-button locks on it.

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And as I was leaving, I reached in to push
the lock, and my thumb fell into a hole.

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Well, this feels kind of funny.

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And I looked, and the push lock wasn't
there, and it was sitting on the floor.

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I said, "Anna, you've taken
the lock out of my doorknob!"

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It took me about four or five minutes
to figure out how to get it back in.

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Children tend to like to do experiments
right up into the point where no further

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experimenting is possible, I guess you
could say, up to the disaster limit.

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And it's very good on learning, but it's
sometimes tough on the lab. [Laughter]

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So these experiments are not always
welcome, but nevertheless, they do them.

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And then, as a result of what they find out, they
give up their theories, modify them, change them.

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Let's see.

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Has the GWS gone out which talks about
my little friend Helen saying, "gocks?"

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Or is that 44?

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Maybe you haven't received it yet.
Woman: Yeah.

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Woman: It just arrived.
John Holt: All right.

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So here's Helen Vandoren.

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Actually, her full name is
Helen Maria-Holt Vandoren.

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I had two schools and one baby named after me.

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One of the schools is defunct,
but the baby is fine. [Chuckles]

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[Laughter]
At any rate.

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Helen has been, for some time,
using the word "gocks" to say socks.

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And this is a mystery to us because she knows how

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to say the sound "sss," and says
it in lots of other connections.

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Indeed, it was one of the first sounds she said,

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00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:20,520
and it had multiple meanings,
including that she wanted to nurse.

236
00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:25,860
We simply could not imagine where
she got the idea of saying gocks.

237
00:16:25,860 --> 00:16:27,960
She never heard anybody say it, obviously.

238
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:28,600
No imitation.

239
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:33,360
Her sister had never said it.

240
00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:38,720
If you think of the way sounds are produced in the
mouth and throat, S and G are not at all alike.

241
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:42,980
It's not a small difference.

242
00:16:42,980 --> 00:16:48,800
At any rate, she must have had some
kind of theory about why she wanted

243
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:52,800
to do it this way and not some
other way, and it was a theory.

244
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,

245
00:16:56,920 --> 00:17:03,400
we were all in the office, and it was time for the
Vandoren family to go home, which means rounding

246
00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:07,840
up the kids' clothes, shoes, socks, putting
them on them – an operation you know well.

247
00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:13,720
And we had Helen sitting on the floor
getting ready to put her socks on.

248
00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:21,470
And she looked at them
thoughtfully, and said, "Zzzzocks.

249
00:17:21,470 --> 00:17:21,480
Zzzzocks."

250
00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:23,480
I said to Mary, "Have you ever
heard her say that before?"

251
00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:27,920
Mary said, "No, first time."

252
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:31,720
Well, I saw Mary just a couple of days
ago and said, "How is the 'zocks' going?"

253
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:32,840
Has she said "gocks" since?

254
00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:33,680
"No," she said.

255
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.

256
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:42,520
Now, why that difference, which didn't
make any difference to her before,

257
00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:44,800
all of a sudden did make a
difference, I don't know,

258
00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:50,200
you don't know, she doesn't know, we'll
never know – except everybody does it.

259
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

260
00:17:55,320 --> 00:18:00,840
seemed unsatisfactory, didn't work,
didn't fit – so now she says "socks."

261
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:01,840
Well, okay.

262
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:07,480
A very small example which we
could multiply by the billions,

263
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:09,160
and it's what these little people do.

264
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:13,960
They are observers, makers,
testers, changers of theories.

265
00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:21,240
They are, in the strictest
sense of the word, scientists.

266
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.

267
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:33,400
Now, what we can do – I come back
to the point about what can adults

268
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:40,000
do to help? – because we are, in many
ways, an essential part of this process.

269
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,880
I don't claim children would
ever learn to figure out how

270
00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:45,240
to talk if they were surrounded by deaf-mutes.

271
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:50,440
It wouldn't happen.

272
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

273
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

274
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,

275
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

276
00:19:22,120 --> 00:19:32,720
of experience, actions, talk, materials, books,
records, tools, people doing things, human life.

277
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:36,200
Now, what we can do for these little
guys is to provide them with as much

278
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

279
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.

280
00:19:48,360 --> 00:19:50,080
If you live in the woods, that means the woods.

281
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:52,800
If you live in downtown city, that means downtown.

282
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 –

283
00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:03,880
let them see it, let them be part of
it – and we answer their questions

284
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:05,960
when they have them – and they have lots of them.

285
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:11,507
Some of you will have discovered that
when your children are getting on --

286
00:20:11,507 --> 00:20:12,229
Small child: Hi.

287
00:20:12,229 --> 00:20:13,353
John Holt: Oh, hi again.

288
00:20:13,353 --> 00:20:20,661
Child: Hi, hi.

289
00:20:20,661 --> 00:20:21,920
John: Mm-hmm.
John: Well, when they're getting on to a year

290
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:25,520
and a half, when they're beginning
to sneak up under – into speech –

291
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:27,680
It will be a place where they'll point to

292
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:33,076
all kinds of things and make some
kind of insistent noise: "Mmm mmm."

293
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.

294
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:40,080
They point to the clock, they
point to this, and they go,

295
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:42,360
"Mmm mmm," and people say,
"No, you can't have it."

296
00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:42,960
They don't want it.

297
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:44,720
They want to know what it's called.

298
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:46,760
They want to hear the name of it.

299
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:47,880
Simple as that.

300
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:48,460
I say simple.

301
00:20:48,460 --> 00:20:52,080
It took me quite a number of
years to figure it out. [Laughter]

302
00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:58,840
So they ask questions – and we can
answer their questions when they

303
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,

304
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:23,000
and give a kind of demonstration just by
our being there and our doing things – give

305
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:28,520
the kind of demonstration of various
sorts of adult skill and competence,

306
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:37,640
and pay a kind of affectionate, respectful
attention to what they're doing, without making

307
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

308
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,

309
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:58,680
to understand that they are, indeed, passionately
eager to learn about the world, extremely good

310
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.

311
00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:07,240
Not to say they're going to know
everything about everything,

312
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:13,320
but nobody does – and that's how we can help.

313
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:20,680
But ours is a very minor role,
and theirs is the major one.

314
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,320
Okay, well, I'm preaching to the
converted, I know. [Chuckles]

315
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:26,520
If you weren't already half convinced
of this, you wouldn't be here.

316
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:32,720
But I want to say it anyway.

317
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,280
All right, now, the next part of my
talk is about something different.

318
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:37,360
Much of this conference has to do with the future,

319
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

320
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:54,360
next 10 years or so – and by extension,
to some degree, of alternative schools.

321
00:22:54,360 --> 00:22:57,496
We are – from a legislative –

322
00:22:57,496 --> 00:22:58,440
[A woman comes forward.]
Yes?

323
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:00,921
Woman: Is it possible to ask you
questions before you go on to the next –?

324
00:23:00,921 --> 00:23:03,534
John: Yeah, yeah, sure.

325
00:23:03,535 --> 00:23:03,554
Woman: I see. Okay.

326
00:23:03,554 --> 00:23:06,000
John: Now, you don't have all
these electronics at your disposal,

327
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:22,563
so you've got to speak up – and not too fast.

328
00:23:22,563 --> 00:23:22,634
Woman: Okay, I don't have a loud
voice, I don't know whether it carries.

329
00:23:22,634 --> 00:23:22,663
You certainly are convincing.

330
00:23:22,663 --> 00:23:22,722
I agree with what you say that
we are not going to convince.

331
00:23:22,722 --> 00:23:22,800
On that part, that I'm going to disagree
in terms of people connected with you.

332
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

333
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:35,120
a necessity to transmute this imperative.

334
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:41,345
And this is perhaps something
that can be picked up.

335
00:23:41,345 --> 00:23:41,393
I agree children aren't all the same, God knows.

336
00:23:41,393 --> 00:23:53,459
But we also need, I think, some input in
terms of direction, guidance and exposure,

337
00:23:53,459 --> 00:23:53,514
and input in regard to the
heritage that is [inaudible].

338
00:23:53,514 --> 00:23:55,222
John: All right, that's a good question.

339
00:23:55,222 --> 00:23:56,520
Woman: Okay.
John: I'm familiar with it.

340
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:57,680
I've heard it.

341
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,160
I'd love to answer it, perhaps just take out very,

342
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.

343
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,480
It's extremely important, in the first place,

344
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,640
in thinking about these things,
to use language accurately.

345
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:17,160
And we really have to understand the
difference between exposure and coercion.

346
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,240
Now, there's a big difference between putting –

347
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,240
I mean, we just went out to dinner.

348
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,240
The Baskins, and I and Heather,
we just had dinner together.

349
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:31,760
And there was the menu, and there were
things on different people's plates,

350
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,560
and we would say, "Here are some
capers in front of my veal."

351
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,600
And so we said to Heather,
"Would you like to try caper?"

352
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,520
Heather did not want to try a caper.

353
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:43,260
Well, that's exposure.

354
00:24:43,260 --> 00:24:46,880
There are different kinds of food there,
and we say, "Would you like to try some?"

355
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:47,320
"No."

356
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:47,840
"Okay."

357
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:48,340
"No."

358
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

359
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

360
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.

361
00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:08,500
There's no exposure unless you can't say no to it.

362
00:25:08,500 --> 00:25:11,440
If you can't say no, it's coercion.

363
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:16,240
Really very, very, very important
to understand that difference,

364
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:17,800
and it's difficult, apparently.

