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

2
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"How Children Fail,"
"Teach Your Own."

3
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You may have had
an opportunity to see,

4
00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:15,040
lots of times on tour, him talking
on television or on the radio,

5
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John Holt, who's probably the best-known,
most vocal commentator on unschooling,

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00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:26,760
and particularly home-based education,
in the country right now.

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

8
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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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00:00:44,109 --> 00:00:45,080
John Holt: Well,
thanks very much.

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

13
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Someday maybe,
but not yet.

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How many people
still remember

15
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those instructions
about how to get to this – ?

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

17
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We were talking about parking,
and something popped into my head.

18
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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

26
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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.

31
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Just wave your hand or say hi.
[Laughter]

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John Boston: Hi.
[Applause]

33
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John: I want to talk about
a number of things tonight.

34
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And first of all though,
I'm probably saying things

35
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that you've heard me
say before or read.

36
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Now, this young man has the right idea
about how to dress for this meeting.

37
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[Laughter]

38
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Oh, but I guess,
even before I get into

39
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what you might call
the body of this formal address,

40
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I want to ask just a few questions
to locate the audience.

41
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And perhaps one way to start
would be by saying,

42
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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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Woman: Sure.
John: Thank you.

45
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Experience has taught me
the good things to bring with little kids,

46
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and I love to bring bags of it –
get it all out. [Laughter]

47
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This young man is divesting himself
of his coveralls. [Laughter]

48
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I think, very smart.

49
00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:31,960
Now, how many of you
are working with,

50
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in one capacity or another,
alternative schools?

51
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All right.
Thank you very much.

52
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And another question.

53
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How many of you are now
parents of school-aged kids?

54
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Good.
All right.

55
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How many of
those of you

56
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who are parents of school-aged kids
are sending them to alternative schools?

57
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All right.

58
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How many of you
are teaching them at home?

59
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Big crowd.

60
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Now, 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

64
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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's 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 working with –

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– with public schools
or colleges or universities,

72
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let's say, in one
capacity or another?

73
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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-schooled children?

77
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Okay.

78
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Grandparents are a very
important ingredient in this situation.

79
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There are homeschoolers who are
having just about as much with –

80
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Small child: Hi.
John: Hi.

81
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How are you doing?

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Child: Hi. Hi.
John: Hi.

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The famous Jimmy Durante said:

84
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"Everybody's trying to
get into the act!" [Laughter]

85
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There are folks who are having
about as much trouble with grandparents

86
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as they are with superintendents.
[Laughter]

87
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So, it's extremely important to have
friendly and supportive grandparents

88
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in this alternative-education movement.

89
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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

91
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about children and learning now
for going on 25 years or more.

92
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As a result of my experiences,

93
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first of all as a classroom teacher
working in just about every grade,

94
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sometimes, say,
K through G.

95
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I did a little college and
graduate school teaching –

96
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not very much.

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K through 12 might be
a little more accurate.

98
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But as a result of,
on the one hand,

99
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working with children in
more or less conventional classrooms,

100
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and on the other hand,
spending a lot of time

101
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with babies, infants,
little children –

102
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first my sisters',

103
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then the children of other people,
little children in nursery schools,

104
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and since then, many children
of homeschooling parents –

105
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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 –

108
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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're hungry –
and eating, feeding, nursing,

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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 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,
say, the interior of Japan

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or some exotic part of the world
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 –
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.

151
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And a lot of us would
never learn any of it.

152
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Many of us would
never know it.

153
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Just the problems of learning something
totally new without any assistance with it.

154
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No, they get it first.

155
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But we all know that
when we think about it.

156
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They're extremely
good at it.

157
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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

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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.

162
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I was probably a good example
of what's called a gifted teacher –

163
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motivating, clever at devices,
good at explaining,

164
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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.

172
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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.

182
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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.

184
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The things that they do
to create knowledge out of experience,

185
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which is what learning is,

186
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are exactly the same as the things
that the people we think of as scientists

187
00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:07,640
do in their laboratory.

188
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When they do them, perhaps,
there are some differences.

189
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They are probably
a good deal less self-conscious.

190
00:13:12,300 --> 00:13:14,360
A scientist will probably have

191
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a pretty clear idea of what
she or he is looking for,

192
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whereas little kids
are not doing it in that way.

193
00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:23,480
Nevertheless, they
do the same things.

194
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:28,400
The first is they observe,
they take in data.

195
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And the second is that
they wonder about it.

196
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:39,716
And the third is that they ask
themselves questions about it.

197
00:13:39,716 --> 00:13:41,040
The second and third
are pretty close.

198
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And then, they begin to
make up theories, invent theories,

199
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:49,840
maybe that the wind blows because
the trees are moving their branches,

200
00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:56,840
which, on the face of it,
is not a bad theory.

201
00:13:56,840 --> 00:14:00,800
And then, they test these theories
with observation, maybe with questions,

202
00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:07,940
LL maybe with experiments, some of which we
may welcome and others of which we may not.

203
00:14:07,940 --> 00:14:13,880
In this connection, I think of the most
recent visit to my house of Anna Vandoren,

204
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:16,800
of whom you may have read in
"Growing Without Schooling."

205
00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:20,920
Anna's going to be four in June.

206
00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:23,720
We were in the apartment.

207
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:25,520
Her mother and I
were doing various kinds of work.

208
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:28,600
Her little guy seemed not to be
getting in any physical trouble.

209
00:14:28,600 --> 00:14:30,120
And when the time
came to leave,

210
00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:33,840
I have a door with one of
those push-button locks on it.

211
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:41,200
And as I was leaving, I reached in to push
the lock, and my thumb fell into a hole.

212
00:14:41,200 --> 00:14:43,080
Well, this feels
kind of funny.

213
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:47,320
And I looked, and
the push lock wasn't there,

214
00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:49,840
and it was sitting
on the floor.

215
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:52,920
I said, "Anna, you've taken
the lock out of my doorknob!"

216
00:14:52,920 --> 00:14:59,040
It took me about four or five minutes
to figure out how to get it back in.

217
00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:04,600
Children tend to like to do
experiments right up into the point

218
00:15:04,600 --> 00:15:07,040
where no further
experimenting is possible,

219
00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:09,680
I guess you could say, –
up to the disaster limit.

220
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:16,840
And it's very good on learning, but it's
sometimes tough on the lab. [Laughter]

221
00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:20,480
So these experiments are not always
welcome, but nevertheless, they do them.

222
00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:23,680
And then, as a result of
what they find out,

223
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:27,360
they give up their theories,
modify them, change them.

224
00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:30,960
Let's see.

225
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:35,720
Has the GWS gone out which talks about
my little friend Helen saying, "gocks?"

226
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,964
Or is that 44?