365
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

366
00:25:24,120 --> 00:25:28,560
of coerced – or all attempts to coerce learning.

367
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:32,980
I meant to say after I had said
that learning is not the product of teaching,

368
00:25:32,980 --> 00:25:37,840
I meant to say that teaching which
has not been asked for by the learner –

369
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:42,240
virtually without exception –
impedes and prevents learning,

370
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:48,040
and before very long will kill
most of the desire for learning itself.

371
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:54,200
I will say that forced learning
is faked learning.

372
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,960
I had the great traditions of culture,
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. –

373
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:03,520
by which I suppose we mean Shakespeare
or whatever – thrust at me.

374
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,520
I was clever about
playing the school game.

375
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:06,600
I could do that trick.

376
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,240
And so I got my A's and B's,

377
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,040
and went to high-powered
schools and colleges, and so forth.

378
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:15,240
Most of the people who are told
to play this trick cannot play it,

379
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:21,680
don't play it well,
fail to play it altogether.

380
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:23,440
We have to understand,

381
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,760
we're going to probably have
to agree to disagree about this,

382
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,400
because nobody is going to be –

383
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:33,040
nobody who walks into a room
believing in some kind of forced learning

384
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,480
is going to walk out of the room
not believing in it

385
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,440
because they've heard me preach
this little mini-sermon about it.

386
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,360
But I want you
to be very clear about –

387
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:43,200
And I should say, by the way,

388
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:51,840
that I suspect that the number of
homeschoolers or alternative school people

389
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:56,360
who really agree with me
is probably well under 50%.

390
00:26:56,360 --> 00:27:02,120
I mean, I think this is a minority view,
even among homeschoolers.

391
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.

392
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]

393
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:17,520
{I think - you see}

394
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:23,600
If it is part of the cultural tradition,
it is there.

395
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,760
Children are very interested
in what is there,

396
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:31,120
and they're extremely interested
in what is most interesting to us.

397
00:27:31,120 --> 00:27:34,000
And Shakespeare
is not interesting to adults,

398
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:39,600
except a handful of English teachers
who make a specialty of teaching,

399
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:42,200
and a fairly small handful of actors

400
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,460
who every so often take a shot
at producing one of his plays.

401
00:27:45,460 --> 00:27:47,480
It usually loses money.

402
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:52,029
But other than that,
people don't read it.

403
00:27:52,029 --> 00:27:58,440
All right, I don't want to
go on too long [inaudible].

404
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:03,000
But what people really care about –
a good example is music.

405
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,920
There are not very many
households in the United States

406
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:10,360
where people read Shakespeare just
for the sheer, solid pleasure of doing it.

407
00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,360
They get this.

408
00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:13,800
I've just been reading
some of the plays.

409
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:15,600
So, some of
the tragedies are lovely.

410
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.

411
00:28:21,460 --> 00:28:23,200
Mmm!

412
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:28,600
Maybe someday, some really bold soul will
cut out those ponderous exchanges of puns.

413
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,400
It will be a great day for
the Bard when that happens.

414
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,280
I mean, they rolled in the aisles when
he wrote this stuff, and he knew that.

415
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,840
He was a practical man in the theater.

416
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,720
He put it in because he knew
it would make people laugh.

417
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:45,400
It doesn't make people laugh anymore,
it just makes you turn the page.

418
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,920
But there are hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of families

419
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,920
where music is
a central part of their lives,

420
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,320
as it's a central part of mine,
and in those families,

421
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,040
very, very few children
are indifferent to music.

422
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:04,640
Or let's say gardening if gardening
is your passion – or whatever it may be.

423
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.

424
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,480
And those are the things,
generally speaking, that interest them most,

425
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,200
unless they've gotten into
some rebellion kick,

426
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,000
and that doesn't happen
much in homeschooling.

427
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,520
So I'll ask you to let me leave it
at that for the time being.

428
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,240
No, I do not think this body
of whatever it is,

429
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,760
or this cultural tradition,
or whatever it is, needs to be,

430
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:42,000
or indeed can be, forced into people
under pressure by coercion.

431
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:43,720
If you really love Shakespeare,

432
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,400
go see Shakespeare plays
where they're performed,

433
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,040
and take your kids with you,

434
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,760
or even get a bunch of people together
in your neighborhood and town,

435
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:56,480
and put on an amateur production,
and let your kids be part of the operation.

436
00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:01,280
In fact, if you really love Shakespeare,
you ought to be doing it anyway –

437
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:02,240
or whatever it is.

438
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:03,640
If you love music,
make music.

439
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,280
If you love gardening,
grow a garden.

440
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,200
If you love camping in the woods,
go camping in the woods.

441
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,200
If you love –
I don't care what it is.

442
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:20,040
But children sense that the world they get
from the things that we care most about.

443
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:21,840
All right.

444
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.

445
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:28,280
{That's very -}

446
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,476
it's a very central issue,
and I'm glad you asked -

447
00:30:30,476 --> 00:30:35,320
I'm glad you
raised that point.

448
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,800
The homeschooling movement
is in the middle of

449
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,600
an extremely interesting
and important period

450
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:52,040
of political and legislative change –
and judicial, too, I would say.

451
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,680
Ten years ago, five years ago, I think
you could have said accurately that the

452
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:59,960
great majority of people who
were teaching their own kids,

453
00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:06,680
and not just underground, not just hiding
out, were doing it - were making use of

454
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:12,400
what you would have to call loopholes
in the law, of one kind or another.

455
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,600
Things which had been put in the
law not with homeschooling in mind,

456
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:20,080
but with something quite different.

457
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,200
In many places, in many states around the country,

458
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,920
the compulsory school attendance laws
had some kind of a clause in them

459
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:33,160
about kids have to go to school or get some
equivalent kind of instruction or education.

460
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:38,760
Now, this was - this clause was not put into
the law to make things easy for homeschoolers.

461
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:42,960
But to take care of children who, for
mostly medical reasons, were not able

462
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:49,320
to go to school and they were probably thinking
of retarded or emotionally disturbed children who

463
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,320
couldn't go to school because the schools
didn't want them or couldn't handle them.

464
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:57,560
So they wanted to make some
kind of legal alternative.

465
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,680
The farthest thing they could have had
from their minds, the legislatures,

466
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:05,000
when they put these clauses in, was
that people who had the choice of

467
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:11,640
sending their kids to school, people
whose kids were, as they say, normal,

468
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:15,320
would decide that they didn't want to send them
to school so they could teach them themselves.

469
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:18,040
Nevertheless, there was that
loophole, and for a while,

470
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:20,600
in lots of places, people were slipping through.

471
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:25,600
The other great loophole was the private school
loophole where many states in the country in which

472
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:32,600
private schools were not regulated by law or not
regulated by the compulsory school attendance law.

473
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,800
Now, that was not done to
make homeschooling possible.

474
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:41,480
It was done for quite other sorts of reasons.

475
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,160
When legislators decided that private
schools would not be regulated,

476
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:50,720
it was to a large degree because private
schools had their own police mechanisms,

477
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:55,720
they - what you would call a non-alternative
independent or private schools.

478
00:32:55,720 --> 00:33:00,680
The rich folks' private schools have their
own National Association of Independent

479
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,352
Schools, Midwestern Association of
Independent Schools – New England.

480
00:33:04,352 --> 00:33:05,840
I mean, they have their own inspectors,

481
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:11,600
and their own checkers-uppers-on,
and so forth, and so forth.

482
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:13,960
So, they were not sort of flying free in the air.

483
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,120
Also, legislators, I think, tend to operate on the

484
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:22,920
assumption that rich people know
what they're doing – you know?

485
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:30,160
They say, "Private schools are expensive," or
at least they used to be thought of that way,

486
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:37,400
and that's what legislators were thinking
when they decided not to try to regulate them.

487
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,360
And they said, "If you've got 50 or
a hundred fairly wealthy families,

488
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:47,080
and they're all satisfied with the school, chances
are something has got to be going on there.".

489
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:52,794
Rich people are not terribly innovative,
as a general rule. [Laughter]

490
00:33:52,794 --> 00:33:55,200
John: "And in any case, since they're
rich, even if their kids goof up,

491
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:59,160
they'll always be able to take care of them, so we
don't have to worry about their being on welfare.

492
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:04,440
So generally speaking, we can let them alone."

493
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:08,240
But the farthest thing in the
world they had in mind was that

494
00:34:08,240 --> 00:34:11,280
this would be used in the way that
homeschoolers started to use it.

495
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:15,320
Well, that's where we were roughly
five or six years ago, we were all

496
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:20,480
happily crawling under this fence, as
it were, pulling up the barbed wire,

497
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:26,920
and slipping under the bottom strand [chuckles]
– and it was very nice while it lasted.

498
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,600
I mean, there was no regulation, and
no tests, and no papers to fill out.

499
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:35,280
Some states built a one-page something
or other about "my home is a private

500
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:45,320
school," and it was very nice, but it
perfectly obviously wasn't going to last.

501
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,100
It was obvious to me that it wasn't going to last.

502
00:34:47,100 --> 00:34:54,040
It could not be made to last – that as we got
bigger and stronger, and got to be heard more

503
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:59,120
of in one thing or another, that people,
the courts, the public schools themselves,

504
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:07,800
the legislatures were going to begin to pay
attention and say, "Hey, what about this?