227
00:15:39,964 --> 00:15:40,010
Maybe you haven't received it yet.
Woman: Yeah.

228
00:15:40,010 --> 00:15:40,033
Woman: It just arrived.

229
00:15:40,033 --> 00:15:43,480
John : All right.
So here's Helen Vandoren.

230
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:46,080
Actually, her full name is
Helen Maria-Holt Vandoren.

231
00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:50,600
I had two schools and
one baby named after me. [Laughter]

232
00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:58,982
One of the schools is defunct,
but the baby is fine. [Laughter]

233
00:15:58,982 --> 00:16:00,920
At any rate.

234
00:16:00,920 --> 00:16:06,520
Helen has been, for some time,
using the word "gocks" to say socks.

235
00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:10,680
And this is a mystery to us because
she knows how to say the sound "sss,"

236
00:16:10,680 --> 00:16:12,440
and says it in lots
of other connections.

237
00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:15,240
Indeed, it was one of
the first sounds she said,

238
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:20,520
and it had multiple meanings,
including that she wanted to nurse.

239
00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:25,860
We simply could not imagine where
she got the idea of saying gocks.

240
00:16:25,860 --> 00:16:27,960
She never heard
anybody say it, obviously.

241
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:28,600
No imitation.

242
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:33,360
Her sister had
never said it.

243
00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:36,160
If you think of the way sounds
are produced in the mouth and throat,

244
00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:38,720
S and G are
not at all alike.

245
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:42,980
It's not
a small difference.

246
00:16:42,980 --> 00:16:48,800
At any rate, she must have had some
kind of theory about why she wanted

247
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:52,800
to do it this way and not some
other way – and it was a theory.

248
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,

249
00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,120
we were all in the office,

250
00:16:59,120 --> 00:17:02,560
and it was time for
the Vandoren family to go home,

251
00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:06,477
which means rounding up the kids' clothes,
shoes, socks, putting them on them –

252
00:17:06,477 --> 00:17:07,840
an operation
you know well.

253
00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:13,720
And we had Helen sitting on the floor
getting ready to put her socks on.

254
00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:21,470
And she looked at them thoughtfully,
and said, "Zzzzocks.

255
00:17:21,470 --> 00:17:21,480
Zzzzocks."

256
00:17:21,480 --> 00:17:23,480
I said to Mary, "Have you
ever heard her say that before?"

257
00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:27,920
Mary said,
"No, first time."

258
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:30,000
Well, I saw Mary just
a couple of days ago and said,

259
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,840
"How is the 'zocks' going?"
Has she said "gocks" since?

260
00:17:32,840 --> 00:17:33,680
"No," she said.

261
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:36,760
In fact, she's very quickly
converted the "zocks" to "socks,"

262
00:17:36,760 --> 00:17:38,880
and that's what
it is now.

263
00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:40,680
Now, why that difference,

264
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:42,520
which didn't make any
difference to her before,

265
00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:44,200
all of a sudden did
make a difference,

266
00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:47,220
I don't know, you don't know,
she doesn't know, we'll never know –

267
00:17:47,220 --> 00:17:50,200
except everybody does it.

268
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,280
All of a sudden, whatever
theory of language it was

269
00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:54,920
that caused her
to say "gocks,"

270
00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:59,320
suddenly seemed unsatisfactory,
didn't work, didn't fit –

271
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:00,840
so now she says "socks."

272
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:01,840
Well, okay.

273
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:07,480
A very small example which we
could multiply by the billions,

274
00:18:07,480 --> 00:18:09,160
and it's what
these little people do.

275
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:13,960
They are observers, makers,
testers, changers of theories.

276
00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:21,240
They are, in the strictest
sense of the word, scientists.

277
00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:24,840
And, at least
as far as learning goes,

278
00:18:24,840 --> 00:18:28,960
all they ask is to be allowed
to continue to do this.

279
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:30,480
Now, what we can do –

280
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:36,160
I come back to the point about
what can adults do to help? –

281
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:40,000
because we are, in many ways,
an essential part of this process.

282
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:43,280
I don't claim children would ever
learn to figure out how to talk

283
00:18:43,280 --> 00:18:45,240
if they were
surrounded by deaf-mutes.

284
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:50,440
It wouldn't happen.

285
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

286
00:18:59,120 --> 00:19:04,240
or coerced learning is we provide children with
–

287
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:09,720
as much as we can –
access to the world around them –

288
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:16,360
by which I mean not just places,
places that we go, places at the house,

289
00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:20,280
the kitchen, the yard, the neighborhood,
the stores, wherever we go,

290
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:24,080
but also the world of people,
the world of experience, actions,

291
00:19:24,080 --> 00:19:32,720
talk, materials, books, records,
tools, people doing things, human life.

292
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:34,400
Now, what we can do
for these little guys

293
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:38,240
is to provide them with –
as much as we reasonably can –

294
00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:39,160
I say reasonably –

295
00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:43,120
I'm not saying you have to
make your whole life into a field trip –

296
00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:48,360
as we reasonably can with access
to our own lives as we lead them.

297
00:19:48,360 --> 00:19:50,080
If you live in the woods,
that means the woods.

298
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:52,800
If you live in downtown city,
that means downtown.

299
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:55,800
I mean, wherever we live,
whatever we do,

300
00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:59,960
as far as we can,
we open up that world to children –

301
00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:02,520
let them see it,
let them be part of it –

302
00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:04,600
and we answer their questions
when they have them –

303
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:05,960
and they have lots of them.

304
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:11,507
Some of you will have discovered that
when your children are getting on --

305
00:20:11,507 --> 00:20:11,880
Small child: Hi.

306
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:13,353
John: Oh, hi again.

307
00:20:13,353 --> 00:20:20,661
Child: Hi, hi.

308
00:20:20,661 --> 00:20:20,674
John: Mm-hmm.

309
00:20:20,674 --> 00:20:22,440
John: Well, when they're
getting on to a year and a half,

310
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,520
when they're beginning to
sneak up under – into speech –

311
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,360
It will be a place where
they'll point to all kinds of things,

312
00:20:28,360 --> 00:20:33,076
and make some kind of
insistent noise: "Mmm mmm."

313
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.

314
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:40,080
They point to the clock,
they point to this, and they go,

315
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:42,360
"Mmm mmm," and people say,
"No, you can't have it."

316
00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:44,720
They don't want it~
They want to know what it's called.

317
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:46,760
They want to hear the name of it.

318
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:48,460
Simple as that~
I say simple.

319
00:20:48,460 --> 00:20:52,080
It took me quite a number of years
to figure it out. [Laughter]

320
00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:55,800
So they ask questions –

321
00:20:55,800 --> 00:21:09,040
and we can answer their questions
when they ask them –

322
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:18,480
give help if and when it is asked for,
and not too much at a time,

323
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:22,800
and give a kind of demonstration just
by our being there and our doing things –

324
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:28,520
give the kind of demonstration of
various sorts of adult skill and competence,

325
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:36,960
and pay a kind of affectionate,
respectful attention to what they're doing,

326
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:41,200
without making some
huge, big deal of it,

327
00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:43,160
and give them a kind of moral support

328
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:48,720
in this adventure of
trying to make sense of the world –

329
00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:50,720
and the best way
to give this moral support

330
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:52,600
is, in fact,
to trust them,

331
00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:57,760
to understand that they are, indeed,
passionately eager to learn about the world,

332
00:21:57,760 --> 00:22:02,320
extremely good at doing it,
and will, in fact, do it –

333
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:05,360
in their own way, in their own time.

334
00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:07,240
Not to say they're going to know
everything about everything,

335
00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:13,320
but nobody does –
and that's how we can help.

336
00:22:13,320 --> 00:22:20,680
But ours is a very minor role,
and theirs is the major one.

337
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,320
Okay, well, I'm preaching
to the converted, I know. [Chuckles]

338
00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:26,520
If you weren't already half convinced
of this, you wouldn't be here.

339
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:32,720
But I want to
say it anyway.

340
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,280
All right, now, the next part of my talk
is about something different.

341
00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:37,360
Much of this conference
has to do with the future,

342
00:22:37,360 --> 00:22:44,800
and I want to talk a little bit about the future
of homeschooling and the near-run future –

343
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:54,360
the next 10 years or so – and by extension,
to some degree, of alternative schools.

344
00:22:54,360 --> 00:22:57,496
We are –
from a legislative –

345
00:22:57,496 --> 00:22:58,440
[A woman comes forward.]
Yes?

346
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:00,921
Woman: Is it possible to ask you questions
before you go on to the next –?

347
00:23:00,921 --> 00:23:03,534
John: Yeah, yeah, sure.

348
00:23:03,535 --> 00:23:03,554
Woman: I see. Okay.

349
00:23:03,554 --> 00:23:06,000
John: Now, you don't have
all these electronics at your disposal,

350
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:22,568
so you've got to speak up –
and not too fast.

351
00:23:22,568 --> 00:23:22,639
Woman: Okay, I don't have a loud
voice, I don't know whether it carries.

352
00:23:22,639 --> 00:23:22,668
You certainly are convincing.

353
00:23:22,668 --> 00:23:22,727
I agree with what you say that
we are not going to convince.

354
00:23:22,727 --> 00:23:22,800
On that part, I'm going to disagree
in terms of people connected with you.

355
00:23:22,800 --> 00:23:26,720
But I wonder what
you have to say,

356
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:35,120
or how you feel about what I believe is
a necessity to transmute this imperative.

357
00:23:35,120 --> 00:23:41,346
And this is perhaps something
that can be picked up.

358
00:23:41,346 --> 00:23:41,393
I agree children aren't
all the same, God knows.

359
00:23:41,393 --> 00:23:53,459
But we also need, I think, some input in
terms of direction, guidance and exposure,

360
00:23:53,459 --> 00:23:53,514
and input in regard to the
heritage that is [inaudible].

361
00:23:53,514 --> 00:23:55,234
John: All right, that's a good question~
Woman: Okay.

362
00:23:55,234 --> 00:23:56,520
John: I'm familiar with it.

363
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:57,680
I've heard it.

364
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,000
I'd love to answer it, perhaps
just take out very, very briefly now,

365
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:04,520
and we can go back to it later
and spend more time on it.

366
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,480
It's extremely important,
in the first place,

367
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,640
in thinking about these things,
to use language accurately.

368
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:13,760
And we really
have to understand

369
00:24:13,760 --> 00:24:17,160
the difference between
exposure and coercion.

370
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,240
Now, there's a big difference
between putting –

371
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,240
I mean, we just
went out to dinner.

372
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,240
The Baskins, and I and Heather,
we just had dinner together.

373
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:28,240
And there was the menu,

374
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,760
and there were things
on different people's plates,

375
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,560
and we would say, "Here are
some capers in front of my veal."

376
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,600
And so we said to Heather,
"Would you like to try caper?"

377
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,520
Heather did not want to try a caper.

378
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:43,260
Well, that's exposure.

379
00:24:43,260 --> 00:24:46,880
There are different kinds of food there,
and we say, "Would you like to try some?"

380
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:47,320
"No."

381
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:47,840
"Okay."

382
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:48,340
"No."

383
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:50,520
That's not at all
the same thing as

384
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,480
putting some capers
in front of Heather and saying,

385
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:54,280
"You can't leave the table
until you've eaten them,"

386
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:55,440
or, "You can't have any dessert,"

387
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,120
or holding her by the nose
and pushing one in,

388
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:06,120
which is exposure as it is
practiced in formal education.

389
00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:08,500
There's no exposure unless
you can't say no to it.

390
00:25:08,500 --> 00:25:11,440
If you can't say no,
it's coercion.

391
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:16,240
Really very, very, very important
to understand that difference,

392
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:17,800
and it's difficult, apparently.

393
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:22,120
Now, I'm just going to
assert for the moment

394
00:25:22,120 --> 00:25:25,480
that I am opposed to
all forms of coerced –

395
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,560
or all attempts
to coerce learning.

396
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:32,980
I meant to say after I had said
that learning is not the product of teaching,

397
00:25:32,980 --> 00:25:37,840
I meant to say that teaching which
has not been asked for by the learner –

398
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:42,240
virtually without exception –
impedes and prevents learning,

399
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:48,040
and before very long will kill
most of the desire for learning itself.

400
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:54,200
I will say that forced learning
is faked learning.

401
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,960
I had the great traditions of culture,
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. –

402
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:03,520
by which I suppose we mean
Shakespeare or whatever – thrust at me.

403
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,520
I was clever about
playing the school game.

404
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:06,600
I could do that trick.

405
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,240
And so I got
my A's and B's,

406
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,040
and went to high-powered
schools and colleges, and so forth.

407
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:15,240
Most of the people who are told
to play this trick cannot play it,

408
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:21,680
don't play it well,
fail to play it altogether.

409
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:23,440
We have to understand,

410
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,760
we're going to probably have
to agree to disagree about this,

411
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,400
because nobody
is going to be –

412
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:33,040
nobody who walks into a room
believing in some kind of forced learning

413
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,480
is going to walk out of the room
not believing in it

414
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,440
because they've heard me preach
this little mini-sermon about it.

415
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,360
But I want you
to be very clear about –

416
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:43,200
And I should say,
by the way,

417
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:51,840
that I suspect that the number of
homeschoolers or alternative school people

418
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:56,360
who really agree with me
is probably well under 50%.