505
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:16,880
Well, roughly about two or three years ago,
we began to see – I say roughly – it differs

506
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:22,400
from state to state – but we began to see
the beginnings of attempts – in some cases

507
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:27,920
in the form of laws, and in some cases in the
form of administrative regulations – attempts

508
00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:33,280
to make homeschooling illegal or virtually
impossible in Maryland, and Georgia,

509
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:40,480
and in other states – for a while in California,
which had been one of our chief homeschooling

510
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:48,880
states – the authorities began to try to
think of ways of making this very difficult.

511
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:53,360
And a couple of years ago, we at
Growing Without Schooling certainly

512
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:59,340
felt that the homeschooling movement
was in a kind of fight for its life.

513
00:35:59,340 --> 00:36:05,600
Well, I don't mean to say that the fight isn't
over, but in fact, none of those attempts to

514
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:10,600
rule out homeschooling, stamp it out, make
it impossible, none of them succeeded.

515
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:18,040
In no place has a legislature written a kind
of anti-homeschooling law in that sense.

516
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:26,600
We've been under lots of pressure,
lots of pressure to do so.

517
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:30,920
{What they did start doing is} I should say
a similar thing was happening in the courts

518
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:37,640
in a number of states in which people had been
homeschooling through the private school option.

519
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,200
The courts began to say a home all
by itself can't be a private school.

520
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,920
That was our situation in Virginia
before the law was passed there.

521
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,720
So the loopholes were being closed up.

522
00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:54,360
The fence was being repaired so that
animals couldn't get up through the bottom.

523
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.

524
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:05,760
One way or another, they began to try to
legitimize homeschooling to make it explicitly

525
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:12,160
legal, and say, "Yes, people can teach their
own kids if they do this, that, or the other."

526
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,480
Since then, there've been a considerable
number of these kinds of laws passed.

527
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:17,400
I lose track.

528
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,880
In GWS 44, I think – in fact,
when we sent it to press,

529
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,120
we said there were 14 states
considering such laws.

530
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:29,680
I believe that since then, at least
three of them, maybe four – Arkansas,

531
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:36,400
Wyoming, New Mexico, state of Washington
– we had a very tough time in the state

532
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:46,480
of Washington – have passed one or
another kinds of legislation making

533
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:50,120
homeschooling explicitly legal with
this, that, or the other condition.

534
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,680
And we expect many more states to do that.

535
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,600
We'll probably see more even before
the end of this legislative session.

536
00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:01,360
And I would hazard a rough guess that
we'll continue to see half a dozen

537
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:07,160
or a dozen states a year doing this,
and dozens, perhaps, to many a year.

538
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:13,840
And I would say that, oh, within five
years, we will probably see very few

539
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:22,920
states in which there is not some explicit
reference to homeschooling in the law.

540
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,600
Now, I consider this an extraordinarily
important move forward, even though,

541
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:33,320
in many cases, I'm not happy
with the qualifying restrictions.

542
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:40,480
Many of them talk about the use
of standardized achievement tests.

543
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,640
Though that is not a problem
for probably 80% of homeschoolers,

544
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,560
it can be a very serious problem
for people whose children

545
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:53,800
are late starters in reading,
or in whatever else it may be,

546
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,440
or happen not to like arithmetic,
or be a little afraid of it, or something.

547
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:12,880
And I think it's a very important step
forward that legislators

548
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:19,480
are beginning to see
homeschooling as a legitimate activity,

549
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:25,240
rather than some kind of
weird, strange, outlaw idea.

550
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 –

551
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:40,440
and we'll probably be 10 or 15 years at it –
is educating the legislatures,

552
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:44,600
and particularly
the individual legislators –

553
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:51,160
away from rigid curriculums,
standardized achievement tests,

554
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:55,840
all kinds of attempts to reduce
human beings to numbers.

555
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,400
I think a lot of them are ready
to say now, in fact,

556
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:02,880
"Well, yeah, people
can teach their own kids

557
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:04,680
if they do it just the way
the schools do it."

558
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,640
But that's obviously
not satisfactory.

559
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,560
But we have to get them to see –
in one way or another,

560
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,840
to get into law at least some of the spirit

561
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:16,920
in which I talked to you
at the beginning of this meeting –

562
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:26,240
some feeling that there are other ways
besides the rigid curriculums of schools,

563
00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:28,560
and the endless
little numerical tests.

564
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:33,200
There are other ways
of observing and taking note of learning,

565
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,300
of observing children's
growth in the world, and so forth.

566
00:40:36,300 --> 00:40:40,680
Now, this is already being done,
of course, in some places.

567
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:45,160
But I would like to see,
for example, something in the law,

568
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:48,960
some kind of amendment
somewhere down the line

569
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:54,040
saying that parents and educational authorities,
in evaluating the learning of children,

570
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:58,240
may use, but shall not be
required to use or restricted to using,

571
00:40:58,240 --> 00:41:03,880
the standardized
and other numerical tests.

572
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.

573
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:11,840
But I think if we do
the right sorts of things,

574
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,000
that it's very possible that
a great many of them

575
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:22,600
will do so by, let's say,
a decade from now.

576
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:26,880
I speak of educating legislators, and
I'm not at all thinking of lobbying groups.

577
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:29,820
What I have in mind is that homeschoolers –

578
00:41:29,820 --> 00:41:34,660
and also, again, insofar as
they are encumbered by The law –

579
00:41:34,660 --> 00:41:39,760
alternative schoolers must get to know
their own legislators personally,

580
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:46,320
individually, meet them, go see them,
take their children, become a kind of pen pal,

581
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,800
write them occasional letters saying,

582
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,160
"Thought you might be interested
to hear what my kids are up to recently.

583
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:58,360
The other day we went, and my eight-year-old
child took 25 books out of the library,

584
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:04,240
which is more books than most school
kids read in a year, or two, or five."

585
00:42:06,240 --> 00:42:12,160
We have got to begin to get into a kind of
continuing communication with these people,

586
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:15,360
so they begin to understand,
as we understand,

587
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:19,960
how this organic
natural learning takes place.

588
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,720
And of course, if bad bills
get introduced, of course,

589
00:42:22,720 --> 00:42:26,200
we all have to hustle down to
the state capitol and do that number –

590
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:26,760
and obviously,

591
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,520
we've been very good at it.

592
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:30,520
But that's not all.

593
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:34,760
I mean, "I don't write my legislator
except when some kind of legislation

594
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,520
is coming up that I'm worried about," 

595
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:37,991
this doesn't seem to me to be enough.
QQQ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

596
00:42:37,991 --> 00:42:38,040
SEGMENTING COMPLETE TO HERE
= = = = = = = = = = = 

597
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:44,240
I really think we have to try – as far
as we can – we have to try to bring these

598
00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:52,520
people into the homeschooling family – and
it is a family – a collection of families.

599
00:42:52,520 --> 00:43:04,560
So I see this as the main part of the future
of homeschooling in the next decade or so.

600
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:08,960
I think alternative schools can play
a very important part in this – as

601
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,800
indeed the Clonlara School and the Santa
Fe Community school and a number of others

602
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:21,080
already have – by providing a kind of
support for homeschooling families.

603
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,713
I don't know if Santa Fe was
the first school to do that.

604
00:43:24,713 --> 00:43:27,120
It was the first one I knew about
that was doing it, but anyway.

605
00:43:28,720 --> 00:43:36,080
And by now, we have a number of independent
alternative schools around the country,

606
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:43,280
which not only have their own buildings and
classes – there's a physical school there in

607
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:51,000
place – but they also provide a kind of legal and
educational support to homeschooling families.

608
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:55,320
Many of you might be on the
other end of the country.

609
00:43:55,320 --> 00:44:01,520
I would like to see a much larger
network of these kinds of schools.

610
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:05,840
We now have – oh, I guess around
the United States – several dozen.

611
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.

612
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:15,840
Let's see here.

613
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:22,960
Excuse me a sec here.

614
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,040
Amazing machines here.

615
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:31,040
I think the small tape recorders –
and they are now have really quite

616
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:37,000
astonishing sound quality – are one of
the great educational tools of our time.

617
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:42,520
And for all the talk about computers,
I think this is a gadget which has many

618
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:48,320
other kinds of possibilities, which I don't
think we have done as much with as we might.

619
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,400
Like typewriters, this is a machine which
is really fascinating to a lot of children –

620
00:44:53,400 --> 00:45:01,040
the experience of saying things into it and then
hearing them back – very strange, very powerful.

621
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:06,280
All right.

622
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,080
Now, let's see.

623
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:18,120
So, I was talking about a very large network –
hundreds, thousands – of alternative schools,

624
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:22,380
independent schools around the country
– in some cases, public schools.

625
00:45:22,380 --> 00:45:25,720
Because there are public schools
that also offer this kind of support.

626
00:45:25,720 --> 00:45:33,960
The number is not very
large, but it's also growing.

627
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,440
All right, now, I want to switch to a different –

628
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:43,000
in the last part of this talk, to a look
at the future in a quite different sense –

629
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,280
not the future of homeschooling, or
the future of alternative schooling,

630
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:53,760
but the future of the world –
particularly of this country.

631
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,480
First thing I have to say is that everybody
who talks about the future is guessing.

632
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:58,040
Nobody knows.

633
00:45:58,040 --> 00:45:58,800
There is no future.

634
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:00,080
It doesn't exist.

635
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,560
It isn't as if we're riding
along on a train and 20 miles

636
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:07,120
down the track there was a station
that we were going to pull into,

637
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,720
and it was just a matter of
talking about what it was.