419
00:26:56,360 --> 00:27:02,120
I mean, I think this is a minority view,
even among homeschoolers.

420
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.

421
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,080
But I'm the one who's sitting up here 

422
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:17,520
and that's what I think. 
[Laughter] {I think - you see}

423
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:23,600
If it is part of the cultural tradition,
it is there.

424
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,760
Children are very interested
in what is there,

425
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:31,120
and they're extremely interested
in what is most interesting to us.

426
00:27:31,120 --> 00:27:34,000
And Shakespeare
is not interesting to adults,

427
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:39,600
except a handful of English teachers
who make a specialty of teaching,

428
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:42,200
and a fairly small
handful of actors

429
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,460
who every so often take a shot
at producing one of his plays.

430
00:27:45,460 --> 00:27:47,480
It usually loses money.

431
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:52,029
But other than that,
people don't read it.

432
00:27:52,029 --> 00:27:58,440
All right, I don't want to
go on too long [inaudible].

433
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:03,000
But what people really care about –
a good example is music.

434
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,920
There are not very many
households in the United States

435
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:10,360
where people read Shakespeare
just for the sheer, solid pleasure of doing it.

436
00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:12,360
They get this.

437
00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:13,800
I've just been reading
some of the plays.

438
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:15,600
So, some of
the tragedies are lovely.

439
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,040
But I don't know
anything in the world

440
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,460
less funny than Shakespeare
trying to be funny.

441
00:28:21,460 --> 00:28:23,200
Mmm!

442
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:28,600
Maybe someday, some really bold soul will
cut out those ponderous exchanges of puns.

443
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,400
It will be a great day for
the Bard when that happens.

444
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:33,560
I mean, they rolled in the aisles
when he wrote this stuff,

445
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:34,280
and he knew that.

446
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:36,840
He was a practical man
in the theater.

447
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,720
He put it in because he knew
it would make people laugh.

448
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:45,400
It doesn't make people laugh anymore,
it just makes you turn the page.

449
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,920
But there are hundreds and
hundreds of thousands of families

450
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,920
where music is
a central part of their lives,

451
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,320
as it's a central part of mine,
and in those families,

452
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:58,040
very, very few children
are indifferent to music.

453
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:02,600
Or let's say gardening
if gardening is your passion –

454
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,640
or whatever it may be.

455
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,080
Children can tell from
what we do what sorts of things

456
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:09,960
make the most
difference to us.

457
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,480
And those are the things,
generally speaking, that interest them most,

458
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,200
unless they've gotten into
some rebellion kick,

459
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,000
and that doesn't happen
much in homeschooling.

460
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:23,520
So I'll ask you to let me leave it
at that for the time being.

461
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,240
No, I do not think this body
of whatever it is,

462
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,760
or this cultural tradition,
or whatever it is, needs to be,

463
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:42,000
or indeed can be, forced into people
under pressure by coercion.

464
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:43,720
If you really
love Shakespeare,

465
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:46,400
go see Shakespeare plays
where they're performed,

466
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,040
and take your kids with you,

467
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,760
or even get a bunch of people together
in your neighborhood and town,

468
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:56,480
and put on an amateur production,
and let your kids be part of the operation.

469
00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:01,280
In fact, if you really love Shakespeare,
you ought to be doing it anyway –

470
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:02,240
or whatever it is.

471
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:03,640
If you love music,
make music.

472
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,280
If you love gardening,
grow a garden.

473
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,200
If you love camping in the woods,
go camping in the woods.

474
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,200
If you love –
I don't care what it is.

475
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:20,040
But children sense that the world they get
from the things that we care most about.

476
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,680
All right. {Let me - }

477
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,120
I don't mean by what I say to imply 

478
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:28,280
that I've been sort of diverted 
or something.{That's very -}

479
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,476
It's a very central issue,
and I'm glad you asked -

480
00:30:30,476 --> 00:30:35,320
I'm glad you
raised that point.

481
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:38,800
The homeschooling movement
is in the middle of

482
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,600
an extremely interesting
and important period

483
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:52,040
of political and legislative change –
and judicial, too, I would say.

484
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,400
Ten years ago, five years ago,
I think you could have said accurately

485
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:59,960
that the great majority of people
who were teaching their own kids,

486
00:30:59,960 --> 00:31:05,680
and not just underground,
not just hiding out, were doing it -

487
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:07,640
were making use of
what you would have to call

488
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:12,400
loopholes in the law
of one kind or another.

489
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,600
Things which had been put in the law
not with homeschooling in mind,

490
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:20,080
but with something quite different.

491
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,200
In many places,
in many states around the country,

492
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,920
the compulsory school attendance laws
had some kind of a clause in them

493
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:28,800
about kids have to
go to school

494
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:33,160
or get some equivalent kind
of instruction or education.

495
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:38,760
Now, this clause was not put into the law
to make things easy for homeschoolers,

496
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:40,240
but to take care
of children who,

497
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,880
for mostly medical reasons,
were not able to go to school.

498
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:48,320
And they were probably thinking of
retarded or emotionally disturbed children

499
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,200
who couldn't go
to school because

500
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,320
the schools didn't want them,
or couldn't handle them.

501
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:57,560
So they wanted to make
some kind of legal alternative.

502
00:31:57,560 --> 00:31:59,760
The farthest thing they could
have had from their minds,

503
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,680
the legislatures, when
they put these clauses in,

504
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,240
was that people who had the choice
of sending their kids to school,

505
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:11,640
people whose kids were,
as they say, normal,

506
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:13,480
would decide that they didn't
want to send them to school

507
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,320
so they could
teach them themselves.

508
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:16,960
Nevertheless, there was
that loophole.

509
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:20,600
And for a while, in lots of places,
people were slipping through.

510
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,680
The other great loophole
was the private school loophole

511
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:27,840
where many states in the country in which
private schools were not regulated by law

512
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:32,600
or not regulated by
the compulsory school attendance law –

513
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,800
Now, that was not done
to make homeschooling possible.

514
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:41,480
It was done for
quite other sorts of reasons.

515
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:45,160
When legislators decided that
private schools would not be regulated,

516
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,560
it was to
a large degree

517
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,720
because private schools
had their own police mechanisms,

518
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:55,720
they - what you would call a non-alternative
independent or private schools.

519
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:57,320
The rich folks'
private schools have

520
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:01,120
their own National Association
of Independent Schools,

521
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:03,400
Midwestern Association of
Independent Schools –

522
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:04,352
New England –

523
00:33:04,352 --> 00:33:07,720
I mean, they have their own inspectors,
and their own checkers-uppers-on,

524
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:11,600
and so forth,
and so forth.

525
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:13,960
So, they were not sort of
flying free in the air.

526
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,480
Also, legislators, I think,
tend to operate on the assumption

527
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:22,920
that rich people know
what they're doing – you know?

528
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:27,000
They say,
"Private schools are expensive,"

529
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,160
or at least they used to be
thought of that way,

530
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,280
and that's what
legislators were thinking

531
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:37,400
when they decided
not to try to regulate them.

532
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,360
And they said, "If you've got 50 or
a hundred fairly wealthy families,

533
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:43,840
and they're all
satisfied with the school,

534
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,080
chances are something
has got to be going on there.".

535
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:52,794
Rich people are not terribly innovative,
as a general rule. [Laughter]

536
00:33:52,794 --> 00:33:54,080
John: "And in any case,
since they're rich,

537
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:55,200
even if their kids goof up,

538
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:56,840
they'll always be able
to take care of them,

539
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,160
so we don't have to worry
about their being on welfare.

540
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:04,440
So generally speaking,
we can let them alone."

541
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,400
But the farthest thing in the world
they had in mind

542
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,280
was that this would be used in the way
that homeschoolers started to use it.

543
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,600
Well, that's where we were
roughly five or six years ago,

544
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:19,240
we were all happily crawling
under this fence, as it were,

545
00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:25,025
pulling up the barbed wire, and
slipping under the bottom strand

546
00:34:25,025 --> 00:34:26,920
[chuckles] – and it was
very nice while it lasted.

547
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:31,600
I mean, there was no regulation,
and no tests, and no papers to fill out.

548
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:33,840
Some states built
a one-page something or other

549
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:41,360
about "my home is a private school,"
and it was very nice,

550
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:45,320
but it perfectly obviously
wasn't going to last.

551
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,100
It was obvious to me
that it wasn't going to last.

552
00:34:47,100 --> 00:34:51,120
It could not be made to last –
that as we got bigger and stronger,

553
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:55,400
and got to be heard more
of in one thing or another,

554
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:59,120
that people, the courts,
the public schools themselves,

555
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,200
the legislatures were going to
begin to pay attention and say,

556
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:07,800
"Hey, what about this?

557
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:16,517
Well, roughly about two or three years ago,
we began to see – I say roughly –

558
00:35:16,517 --> 00:35:19,196
it differs rom state to state –

559
00:35:19,196 --> 00:35:21,480
but we began to see
the beginnings of attempts –

560
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:23,480
in some cases in the form of laws,

561
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,320
and in some cases in the form 
of administrative regulations –

562
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:31,877
attempts to make homeschooling illegal
or virtually impossible –

563
00:35:31,877 --> 00:35:38,680
in Maryland, and Georgia, and
in other states – for a while in California,

564
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,120
which had been one of
our chief homeschooling states –

565
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:48,880
the authorities began to try to think of
ways of making this very difficult.

566
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,840
And a couple of years ago,
we at Growing Without Schooling

567
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:59,340
certainly felt that the homeschooling movement
was in a kind of fight for its life.

568
00:35:59,340 --> 00:36:01,440
Well, I don't mean to say
that the fight isn't over,

569
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:07,520
but in fact, none of those attempts
to rule out homeschooling, stamp it out,

570
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:10,600
make it impossible,
none of them succeeded.

571
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:18,040
In no place has a legislature written a kind of
anti-homeschooling law in that sense.

572
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:26,600
We've been under lots of pressure,
lots of pressure to do so.

573
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:27,840
{What they did start doing is}

574
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:34,200
I should say a similar thing was happening
in the courts in a number of states

575
00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:37,640
in which people had been homeschooling
through the private school option.

576
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,200
The courts began to say a home
all by itself can't be a private school.

577
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,920
That was our situation in Virginia
before the law was passed there.

578
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,720
So the loopholes
were being closed up.

579
00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:54,360
The fence was being repaired so that
animals couldn't get up through the bottom.

580
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:55,400
But at the same time,

581
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:59,600
the legislatures began to put
some kind of a gate in the fence.

582
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,720
One way or another, they 
began to try to legitimize

583
00:37:03,720 --> 00:37:06,560
homeschooling, to make it 
explicitly legal, and say,

584
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:12,160
"Yes, people can teach their own kids
if they do this, that, or the other."

585
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:12,880
Since then,
there've been

586
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,480
a considerable number
of these kinds of laws passed.

587
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:17,400
I lose track.

588
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:22,880
In GWS 44, I think – in fact,
when we sent it to press,

589
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,120
we said there were 14 states
considering such laws.

590
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:29,080
I believe that since then,
at least three of them, maybe four –

591
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:34,760
Arkansas, Wyoming,
New Mexico, state of Washington –

592
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,680
we had a very tough time
in the state of Washington –

593
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:46,120
have passed one or another
kinds of legislation

594
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,120
making homeschooling explicitly legal
with this, that, or the other condition.

595
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,680
And we expect
many more states to do that.

596
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,600
We'll probably see more even before
the end of this legislative session.

597
00:37:57,600 --> 00:37:59,000
And I would hazard
a rough guess

598
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,360
that we'll continue to see half a dozen
or a dozen states a year doing this,

599
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,160
and dozens, perhaps,
to many a year.

600
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:11,280
And I would say that,
oh, within five years,

601
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,200
we will probably
see very few states

602
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:16,520
in which there is not
some explicit reference

603
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:22,920
to homeschooling in the law.

604
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,600
Now, I consider this an extraordinarily
important move forward, even though,

605
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:33,320
in many cases, I'm not happy with
the qualifying restrictions.

606
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:40,480
Many of them talk about the use of
standardized achievement tests.

607
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,640
Though that is not a problem
for probably 80% of homeschoolers,

608
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:47,400
it can be
a very serious problem

609
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:53,800
for people whose children are late starters
in reading, or in whatever else it may be,

610
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,440
or happen not to like arithmetic,
or be a little afraid of it, or something.

611
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,440
And I think it's
a very important step forward

612
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:19,480
that legislators are beginning to see
homeschooling as a legitimate activity,

613
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:25,240
rather than some kind of
weird, strange, outlaw idea.

614
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 –

615
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:40,440
and we'll probably be 10 or 15 years at it –
is educating the legislatures,

616
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:44,600
and particularly
the individual legislators –

617
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:51,160
away from rigid curriculums,
standardized achievement tests,

618
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:55,840
all kinds of attempts to reduce
human beings to numbers.

619
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,400
I think a lot of them are ready
to say now, in fact,

620
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:02,880
"Well, yeah, people
can teach their own kids

621
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:04,680
if they do it just the way
the schools do it."

622
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,640
But that's obviously
not satisfactory.

623
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,560
But we have to get them to see –
in one way or another,

624
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,840
to get into law
at least some of the spirit

625
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:16,920
in which I talked to you
at the beginning of this meeting –

626
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:26,240
some feeling that there are other ways
besides the rigid curriculums of schools,

627
00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:28,560
and the endless
little numerical tests.