638
00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:12,240
The future isn't there.

639
00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:20,680
We make it as we live.

640
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:21,480
{Most of the people}

641
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:25,360
I'm extremely skeptical, I have to say, of
most of the people who are making a living –

642
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:31,200
and quite a lot of them are, and they're living a
lot fancier than I am – talking about this future.

643
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,

644
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,080
and then they just keep running it up the page.

645
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:42,080
Well If predicting the future were
that easy, we'd all be billionaires,

646
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:44,360
because we'd just look at
the stock market quotations,

647
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:47,600
and see what stock had been going up
for the last week, and then buy it.

648
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:55,200
The problem is the graph that
doesn't always keep going up.

649
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,

650
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:05,000
connected with the government, connected
with the defense industry who made it

651
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,320
their business to know what was
going on in the world of oil.

652
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,780
And none – not one, not a
single one of these people –

653
00:47:11,780 --> 00:47:16,840
predicted what came to be called the
"oil crisis – when was it, ten years ago?

654
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,400
Nobody predicted it.

655
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,660
And nobody, with a few possible exceptions –

656
00:47:22,660 --> 00:47:25,600
maybe Amory Lovins, maybe a few conservationists

657
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:28,720
once we were in the middle
of that terrible crisis –

658
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,

659
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:38,120
because we would smarten
up and start saving energy.

660
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:43,400
The oil crisis came by
surprise and went by surprise.

661
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,320
So, it's not easy.

662
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:49,473
One of the big future books that's –

663
00:47:49,473 --> 00:47:53,640
boy, I wish I had 10% of
the money that it's made –

664
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:58,480
talks about the Sun Belt
and the motion of industry,

665
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,160
the economic flight from
the North to the Sun Belt,

666
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:06,040
and it says this is a major
trend in American history,

667
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,000
and it's irreversible, and it's going to continue.

668
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:09,760
We can just see more and more of this happening.

669
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,080
Well, I get a certain wry amusement out of this.

670
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:19,000
I come from the old Frost Belt up there
in New England, and we are the most –

671
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:23,760
as regions go at the moment – probably the most
economically prosperous region of the country.

672
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:25,440
We have the lowest unemployment rate.

673
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:32,360
My home state of Massachusetts has the lowest
unemployment rate in any industrial state.

674
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,980
My home city of Boston has what they
call an office vacancy rate of 1%.

675
00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:41,120
Of course, Houston has about 30%.

676
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:47,280
So, the old Frost Belt isn't doing too bad.

677
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,720
Right now what we're worried about is drought.

678
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:56,000
But that's going to be a big
problem for the whole country.

679
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:56,920
Very, very hard.

680
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,080
But there are some indicators.

681
00:48:59,080 --> 00:48:59,880
Nothing is certain.

682
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:02,200
There are some indicators that give us, I think,

683
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:06,840
a pretty strong indication of the
way some things are likely to go.

684
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:11,360
There are really big, big, deep sort of trends,

685
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:15,280
and I want to talk about just one of them tonight.

686
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:21,160
[Coughs] Excuse me.

687
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:31,320
The Boston Globe, our local bladder,
[laughter] is a kind of nice paper.

688
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:35,800
I don't know how much news in it, but it has a lot
of good writers, and they have quite a lot of fun.

689
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:41,800
So, it's an entertaining sheet.

690
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:45,320
And not bad, as these things go.

691
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,320
It had an article a year and a half ago, maybe,

692
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:53,920
about wages in different parts
of the world – industrial wages.

693
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:59,640
And there's a map, a nice big-page article.

694
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:09,080
And they were comparing average hourly industrial
wages in the world's manufacturing countries.

695
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,160
Now, economists, I guess,

696
00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:14,040
could spend the whole weekend talking
about how you achieve these figures,

697
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:19,320
and how you balance out this versus that, how you
figure out benign climates versus cold climates,

698
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,720
and what do you do about fringe
benefits, and this, that, and the other.

699
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.

700
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:32,720
And what it said was that the United States
had the highest average hourly industrial wage.

701
00:50:32,720 --> 00:50:37,560
They didn't say what is industrial
and what isn't – not to get into that.

702
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,960
And it was something like $10.77 an hour.

703
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,680
And there was Canada pretty
close behind, and Switzerland,

704
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:48,640
and then a bunch of the Western
European nations – $8.00 or so – $7.50.

705
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,560
And then, Japan, $5.50.

706
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:58,880
And then Mexico, Brazil, some
down to the $2.00, $2.50 range.

707
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:03,200
And then we got down to what they
call the Pacific Rim nations:

708
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:10,560
Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea,
a couple of others maybe,

709
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:15,600
and these were running $1.25, $1.50 an hour.

710
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:20,520
And then India – the figure
they gave was $0.39 an hour –

711
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:28,960
and Sri Lanka, which us old cats used to
call Ceylon, near India, was $0.21 an hour.

712
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:36,280
Now, those are very, very,
very significant figures.

713
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:42,840
At one point in, the article they
quoted a young woman who's working

714
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:47,720
in one of these new electronic shops in
Hong Kong where the American computer

715
00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:51,680
manufacturers are fleeing just as
fast as their legs will carry them –

716
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:54,920
those that are still in
business at all, I should add.

717
00:51:55,480 --> 00:52:01,800
And that little future balloon
went down in a big hurry,

718
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:06,120
and has yet further to go, I will add.

719
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,960
That revolution lasted about two or three years.

720
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:19,880
But someone was talking to this young
woman who's earning $1.22 an hour,

721
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:25,200
making whatever it is, and
just happy as a clam to be

722
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:28,360
enjoying this wage which was probably ten times,

723
00:52:28,360 --> 00:52:32,760
five times higher than anything
they had seen a decade before.

724
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:37,680
And she said, "Of course, we know it's
only going to be a matter of time before

725
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:49,560
the jobs all go to someplace like Sri Lanka,
where they only have to pay $0.21 an hour.

726
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,

727
00:52:58,280 --> 00:53:03,120
which fly from one place to another and settle

728
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:08,280
down and deposit a certain amount
of wealth there while they're there,

729
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:13,560
but soon they'll take off again looking for
some other place where the wages are even lower.

730
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:15,240
And that's not a bad figure of speech.

731
00:53:15,240 --> 00:53:18,920
We saw that happen in this country
when the northern industries –

732
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:22,400
this was certainly true of
the mills in New England –

733
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:27,400
went down south where they could
get non-union and cheaper labor.

734
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:35,000
With the modern mobility of capital
in the multinational corporation,

735
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,200
jobs do in fact tend to –

736
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,440
many of them anyway – are pretty free to
migrate to where the wages are lowest,

737
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:46,340
and that's where they're going to roost.

738
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.

739
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:55,160
And I found myself wondering, "Hey, where
do the Chinese fit into this picture?"

740
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:59,240
Why, they're probably under a dollar an
hour, $0.50 an hour maybe, I thought.

741
00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:03,080
At any rate, it had to be a pretty low figure.

742
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:11,400
Under a billion people in that country.

743
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:18,360
Recently, my question was answered more
or less reliably by another article,

744
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:23,640
this time in the "Christian Science Monitor,"
and this wasn't about economics at all,

745
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:26,520
it was about a British rock
group called "Wham," which has

746
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:32,880
just gone to China and caused a great
upheaval of various kinds there.

747
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.

748
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:43,840
The article described a young Chinese workman
standing in line for five or six hours,

749
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:49,240
just like his American counterparts,
to buy a ticket to hear Wham.

750
00:54:49,240 --> 00:54:52,000
And it said in passing that he
had to pay – for this ticket –

751
00:54:52,000 --> 00:55:06,480
he had to pay 5 yuan – parenthesis,
$1.75, or 2 days' wages.

752
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,840
Two days' wages.

753
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.

754
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:20,680
And there are a billion people over there,

755
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:26,320
most of whom are ready and eager
to work at that kind of wage.

756
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:33,400
Now, this is bound to have a lot to say about,

757
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:37,840
not only our future, but the future of all
of what we think of as the highly-developed

758
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:44,280
wealthy countries of the North
Atlantic, let's say, community.

759
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:50,000
Given, again, the mobility of
capital, there is no possible

760
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:56,240
way that the wealthy countries of the
world are going to be able to employ

761
00:55:57,600 --> 00:56:06,480
their populations at $10 or $9 or $8 or
$7, for that matter Japan, $5.50 an hour.

762
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:11,080
They're not going to be able to do it.

763
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:14,880
In other words, as nearly as one
can say anything about the future,

764
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,000
it is certain that the rich countries of the world

765
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:26,240
are going to get a lot less
rich, as we have defined rich.

766
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:32,240
And what the consequences of that may
be, we've talked for a long time –

767
00:56:32,240 --> 00:56:34,560
there could be whole conferences – I hope someday

768
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:39,760
there will be if there are not any
yet – about what this really means.

769
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:43,680
None of the people who were
running for election in the last

770
00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:44,320
campaign –

771
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,240
even those who talk glibly about new ideas –

772
00:56:47,240 --> 00:56:51,400
none of them seem to have the
faintest idea that this is going on,

773
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,120
or what this means, or what they might do with it.

774
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:56,240
This is going to call for a lot of hard thinking.

775
00:56:56,240 --> 00:56:59,260
To say just a very short thing about us,

776
00:56:59,260 --> 00:57:01,840
I'd say we're going to have to
rediscover thrift in this country.