628
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:33,200
There are other ways of
observing and taking note of learning,

629
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,300
of observing children's growth
in the world, and so forth.

630
00:40:36,300 --> 00:40:40,680
Now, this is already being done,
of course, in some places.

631
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:45,160
But I would like to see,
for example, something in the law,

632
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:48,960
some kind of amendment
somewhere down the line

633
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,720
saying that parents and
educational authorities,

634
00:40:51,720 --> 00:40:54,040
in evaluating
the learning of children,

635
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:59,040
may use, but shall not be required
to use or restricted to using,

636
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,880
standardized and
other numerical tests.

637
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:05,560
I don't think
very many legislatures

638
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,760
would pass such a resolution
if we introduced it tomorrow.

639
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:11,840
But I think if we do
the right sorts of things,

640
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,000
that it's very possible that
a great many of them

641
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:22,600
will do so by, let's say,
a decade from now.

642
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:24,640
I speak of educating legislators,

643
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:26,880
and I'm not at all
thinking of lobbying groups.

644
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:29,820
What I have in mind
is that homeschoolers –

645
00:41:29,820 --> 00:41:34,660
and also, again, insofar as
they are encumbered by the law –

646
00:41:34,660 --> 00:41:39,760
alternative schoolers must get to know
their own legislators personally,

647
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,320
individually, meet them,
go see them,

648
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:46,320
take their children,
become a kind of pen pal,

649
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,800
write them occasional letters saying,

650
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,160
"Thought you might be interested to hear
what my kids are up to recently.

651
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:53,800
The other day we went,

652
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:58,360
and my eight-year-old child
took 25 books out of the library,

653
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:00,340
which is more books than
most school kids read

654
00:42:00,340 --> 00:42:04,240
in a year,
or two, or five."

655
00:42:06,240 --> 00:42:08,680
We have got to
begin to get into

656
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:12,160
a kind of continuing communication
with these people,

657
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:15,360
so they begin to understand,
as we understand,

658
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:19,960
how this organic,
natural learning takes place.

659
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,720
And of course, if bad bills
get introduced, of course,

660
00:42:22,720 --> 00:42:26,200
we all have to hustle down to
the state capitol and do that number –

661
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,520
and obviously,
we've been very good at it.

662
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:30,520
But that's not all.

663
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:34,760
I mean, "I don't write my legislator
except when some kind of legislation

664
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:36,520
is coming up that I'm worried about,"

665
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:38,040
this doesn't seem to me
to be enough.

666
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:42,840
I really think we have to try –
as far as we can –

667
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:47,640
we have to try to bring these people
into the homeschooling family –

668
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:52,520
and it is a family –
a collection of families.

669
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:58,480
So I see this as the main part

670
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:04,560
of the future of homeschooling
in the next decade or so.

671
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:08,480
I think alternative schools
can play a very important part in this –

672
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:11,840
as indeed the Clonlara School
and the Santa Fe Community School

673
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,080
and a number
of others already have –

674
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:21,080
by providing a kind of
support for homeschooling families.

675
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,713
I don't know if Santa Fe
was the first school to do that.

676
00:43:24,713 --> 00:43:27,120
It was the first one I knew about
that was doing it – but anyway.

677
00:43:28,720 --> 00:43:33,320
And by now,
we have a number of

678
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:36,080
independent alternative schools
around the country,

679
00:43:36,080 --> 00:43:41,920
which not only have
their own buildings and classes –

680
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:43,560
there's a physical school
there in place –

681
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:49,720
but they also provide a kind of
legal and educational support

682
00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:51,000
to homeschooling families.

683
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:55,320
Many of you might be on the
other end of the country.

684
00:43:55,320 --> 00:44:01,520
I would like to see a much larger network
of these kinds of schools.

685
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:05,840
We now have – oh, I guess around
the United States – several dozen.

686
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:07,760
But we'd be in a very
much stronger position

687
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:11,600
if we had many
hundreds of them.

688
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:15,840
Let's see here.

689
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:22,960
Excuse me a sec here.

690
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,040
Amazing machines here.

691
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,160
I think these
small tape recorders –

692
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:34,080
and they now have really
quite astonishing sound quality –

693
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,000
are one of the great
educational tools of our time.

694
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:39,960
And for all the talk
about computers,

695
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:44,000
I think this is a gadget which has
many other kinds of possibilities,

696
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:48,320
which I don't think we have done
as much with as we might.

697
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,400
Like typewriters, this is a machine which
is really fascinating to a lot of children –

698
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:59,320
the experience of saying things into it
and then hearing them back –

699
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:01,040
very strange,
very powerful.

700
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:09,080
All right.
Now, let's see.

701
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:13,240
So, I was talking about
a very large network –

702
00:45:13,240 --> 00:45:18,120
hundreds, thousands –
of alternative schools,

703
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:22,832
independent schools around the country
– in some cases, public schools –

704
00:45:22,832 --> 00:45:25,720
because there are public schools
that also offer this kind of support.

705
00:45:25,720 --> 00:45:33,960
The number is not very large,
but it's also growing.

706
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:34,320
All right, now.

707
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:39,960
I want to switch to a different –
in the last part of this talk,

708
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:43,000
to a look at the future
in a quite different sense –

709
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,280
not the future of homeschooling,
or the future of alternative schooling,

710
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:53,760
but the future of the world –
particularly of this country.

711
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:55,640
First thing I have to say
is that everybody

712
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,480
who talks about
the future is guessing.

713
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:58,800
Nobody knows~
There is no future.

714
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:00,080
It doesn't exist.

715
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:03,360
It isn't as if we're
riding along on a train

716
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,200
and 20 miles down the track,

717
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:07,120
there was a station that
we were going to pull into,

718
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,720
and it was just a matter of
talking about what it was.

719
00:46:09,720 --> 00:46:20,680
The future isn't there~
We make it as we live.

720
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:21,480
{Most of the people}

721
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,520
I'm extremely skeptical,
I have to say,

722
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:25,360
of most of the people
who are making a living –

723
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:29,200
and quite a lot of them are,
and they're living a lot fancier than I am –

724
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:31,200
talking about this future.

725
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,

726
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,080
and then they just keep
running it up the page.

727
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:42,080
Well If predicting the future
were that easy, we'd all be billionaires,

728
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:44,360
because we'd just look at
the stock market quotations,

729
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:47,600
and see what stock had been going up
for the last week, and then buy it.

730
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:55,200
The problem is the graph
doesn't always keep going up.

731
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:57,240
There are an awful lot
of high-powered people

732
00:46:57,240 --> 00:46:59,800
in this country connected
with the oil business,

733
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:04,000
connected with the government,
connected with the defense industry

734
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:08,320
who made it their business to know
what was going on in the world of oil.