777
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.

778
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:14,680
We're going to have to rediscover –

779
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:16,880
learn how to do the most with the least.

780
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,760
Old New England motto: Wear it out.

781
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:21,640
Let's see, no.

782
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:26,400
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do,
do without" – the old Yankee saying.

783
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:30,720
Or old Ben's, "A penny saved is a penny earned.

784
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:32,480
We're going to rediscover the truth of that.

785
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:38,040
We're going to start learning
how to darn socks again.

786
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:39,440
I don't think that's a bad thing.

787
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:48,320
I think we'll be probably a very much better,
more interesting, more equitable country if

788
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:55,240
we learn to revise our ideas about what
is true wealth, what is true efficiency.

789
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}

790
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:03,080
If we're going to be talking
or thinking about the future,

791
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:09,240
I think this is an element in it
that we can't afford to neglect.

792
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:15,680
Okay, well that's all for the big formal
speech, if it struck you that way.

793
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:23,200
So now we can move into some
kind of questions, discussion,

794
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:26,840
comment on whatever you want to talk about.

795
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:28,960
I mean, we can talk about any
of the things I've talked about,

796
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:32,680
or if you came here wanting to talk about
something else, we can talk about that too,

797
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:37,360
unless I don't know anything at
all about it, I will tell you.

798
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:39,840
I can tell you how to begin on the cello.

799
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,800
I can't tell you how to
become a magnificent player.

800
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:50,880
Well, as soon as I learn, I will tell you that.

801
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:52,160
Sir.

802
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:52,708
Jerry Mintz: Hi.

803
00:58:52,708 --> 00:58:55,094
Jerry Mintz from Shaker
Mountain School in Vermont.

804
00:58:55,094 --> 00:58:56,040
{We can't hear you.}
John: Oh, hi, Jerry.

805
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:01,000
Jerry: {I just hope} One thing I was
thinking about is that you missed,

806
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:10,290
somewhere between Ceylon and India, the wages
of alternative school people. [Laughter]

807
00:59:10,290 --> 00:59:10,304
John: Yes.
Yes.

808
00:59:10,304 --> 00:59:12,920
Jerry Mintz: It may mean that the
industry may flock to the free schools.

809
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:16,680
I'm not sure. [Laughter]

810
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:26,280
One thing I was wondering about is what you think
the difference is between parents who are exposing

811
00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:31,200
their kids to education or to learning
without coercion and schools that are

812
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:34,320
exposing their kids to learning without coercion.

813
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:38,320
And our school doesn't require kids
to go to any particular classes.

814
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,160
And on the other side of the
coin, the difference between

815
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:46,260
parents who are coercing their kids and
schools that are coercing their kids.

816
00:59:46,260 --> 00:59:52,360
John: Well, the key difference for me is the
difference between coercion and non-coercion.

817
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:56,040
In other words, if I thought that the

818
00:59:56,960 --> 01:00:02,920
homeschooling movement was made up largely
or entirely of people who wanted to coerce

819
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:05,760
their kids and just thought they could
do a better job of it than schools could,

820
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:09,440
I wouldn't have spent two
minutes on this activity.

821
01:00:09,440 --> 01:00:12,840
My interest in homeschooling, and, for
that matter, alternative schooling –

822
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:19,120
and I was interested in alternative schools
before I became interested in homeschooling –

823
01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:23,120
my interest in it is that it
makes it at least possible –

824
01:00:23,120 --> 01:00:26,120
for those people who want to
give their children a natural,

825
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,600
organic, uncoerced learning experience – to do so.

826
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:32,280
Not everybody is going to use it that way.

827
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:39,920
People start schools which they hope will be
even more coercive than the schools that exist.

828
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:43,080
There are certainly some people
who teach their children thinking

829
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:47,040
that they can pound in learning faster
than the local schools were doing it.

830
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:53,160
I don't think many of them stick it out very
long because they find out it doesn't work.

831
01:00:56,560 --> 01:01:11,200
No, I mean, if I look far enough down the line,
I like to think of schools as learning-experiment

832
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:17,000
activity centers, somewhat analogous to public
libraries, although rather wider in scope,

833
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,240
places to which people can
come if they feel like coming,

834
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:24,920
to do the things that they want to do
for as long as they want to do them.

835
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:32,400
And {I kind of – }I would hope that
somewhere we would find a way to call

836
01:01:32,400 --> 01:01:37,160
these places something other than schools because
they're really very fundamentally very different.

837
01:01:37,160 --> 01:01:42,520
"Club" would be nice if we just
kind of dared to do it. [Laughter]

838
01:01:42,520 --> 01:01:44,680
We have a film that a friend of mine,

839
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:48,320
my friend Peggy Hughes, made in
Denmark of the preschool there.

840
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,160
The film was called "We Have to Call It School."

841
01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:56,920
And the film begins with this young
Danish teacher there saying in English,

842
01:01:56,920 --> 01:02:00,120
"We have to call it school because if we didn't,

843
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:01,720
they wouldn't let the
children come here."[Laughter]

844
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:08,080
But it would be nice if, in
our minds, we thought about

845
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:15,080
these non-coercive gathering-and-activity
places as something other than a school.

846
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:15,920
I like "club."

847
01:02:15,920 --> 01:02:18,380
I mean, club has a –

848
01:02:18,380 --> 01:02:24,000
But you can pick what word you
like, or invent a brand new one.

849
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:29,520
Ultimately, I suppose I'd like to
see all schools evolve this way.

850
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:34,880
I don't think, certainly not in my lifetime
and not in any future that I can see,

851
01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:42,320
can I imagine legislatures striking
compulsory attendance laws off the books.

852
01:02:42,320 --> 01:02:48,240
But I can imagine more and more schools defining
attendance in just the way you define it,

853
01:02:49,880 --> 01:02:55,080
so that the difference between being in school
and not being in school gets so fuzzed over

854
01:02:55,080 --> 01:03:02,040
that you can't tell any longer when somebody
is in or when somebody is out.{now I don't}

855
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:05,140
Have I spoken to your point, or was there
something other you'd like to get out?

856
01:03:05,140 --> 01:03:11,600
Jerry: In other words, do you consider that it
would be advantageous for a parent to homeschool

857
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:19,945
their kid in a non-coercive way, rather than
let them go to a school that was non-coercive?

858
01:03:19,945 --> 01:03:24,360
John: Well, if you're a homeschooling
parent and there was in your area a

859
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:27,400
non-coercive school that kids could go to,

860
01:03:30,200 --> 01:03:33,440
I would be ready to leave it up to
those children and those parents

861
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:35,840
to decide how much they wanted to make use of it.

862
01:03:35,840 --> 01:03:40,120
Some families, the kids would
be there a lot of the time,

863
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:42,480
and other families, they might
not be there much of the time.

864
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:44,680
I think of my friends, the Wallaces in Ithaca,

865
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:51,720
their public school system, as
a matter of fact, said to them,

866
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:56,000
"You're free to come and use us anywhere
you want or anytime you want to."

867
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:58,720
In fact, there's nothing for the
public school for them to do there.

868
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:01,720
These are, by now, two extraordinarily
accomplished musicians,

869
01:04:01,720 --> 01:04:05,480
and they spent six, seven, eight,
nine, ten hours a day working on music.

870
01:04:05,480 --> 01:04:07,440
What in the world are they going to do?

871
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:09,520
What has school got to offer them?

872
01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:13,800
But if you were very interested in
the kinds of things that are likely

873
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:17,280
to be done at school, or something that
needed more people – let's say drama,

874
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:20,880
which is a hard thing to do in small groups –

875
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:29,720
well, then it might be very
interesting for you to.

876
01:04:29,720 --> 01:04:33,480
So if these resources were there, we'd
say to people, children, their parents,

877
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:36,200
"Those of you who want to use
them a lot, use them a lot.

878
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:39,680
Those of you who want to use them
occasionally, use them occasionally.

879
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:45,040
I wouldn't try to make that decision for anybody.

880
01:04:45,040 --> 01:04:51,240
I think most homeschoolers would be very
glad to have some kind of gathering resource.

881
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:55,080
One of the advantages of such a place
is that, of course, a gang of people can

882
01:04:56,360 --> 01:05:00,880
get together and buy things which none of
them by themselves might be able to afford,

883
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:02,200
– make sufficient use of.

884
01:05:02,200 --> 01:05:05,120
Well, they can do it now, but the
question is then, "Whose house is it at?"

885
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:07,400
There get to be problems like that.

886
01:05:08,120 --> 01:05:12,960
If there is a central gathering and
meeting place, well that's all the handier.

887
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:19,200
Now, one of the reasons that I went from thinking
about alternative schools to thinking about

888
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:26,440
homeschooling is that most of the alternative
schools, in the sense that we're using it here –

889
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:28,680
I mean, the word has gotten so fuzzed up in the

890
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:32,200
public-education system that it
no longer has any real meaning.

891
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:34,840
Most of the true alternative
schools of the late '60s and

892
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:38,240
the early '70s have long since
gone, mostly for lack of money.

893
01:05:38,800 --> 01:05:46,360
You know how hard a struggle it is, even
with Sri Lankan wages. [inaudible]. [Laugha]

894
01:05:46,360 --> 01:05:51,600
Even with those kinds of sacrifices,
very few schools were ingenious enough,

895
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:54,880
or resourceful, or lucky,
or whatever to keep going.