735
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:11,780
And none – not one,
not a single one of these people –

736
00:47:11,780 --> 00:47:14,480
predicted what came
to be called the "oil crisis –

737
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:16,840
when was it, ten years ago?

738
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:19,400
Nobody predicted it.

739
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:22,660
And nobody, with
a few possible exceptions –

740
00:47:22,660 --> 00:47:25,600
maybe Amory Lovins,
maybe a few conservationists –

741
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:28,720
once we were in the middle of
that terrible crisis –

742
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,

743
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:38,120
because we would smarten
up and start saving energy.

744
00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:43,400
The oil crisis came by surprise
and went by surprise.

745
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,320
So, it's not easy.

746
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:49,473
One of the big
future books that's –

747
00:47:49,473 --> 00:47:53,640
boy, I wish I had 10%
of the money that it's made –

748
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:58,480
talks about the Sun Belt
and the motion of industry,

749
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,160
the economic flight from
the North to the Sun Belt,

750
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:06,040
and it says this is a major
trend in American history,

751
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,000
and it's irreversible,
and it's going to continue.

752
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:09,760
We can just see more and
more of this happening.

753
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,080
Well, I get a certain
wry amusement out of this.

754
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:16,720
I come from the old Frost Belt
up there in New England,

755
00:48:16,720 --> 00:48:20,791
and we are the most –
as regions go at the moment –

756
00:48:20,791 --> 00:48:23,760
probably the most economically
prosperous region of the country.

757
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:25,440
We have the lowest
unemployment rate.

758
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:27,480
My home state
of Massachusetts has

759
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:32,360
the lowest unemployment rate 
in any industrial state.

760
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,980
My home city of Boston has what they call
an office vacancy rate of 1%.

761
00:48:36,980 --> 00:48:41,120
Of course, Houston
has about 30%.

762
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:47,280
So, the old Frost Belt
isn't doing too bad.

763
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,720
Right now what we're
worried about is drought.

764
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:56,000
But that's going to be
a big problem for the whole country.

765
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:56,920
Very, very hard.

766
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,080
But there are some indicators.

767
00:48:59,080 --> 00:48:59,880
Nothing is certain.

768
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:02,200
There are some indicators
that give us, I think,

769
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:06,840
a pretty strong indication of
the way some things are likely to go.

770
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:11,360
There are really big, big,
deep sort of trends,

771
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:15,280
and I want to talk about
just one of them tonight.

772
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:21,160
[Coughs]
Excuse me.

773
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:31,320
The Boston Globe, our local bladder,
[laughter] is a kind of nice paper.

774
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:32,880
I don't know how much
news is in it,

775
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:34,040
but it has a lot
of good writers,

776
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:35,800
and they have
quite a lot of fun.

777
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:45,320
So, it's an entertaining sheet,
and not bad, as these things go.

778
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,320
It had an article
a year and a half ago, maybe,

779
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:53,920
about wages in different parts
of the world – industrial wages.

780
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:59,640
And there's a map,
a nice big-page article.

781
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:03,760
And they were comparing a
verage hourly industrial wages

782
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:09,080
in the world's manufacturing countries.

783
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:12,240
Now, economists, I guess,
could spend the whole weekend

784
00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:14,040
talking about how you
achieve these figures,

785
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:16,000
and how you balance out
this versus that,

786
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,320
how you figure out benign climates
versus cold climates,

787
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:21,760
and what do you do
about fringe benefits,

788
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:22,720
and this, that,
and the other.

789
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.

790
00:50:27,200 --> 00:50:29,600
And what it said was
that the United States

791
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:32,720
had the highest average
hourly industrial wage.

792
00:50:32,720 --> 00:50:35,940
They didn't say what is
industrial and what isn't –

793
00:50:35,940 --> 00:50:37,560
not to get into that.

794
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:40,960
And it was something like
$10.77 an hour.

795
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:43,440
And there was Canada
pretty close behind,

796
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:47,200
and Switzerland, and then
a bunch of the Western European nations –

797
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:48,640
$8.00 or so – $7.50.

798
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,560
And then, Japan, $5.50.

799
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:58,880
And then Mexico, Brazil,
some down to the $2.00, $2.50 range.

800
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:03,200
And then we got down to
what they call the Pacific Rim nations:

801
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:10,560
Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea,
a couple of others maybe,

802
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:15,600
and these were running
$1.25, $1.50 an hour.

803
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:17,916
And then India –

804
00:51:17,916 --> 00:51:20,520
the figure they gave
was $0.39 an hour –

805
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:24,760
and Sri Lanka – which
us old cats used to call Ceylon –

806
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:28,960
near India –
was $0.21 an hour.

807
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,440
Now, those are very,

808
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:36,280
very, very significant figures
their legs will carry them –

809
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:42,160
At one point in the article,
they quoted a young woman

810
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:45,680
who's working in one of these
new electronic shops in Hong Kong

811
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:48,400
where the American
computer manufacturers

812
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,680
are fleeing just as fast as
their legs will carry them –

813
00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:54,920
those that are still
in business at all, I should add.

814
00:51:55,480 --> 00:52:01,800
And that little future balloon
went down in a big hurry,

815
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:06,120
and has yet further to go,
I will add.

816
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,960
That revolution lasted about
two or three years.

817
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:15,880
But someone was talking
to this young woman

818
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:22,720
who's earning $1.22 an hour,
making whatever it is,

819
00:52:22,720 --> 00:52:26,320
and just happy as a clam
to be enjoying this wage

820
00:52:26,320 --> 00:52:29,320
which was probably ten times,
five times higher

821
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,760
than anything they
had seen a decade before.

822
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:37,360
And she said, "Of course, we know
it's only going to be a matter of time

823
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:43,400
before the jobs all go to
someplace like Sri Lanka,

824
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:49,560
where they only have
to pay $0.21 an hour.

825
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,

826
00:52:58,280 --> 00:53:05,160
which fly from one place to another
and settle down and deposit

827
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:08,280
a certain amount of wealth
there while they're there,

828
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:09,840
but soon they'll
take off again

829
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:13,560
l ooking for some other place
where the wages are even lower.

830
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:15,240
And that's not
a bad figure of speech.

831
00:53:15,240 --> 00:53:18,920
We saw that happen in this country
when the northern industries –

832
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:22,400
this was certainly true of
the mills in New England –

833
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:27,400
went down south where they could get
non-union and cheaper labor.

834
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:35,000
With the modern mobility of capital
in the multinational corporation,

835
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,880
jobs do in fact tend to –
many of them anyway –

836
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:42,440
are pretty free to migrate
to where the wages are lowest,

837
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:46,340
and that's where
they're going to roost.