896
01:05:54,880 --> 01:05:56,600
We had a gang up in the Boston area.

897
01:05:56,600 --> 01:06:01,800
I don't think one – maybe one,
right? – they've all disappeared.

898
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:03,240
A lot of them were doing wonderful work.

899
01:06:03,240 --> 01:06:09,320
So I began thinking, what can people do who

900
01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:13,000
are not able to get one of these
places going and keep it together?

901
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:17,920
I suppose one of the things we have to learn is
how can we do this in a way that costs less money

902
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:23,680
without starving and not going into Ethiopian
wages, or something like that. [Laughter]

903
01:06:23,680 --> 01:06:25,560
We don't want to do that.

904
01:06:27,320 --> 01:06:29,840
All right, now I'm going to do a
little number thing with hands,

905
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:33,640
just so I don't forget, or so
we keep some kind of order.

906
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:34,720
Is it one here?

907
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:38,109
Did you all thought on – ?

908
01:06:38,109 --> 01:06:38,160
Woman: I'm going to ask a question.
John: All right.

909
01:06:38,160 --> 01:06:38,920
You'll be number one.

910
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:42,000
And the second – all right, second here.

911
01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:43,520
Third here.

912
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:44,520
Fourth.

913
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:47,840
Lady in the red dress shirt.

914
01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:48,600
Okay.

915
01:06:49,720 --> 01:06:50,320
All right.

916
01:06:50,320 --> 01:06:55,880
Five.

917
01:06:55,880 --> 01:06:57,640
Okay.
Now, you have to remember.

918
01:06:57,640 --> 01:06:58,320
Six?

919
01:06:58,320 --> 01:06:58,600
Okay.

920
01:06:58,600 --> 01:07:02,500
You have to remember your numbers, and you
have to remember where I am in the numbers,

921
01:07:02,500 --> 01:07:06,310
because I'm not going to remember
either of those things. [Laughter]

922
01:07:06,310 --> 01:07:09,560
All right.
{I have quite –}

923
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:10,269
Yes.

924
01:07:10,269 --> 01:07:12,080
Woman: I'm number one.

925
01:07:12,080 --> 01:07:18,194
If our children are most interested in the
things that we are most interested in –

926
01:07:18,194 --> 01:07:19,060
John: They aren't hearing you.

927
01:07:19,060 --> 01:07:19,940
Woman: They're not hearing?

928
01:07:19,940 --> 01:07:21,913
John: No way in the world. [Laughter]

929
01:07:21,913 --> 01:07:22,540
Woman: Okay.

930
01:07:22,540 --> 01:07:24,240
John: Got to sing out.

931
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:24,840
Woman: Okay.

932
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:28,056
John: I mean, it is possible.

933
01:07:28,056 --> 01:07:29,520
Second Woman: There are a lot of people here.

934
01:07:29,520 --> 01:07:33,880
Woman: If our children are most interested
in the things that we are most interested in,

935
01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:38,674
are we not then as homeschoolers
rearing lopsided children? And –

936
01:07:38,674 --> 01:07:40,222
John: Everybody's lopsided.

937
01:07:40,222 --> 01:07:41,000
Woman: Okay.
John: I'm lopsided.

938
01:07:41,000 --> 01:07:41,680
You're lopsided.

939
01:07:41,680 --> 01:07:45,113
All God's children are lopsided. [Laughter]

940
01:07:45,113 --> 01:07:46,600
Woman: And will they fill out?

941
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:47,880
John: Yeah.

942
01:07:47,880 --> 01:07:48,360
Woman: Okay.

943
01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:49,680
John: That doesn't mean to say they're going to

944
01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:52,960
wind up knowing everything about
everything, because nobody does.

945
01:07:52,960 --> 01:07:55,120
But your life is not just you.

946
01:07:55,120 --> 01:07:55,960
You've got friends.

947
01:07:55,960 --> 01:07:56,640
They come here.

948
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:57,360
You know people.

949
01:07:57,360 --> 01:07:59,280
They have interests.

950
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:03,600
The child lives in a kind of bunch
of concentric circles of family,

951
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:10,280
and then larger family, and close friends
of family, and neighbors, streets.

952
01:08:10,280 --> 01:08:13,520
And this world, as I say, has
many different layers in it.

953
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:19,960
And some of your children may meet people
who happen to be very interested in things

954
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:23,080
that you're not much interested in,
and they may pick up that interest.

955
01:08:23,080 --> 01:08:25,040
That's okay.

956
01:08:25,040 --> 01:08:29,120
As long as – as I say, as long
as – as far as we're able to,

957
01:08:29,120 --> 01:08:33,920
we make it possible for children to move into
the world in whatever ways they want to do it,

958
01:08:33,920 --> 01:08:35,120
they're going to find enough there.

959
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:37,160
Nobody's going to die of starvation.

960
01:08:37,160 --> 01:08:39,480
I don't care whether you live on an isolated farm,

961
01:08:39,480 --> 01:08:42,920
or this sterile suburb that
everybody loves to talk about,

962
01:08:42,920 --> 01:08:50,240
or the wicked big city that I live in, the
fact is that human life, as people live it,

963
01:08:50,240 --> 01:08:56,080
has got more than enough food for thought
for children to bite into and to grow.

964
01:08:56,080 --> 01:09:04,120
As they feel the need of more, they're going
to know more about where to go to look for it.

965
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:04,480
All right.

966
01:09:04,480 --> 01:09:07,000
Now, let's see, two?

967
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:12,630
Woman: May I just say to my friends
here that wait until they get married.

968
01:09:12,630 --> 01:09:13,020
John: The children.

969
01:09:13,020 --> 01:09:15,000
Woman: Right, then their lives will widen up.

970
01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:17,120
I just had – our first just did.

971
01:09:17,120 --> 01:09:19,640
I'm still at homeschooling with a six-year-old.

972
01:09:19,640 --> 01:09:20,800
I just want to thank you, John,

973
01:09:20,800 --> 01:09:24,200
from my heart for having helped us very much here.

974
01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:25,720
And I don't have a question.

975
01:09:25,720 --> 01:09:29,680
But I wanted to tell you that today my
sister-in-law had to hang up the phone

976
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:34,080
in order to go across the street
to walk her third-grader home

977
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:38,280
because she has been molested
within 400 feet of her own home.

978
01:09:38,280 --> 01:09:42,240
And this doesn't even state how I feel
about the fact that they're not learning

979
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:48,040
going to these places that are supposed to
be teaching – or pouring it in, as you say.

980
01:09:48,600 --> 01:09:53,560
I don't think that we have to defend ourselves
any more than if you're walking down the street

981
01:09:53,560 --> 01:09:55,400
and someone starts to kill you,

982
01:09:55,400 --> 01:09:59,960
because I believe taking my children out of
the public school system saved their lives,

983
01:09:59,960 --> 01:10:05,200
not to speak morally, religiously,
mentally – every way possible.

984
01:10:05,200 --> 01:10:11,480
And I appreciated the story in GWS about the
little girl who was diagnosed as terminally ill

985
01:10:11,480 --> 01:10:18,160
because this was worth all pennies I
paid the pink wage we pay you for GWS.

986
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:25,354
Thank you, John, very much. [Applause]

987
01:10:25,354 --> 01:10:25,480
John: You're very welcome. [Applause]

988
01:10:25,480 --> 01:10:27,920
We had an interesting story
in the Globe the other day.

989
01:10:29,440 --> 01:10:30,520
I cut out the clipping.

990
01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:33,600
We always have about three times
as much stuff to print in GWS as

991
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:37,400
we ever have room to print, which is frustrating.

992
01:10:37,400 --> 01:10:46,720
This was about a young man, he's now
18, and he was autistic, which is,

993
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:52,560
to this day by the supposed
official experts, called incurable.

994
01:10:52,560 --> 01:10:54,800
Autistic, retarded, they're not the same thing.

995
01:10:54,800 --> 01:10:58,475
I mean, he just had a whole bunch
of these labels stuck on him.

996
01:10:58,475 --> 01:11:01,560
It's just hopeless –
"vegetable,"institutionalized."

997
01:11:01,560 --> 01:11:05,800
If you can get him in and out of the bathroom,
that's probably as much as you can do.

998
01:11:08,000 --> 01:11:13,040
And somebody got interested in this
boy when he was seven or eight,

999
01:11:13,040 --> 01:11:18,240
and noticed that he seemed pretty
energetic and lively, and liked moving,

1000
01:11:18,240 --> 01:11:24,080
and they got him started
running – and running distances.

1001
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:29,920
Took him on long runs or this, that, the other
– and they got him into this running world.

1002
01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:32,280
The boy's now 18, I think.

1003
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:33,640
I don't remember whether this was because he

1004
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:36,080
was getting ready to run in
the Boston Marathon or not.

1005
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:38,560
But at any rate, he's become
an extremely good runner.

1006
01:11:39,760 --> 01:11:47,960
Incidentally, he has not caught up with his age,
but he talks intelligently and intelligibly,

1007
01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:50,120
reads, I don't know, something
on a 6th, 7th grade level.

1008
01:11:50,120 --> 01:11:51,280
But all this is going up.

1009
01:11:52,480 --> 01:11:55,960
He's become a fully-functioning human being –

1010
01:11:55,960 --> 01:12:02,600
because he was allowed and helped to do the
things that he liked best. {I mean, that's –}

1011
01:12:02,600 --> 01:12:05,240
People grow through their
strengths, not their weaknesses.

1012
01:12:05,240 --> 01:12:10,840
One of the many simple truths, which the
giant educational, psychological, medical,

1013
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:14,320
et cetera, institutions don't seem to
be able to learn is just that, that:

1014
01:12:14,320 --> 01:12:17,560
people learn by and grow through their strengths,

1015
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:20,840
not by having people pound
away at their weaknesses.

1016
01:12:20,840 --> 01:12:26,160
Somebody had the wit and imagination to see
that this boy had a talent, a gift, a love,

1017
01:12:26,160 --> 01:12:32,680
something he wanted to do, and then all
this other stuff kind of went along with it.

1018
01:12:32,680 --> 01:12:37,836
Well, we know that, and they don't
know it out there, [Chuckles]

1019
01:12:37,836 --> 01:12:42,840
and it's going to be a long time
before they do – which is interesting.

1020
01:12:42,840 --> 01:12:44,400
Okay, now let's see.

1021
01:12:44,400 --> 01:12:45,880
Yes.

1022
01:12:45,880 --> 01:12:50,760
Woman: I have a lot of resentment
against my public school education

1023
01:12:50,760 --> 01:12:54,000
and further education here at
the University of Michigan,

1024
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:58,680
although I learned, as you said, to play
the games very well and got good grades,

1025
01:12:58,680 --> 01:13:04,240
but felt that I didn't develop a lot of interest,
because I was too busy playing the games.

1026
01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:09,560
But I wondered how you'd answer the
question, if I hear you correctly,

1027
01:13:09,560 --> 01:13:14,240
that you allow a child to
choose what he wants to learn.

1028
01:13:14,240 --> 01:13:20,200
I can't imagine how a person would ever
choose to learn things like trigonometry

1029
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:23,600
or things that they say maybe
later that you're going to need.

1030
01:13:23,600 --> 01:13:26,880
John: Well, you will need
trigonometry if you're a surveyor,

1031
01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:29,560
in no other place [inaudible].{And that's}

1032
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:30,380
I'm glad you picked that.

1033
01:13:30,380 --> 01:13:33,924
Woman: Well, I didn't take trigonometry,
but the algebra I've used, for example.

1034
01:13:33,924 --> 01:13:33,953
John: Now, now [inaudible –

1035
01:13:33,953 --> 01:13:36,760
Woman: I didn't enjoy learning
it, but I've used it a lot.

1036
01:13:36,760 --> 01:13:37,400
John: Okay.

1037
01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:41,240
Well, if you had not learned it, and
if you got to a place in life where

1038
01:13:41,240 --> 01:13:45,040
you needed it to do something you wanted to
do, then you would learn it very quickly.

1039
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:46,200
It's no mystery.

1040
01:13:46,200 --> 01:13:47,080
It's not hidden.

1041
01:13:47,080 --> 01:13:48,753
The time to learn stuff is –

1042
01:13:48,753 --> 01:13:50,907
Woman: So you learn things when you need them,

1043
01:13:50,907 --> 01:13:53,222
not when the school system
says, "This is geometry year."

1044
01:13:53,222 --> 01:13:54,320
John: Right.
John: Right, right.

1045
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:56,560
You learn things when you –

1046
01:13:56,560 --> 01:13:58,320
As a species, as a living creature,

1047
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:02,840
we human beings are incredibly good
at learning stuff when we need to,

1048
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 –

1049
01:14:06,960 --> 01:14:10,040
which, unfortunately, in a
great many places, does happen.

1050
01:14:10,040 --> 01:14:12,200
Man: I don't know who you're on right now,

1051
01:14:12,200 --> 01:14:15,080
but I just want to point out that
I'm enjoying learning algebra.

1052
01:14:15,080 --> 01:14:19,976
I'm alternatively educated.

1053
01:14:19,976 --> 01:14:20,880
Woman: [Inaudible]
John: Good.

1054
01:14:20,880 --> 01:14:21,460
And thank you.

1055
01:14:21,460 --> 01:14:23,160
Woman: What kind of school are you in now?

1056
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:28,440
Man: Well, actually, it's a public school, but
it's an attempt at being an alternative school.

1057
01:14:28,440 --> 01:14:31,360
And it's not as close as the
school I went to before it,

1058
01:14:32,960 --> 01:14:37,600
but it's closer than the standard public schools,

1059
01:14:37,600 --> 01:14:40,400
and it has the atmosphere
of an alternative school.

1060
01:14:40,400 --> 01:14:50,680
But many of our classes are
chosen, I mean, rather than –

1061
01:14:50,680 --> 01:14:53,640
Beyond the state requirements that
the public schools have to follow,

1062
01:14:53,640 --> 01:14:54,640
most of our classes are chosen.

1063
01:14:54,640 --> 01:14:59,040
Woman: Do you have friends in public
school, regular public school?

1064
01:14:59,040 --> 01:15:03,600
What I wonder is if you feel, in comparison,
that you're getting a far better education.

1065
01:15:03,600 --> 01:15:04,782
Man: Well, the --

1066
01:15:04,782 --> 01:15:05,100
Woman: Obviously, you do.

1067
01:15:05,100 --> 01:15:08,280
Man: I was in the public schools until 7th grade.

1068
01:15:08,280 --> 01:15:10,360
And 7th grade, I jumped around,

1069
01:15:10,360 --> 01:15:15,320
and it was because of just all sorts of
problems I was having in public schools.

1070
01:15:15,320 --> 01:15:16,040
[Inaudible]

1071
01:15:18,560 --> 01:15:24,960
Yeah, I think my education, since I've gone into
alternative schools, has been infinitely better.

1072
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:25,520
John: Good.

1073
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:27,280
Well, I'm glad to hear that.

1074
01:15:27,280 --> 01:15:33,240
But I do want to make clear, as far as
I'm concerned, I'm not trying to make,

1075
01:15:33,240 --> 01:15:36,600
never have tried to make a
distinction between public

1076
01:15:36,600 --> 01:15:39,040
and conventional private schools.;{One of them, }

1077
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:46,960
If you remember "How Children Fail," you'll
remember that somewhere along in the book I wrote,

1078
01:15:46,960 --> 01:15:51,240
"School is a place where children
learn to be stupid." [Laughter]

1079
01:15:51,240 --> 01:15:53,720
Now, let me tell you about the
school about which I was writing.

1080
01:15:53,720 --> 01:15:59,480
I was not writing about some poor old
PS 111 in the middle of the downtown,

1081
01:15:59,480 --> 01:16:03,680
I was talking about an extremely exclusive,

1082
01:16:03,680 --> 01:16:07,400
high-powered, selective,
private elementary school,

1083
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:09,600
one of the two or three outstanding such schools

1084
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:12,480
in the whole Boston-Cambridge area –

1085
01:16:12,480 --> 01:16:16,640
the top of the top of the top of the top!

1086
01:16:16,640 --> 01:16:21,440
They had an admissions policy under
which a kid could not get into the school

1087
01:16:21,440 --> 01:16:24,520
if she or he did not have an IQ of 120.

1088
01:16:24,520 --> 01:16:27,120
That was the cut-off.

1089
01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:31,200
It was at that school that I wrote,

1090
01:16:31,200 --> 01:16:33,760
"School is a place where
children learn to be stupid."

1091
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:36,680
So I'm not drawing a line – never have drawn it.

1092
01:16:36,680 --> 01:16:38,360
I'm not drawing it here saying,

1093
01:16:38,360 --> 01:16:42,640
"Ooh, look at all these terrible, rotten public
schools on one-sided. Ooh, look at these –"

1094
01:16:42,640 --> 01:16:48,200
What I was saying then is that what I came to
realize in that school with these kids is that

1095
01:16:48,200 --> 01:16:54,160
you cannot coerce learning or attempt to
coerce it without making people stupid –

1096
01:16:54,160 --> 01:16:57,960
without making them afraid,
shifty, evasive, clever tricksters.

1097
01:16:57,960 --> 01:17:01,960
Yeah, the cleverest tricksters,
they'll sail on to Harvard, MIT, Yale –

1098
01:17:01,960 --> 01:17:07,040
I did that game – dope out
the teacher, guess the exam.

1099
01:17:07,040 --> 01:17:09,680
Everybody knows how it goes.

1100
01:17:09,680 --> 01:17:12,840
And everybody who does it knows
that 90% of that stuff you throw

1101
01:17:12,840 --> 01:17:17,120
out just like dirty dishwater
as soon as the exam is passed.

1102
01:17:17,120 --> 01:17:20,960
How many people on any university
faculty could pass an exam –

1103
01:17:20,960 --> 01:17:28,440
other than, perhaps basic English reading
and writing – outside of their own specialty?

1104
01:17:28,440 --> 01:17:33,720
I mean, just very, very few – and they know it.

1105
01:17:33,720 --> 01:17:36,160
I mean, this idea that there's some great body

1106
01:17:36,160 --> 01:17:38,960
of knowledge which they all
share – it's just nonsense!

1107
01:17:38,960 --> 01:17:40,440
Never was true, not true now.

1108
01:17:40,440 --> 01:17:42,120
It's a fraud.

1109
01:17:42,960 --> 01:17:44,640
I mean, I have a lot of people say it sincerely.

1110
01:17:44,640 --> 01:17:46,960
I don't think they're lying
when they say it, but I mean,

1111
01:17:46,960 --> 01:17:49,440
it's a fraud because it's just not so!

1112
01:17:49,440 --> 01:17:53,880
Nobody remembers that stuff.

1113
01:17:53,880 --> 01:18:00,440
Harvard University, if you're taking
some big course, they announce an exam.

1114
01:18:00,440 --> 01:18:05,640
Some professor's going to have an exam in
his or her course, professor announces it.

1115
01:18:05,640 --> 01:18:10,280
"We will have such an exam on such and such a day,
and it will cover such and such and such a topic."

1116
01:18:10,280 --> 01:18:14,600
And then you spend a certain amount
of time discussing this in review.

1117
01:18:14,600 --> 01:18:17,160
Nobody springs surprise exams on their students

1118
01:18:17,160 --> 01:18:20,800
because they know perfectly
well what would happen.

1119
01:18:20,800 --> 01:18:24,815
No, it's a very –

1120
01:18:24,815 --> 01:18:25,840
All right.
I'll get out of that.

1121
01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:29,200
I'll go on all night. [Laughter]

1122
01:18:29,200 --> 01:18:31,360
Let's see, now, where are we at on numbers?

1123
01:18:31,360 --> 01:18:32,960
John: Yes.

1124
01:18:32,960 --> 01:18:36,971
Dorothy: I'm the 4th.

1125
01:18:36,971 --> 01:18:36,982
John: Good.

1126
01:18:36,982 --> 01:18:40,480
Dorothy: I'm help coordinate a
homeschooling support group in Chicago.

1127
01:18:40,480 --> 01:18:49,560
And I'm noticing more and more the split
that you have alluded to in homeschoolin

1128
01:18:49,560 --> 01:18:54,480
g as well between those who wish to
coerce learning and those who don't.

1129
01:18:54,480 --> 01:19:00,720
And those who do are very much
interested, as it happens in Illinois,

1130
01:19:00,720 --> 01:19:04,600
in keeping those of us who don't want to coerce in

1131
01:19:04,600 --> 01:19:09,960
a semblance of unity with
them vis-à-vis the state.

1132
01:19:09,960 --> 01:19:13,920
And it's becoming more and more
difficult, I think, for that to happen.

1133
01:19:13,920 --> 01:19:17,520
And I wonder if you would
comment on that, and also on –

1134
01:19:17,520 --> 01:19:20,720
There's a definite one-way
flow of energy happening

1135
01:19:20,720 --> 01:19:31,280
because those of us who do not wish to coerce give
support and assistance very often to those who do,

1136
01:19:32,920 --> 01:19:35,760
because they believe they
have the right to choose.

1137
01:19:35,760 --> 01:19:41,280
And those who wish to coerce really don't think
that the rest of us do have the right because,

1138
01:19:41,280 --> 01:19:43,480
"We're not doing it the right way, you see."

1139
01:19:43,480 --> 01:19:46,880
So, would you comment on that? {I don't – }

1140
01:19:46,880 --> 01:19:51,400
This is not a problem I want solved
because I don't see it being [inaudible]

1141
01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:52,948
John: That's good, because it's –

1142
01:19:52,948 --> 01:19:53,880
Dorothy: -- we're not going to do that.

1143
01:19:53,880 --> 01:19:56,720
But I would like a comment
from you, if you will, on that,

1144
01:19:56,720 --> 01:20:01,320
especially vis-à-vis legislation
and that sort of thing,

1145
01:20:01,320 --> 01:20:07,000
when our interests tend to be
moving further and further apart.

1146
01:20:07,000 --> 01:20:12,354
And what would you think we should
do in terms of strategies about this?

1147
01:20:12,354 --> 01:20:13,840
John: Thank you, Dorothy.

1148
01:20:15,400 --> 01:20:18,000
I first think of something a
friend of mine used to say.

1149
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:23,973
"This isn't a problem, it's a predicament."

1150
01:20:23,973 --> 01:20:24,960
Dorothy: Right. [Laughter] {Problems are –}

1151
01:20:24,960 --> 01:20:29,560
John: The word "problem" kind of cooks
up in our mind the picture of something

1152
01:20:29,560 --> 01:20:32,880
which we could make go away if we could
just figure out the right thing to do.

1153
01:20:33,440 --> 01:20:38,280
Things like debt and taxes are predicaments,
and they're just part of reality.

1154
01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:41,680
Yeah, this is a part of reality,
and we are living with it,

1155
01:20:41,680 --> 01:20:46,840
and we're going to be living with it
as far in the future as I can see.

1156
01:20:47,400 --> 01:20:50,640
It doesn't trouble me that –

1157
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:54,400
{I'm going to answer} – I'm going
to respond in several sections.

1158
01:20:54,400 --> 01:20:59,000
First place, I don't think it's a
cause for worry or concern or distress

1159
01:20:59,000 --> 01:21:05,740
that we may be helping people to get
rights which they would not help us to get.

1160
01:21:05,740 --> 01:21:09,954
Dorothy: I'm not worried about that.{I mean, if –}

1161
01:21:09,954 --> 01:21:13,640
John: Now, there's no reason in the
world not to work together with people

1162
01:21:13,640 --> 01:21:19,120
with whom we disagree about many things
on those things about which we agree.

1163
01:21:19,120 --> 01:21:25,160
Because when we improve the legislative situation,
then we've made things easier for all of us.

1164
01:21:25,160 --> 01:21:33,760
{And there are – the other thing I would have –}

1165
01:21:33,760 --> 01:21:39,360
Another thing I would have to
say is – well, first of all,

1166
01:21:39,360 --> 01:21:43,820
a lot of the people who begin as
coercive homeschoolers change.

1167
01:21:43,820 --> 01:21:46,434
Dorothy: I've seen a lot of that [inaudible].

1168
01:21:46,434 --> 01:21:51,640
John: Their children teach them [laughter]
about how learning really works.

1169
01:21:51,640 --> 01:21:55,520
And if – and this is very, very
often true – if they care enough

1170
01:21:55,520 --> 01:21:58,880
about their children to pay
attention to their feelings

1171
01:21:58,880 --> 01:22:04,640
and pick up these messages, they become educated,

1172
01:22:04,640 --> 01:22:11,320
and they become less and less
coercive – minimally coercive.

1173
01:22:11,320 --> 01:22:13,840
My experience is that the people
who do not make that change

1174
01:22:13,840 --> 01:22:17,280
don't stay in homeschooling very long.

1175
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:21,360
That is, people who – whether
for reasons religious or other,

1176
01:22:21,360 --> 01:22:24,680
believe in high-pressure coercion,

1177
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:27,880
soon find ways to get together with
other people who feel the same way

1178
01:22:27,880 --> 01:22:30,000
and they start some kind of coercive school.

1179
01:22:30,000 --> 01:22:34,600
I don't think you're very likely
to find people doing coercive

1180
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:37,720
homeschooling for four or five years in a row.

1181
01:22:37,720 --> 01:22:39,480
I mean, their children would hit the road,

1182
01:22:39,480 --> 01:22:47,156
if nothing else happened.
[Laughter] {So, I'm perfectly –}

1183
01:22:47,156 --> 01:22:53,920
I'm untroubled by having people start in
a position which is very far from my own,

1184
01:22:53,920 --> 01:22:55,760
partly because I believe people should have the

1185
01:22:55,760 --> 01:22:58,640
right to do this however they want to
do it, not just if they agree with me,

1186
01:22:58,640 --> 01:23:01,400
and partly because I have a
lot of confidence, as I say,

1187
01:23:01,400 --> 01:23:05,800
that they will learn from their children,
that they will move away from coercion.

1188
01:23:05,800 --> 01:23:11,760
As I have said at teachers' colleges, one
reason homeschooling works well in practice

1189
01:23:11,760 --> 01:23:17,720
is that the home is an absolutely splendid
teacher-training institution. [Laughter]

1190
01:23:17,720 --> 01:23:24,600
The numbers are small enough so you can really
hear the messages that your children are sending.

1191
01:23:24,600 --> 01:23:29,000
And you're in a position where, if you
choose to, you can learn from them.

1192
01:23:29,000 --> 01:23:32,240
When I first discovered, as a
fifth-grade classroom teacher,

1193
01:23:32,240 --> 01:23:36,600
that a lot of children were so scared
of the weekly arithmetic test

1194
01:23:36,600 --> 01:23:40,480
that they couldn't think about
arithmetic, I stopped giving the tests.

1195
01:23:40,480 --> 01:23:42,320
And it wasn't more than about two weeks before the

1196
01:23:42,320 --> 01:23:45,120
school administration told me that
I had to start giving them again,

1197
01:23:45,120 --> 01:23:48,560
and they fired me at the end of the year.

1198
01:23:48,560 --> 01:23:52,160
So I was not in a position
to do what my conscience and

1199
01:23:52,160 --> 01:23:55,120
intelligence and instincts
told me needed to be done.

1200
01:23:55,120 --> 01:23:56,960
Parents aren't in that position.

1201
01:23:56,960 --> 01:23:58,400
"You can start with a little desk,

1202
01:23:58,400 --> 01:24:03,640
an American flag, a schedule on
the blackboard and – [Laughter]

1203
01:24:03,640 --> 01:24:06,080
But the day you find out it
isn't working, you can say,

1204
01:24:06,080 --> 01:24:07,640
"We're going to do something different."

1205
01:24:07,640 --> 01:24:11,485
You have that freedom to move very, very –

1206
01:24:11,485 --> 01:24:12,829
[End of recording]