838
00:53:46,340 --> 00:53:50,120
Now, one of the things
that struck me

839
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:52,280
about that article was that
nothing was said about China.

840
00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:53,260
And I found myself wondering,

841
00:53:53,260 --> 00:53:55,160
"Hey, where do the Chinese
fit into this picture?"

842
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:57,400
Why, they're probably
under a dollar an hour,

843
00:53:57,400 --> 00:53:59,240
$0.50 an hour maybe, I thought.

844
00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:03,080
At any rate, it had to be
a pretty low figure.

845
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:11,400
Under a billion people
in that country.

846
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:18,360
Recently, my question was answered
more or less reliably by another article,

847
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:23,640
this time in the "Christian Science Monitor,"
and this wasn't about economics at all,

848
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:26,120
it was about
a British rock group called "Wham,"

849
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:28,160
which has
just gone to China

850
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:32,880
and caused a great upheaval
of various kinds there.

851
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:34,240
But like all
things Western,

852
00:54:34,240 --> 00:54:37,640
it's very popular with
the young people in the new China.

853
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:41,440
The article described
a young Chinese workman

854
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:43,840
standing in line
for five or six hours –

855
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:49,240
just like his American counterparts –
to buy a ticket to hear Wham.

856
00:54:49,240 --> 00:54:52,000
And it said in passing that
he had to pay – for this ticket –

857
00:54:52,000 --> 00:55:06,480
he had to pay 5 yuan –
parenthesis, $1.75 – or 2 days' wages.

858
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,840
Two days' wages.

859
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:13,600
If you figure an 8-hour day,
we're talking about

860
00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:18,560
just a little bit more
than $0.10 an hour.

861
00:55:18,560 --> 00:55:20,680
And there are
a billion people over there,

862
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:26,320
most of whom are ready and eager
to work at that kind of wage.

863
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:34,520
Now, this is bound to have
a lot to say about not only our future,

864
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:36,680
but the future of
all of what we think of

865
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:44,280
as the highly-developed wealthy countries
of the North Atlantic, let's say, community.

866
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:48,600
Given, again,
the mobility of capital,

867
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:54,000
there is no possible way that
the wealthy countries of the world

868
00:55:54,000 --> 00:56:02,940
are going to be able to employ
their populations at $10 or $9 or $8 or $7,

869
00:56:02,940 --> 00:56:06,480
or for that matter Japan,
$5.50 an hour.

870
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:11,080
They're not going to
be able to do it.

871
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:14,880
In other words, as nearly as
one can say anything about the future,

872
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:17,000
it is certain that
the rich countries of the world

873
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:26,240
are going to get a lot less rich,
as we have defined rich.

874
00:56:28,880 --> 00:56:32,240
And what the consequences of
that may be, we've talked for a long time –

875
00:56:32,240 --> 00:56:33,880
there could be
whole conferences –

876
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:37,600
I hope someday here will be
if there are not any yet –

877
00:56:37,600 --> 00:56:39,760
about what this really means.

878
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:44,320
None of the people who were
running for election in the last campaign –

879
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,240
even those who talk
glibly about new ideas –

880
00:56:47,240 --> 00:56:51,400
none of them seem to have
the faintest idea that this is going on,

881
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,120
or what this means,
or what they might do with it.

882
00:56:54,120 --> 00:56:56,240
This is going to call for
a lot of hard thinking.

883
00:56:56,240 --> 00:56:59,260
To say just a very
short thing about us,

884
00:56:59,260 --> 00:57:01,840
I'd say we're going to have to
rediscover thrift in this country.

885
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:02,920
We're going to
have to discover

886
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:07,640
that efficiency is not the same thing

887
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:10,960
as making a lot of stuff.

888
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:14,680
We're going to
have to rediscover –

889
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:16,880
learn how to do
the most with the least.

890
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:21,000
Old New England motto:
"Wear it out –"

891
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:21,640
Let's see, no.

892
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:24,760
"Use it up, wear it out,
make it do, do without" –

893
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:26,400
the old Yankee saying.

894
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:30,720
Or old Ben's,
"A penny saved is a penny earned."

895
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:32,480
We're going to rediscover
the truth of that.

896
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:38,040
We're going to start learning
how to darn socks again.

897
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:39,440
I don't think
that's a bad thing.

898
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:44,080
I think we'll be probably
a very much better,

899
00:57:44,080 --> 00:57:48,120
more interesting, more equitable country

900
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:52,080
if we learn to revise our ideas
about what is true wealth,

901
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:55,240
what is true efficiency.

902
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:56,240
But that's a big topic,

903
00:57:56,240 --> 00:58:00,480
and it's not really the topic
we've come here to discuss.{I just}

904
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:03,080
If we're going to be talking
or thinking about the future,

905
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:09,240
I think this is an element in it
that we can't afford to neglect.

906
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:12,400
Okay, well that's all
for the big formal speech,

907
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:15,680
if it struck you that way.

908
00:58:16,880 --> 00:58:23,200
So now we can move into
some kind of questions, discussion,

909
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:26,840
comment on whatever
you want to talk about.

910
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:28,960
I mean, we can talk about
any of the things I've talked about,

911
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:31,440
or if you came here wanting
to talk about something else,

912
00:58:31,440 --> 00:58:32,680
we can talk about that too,

913
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:34,800
unless I don't know
anything at all about it,

914
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:37,360
I will tell you.

915
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:39,840
I can tell you how to
begin on the cello.

916
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:43,800
I can't tell you how to become
a "magnificent" player.

917
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:50,880
Well, as soon as I learn,
I will tell you that.

918
00:58:50,880 --> 00:58:52,160
Sir.

919
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:52,708
Jerry Mintz: Hi.

920
00:58:52,708 --> 00:58:53,480
Jerry Mintz from
Shaker Mountain  

921
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:55,114
School in Vermont.
{We can't hear you.}

922
00:58:55,114 --> 00:58:58,760
John: Oh, hi, Jerry.
{I just hope}

923
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:01,000
Jerry:One thing I was thinking
about is that you missed,

924
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,240
somewhere between
Ceylon and India,

925
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:10,279
the wages of
alternative school people.

926
00:59:10,279 --> 00:59:10,304
[Laughter]
John: Yes. Yes.

927
00:59:10,304 --> 00:59:12,920
Jerry Mintz: It may mean that
the industry may flock to the free schools.

928
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:16,680
I'm not sure.
[Laughter]

929
00:59:16,680 --> 00:59:21,840
One thing I was wondering about is
what you think the difference is

930
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:27,440
between parents who are
exposing their kids to education

931
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:29,560
or to learning
without coercion

932
00:59:29,560 --> 00:59:34,320
and schools that are exposing
their kids to learning without coercion.

933
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:38,320
And our school doesn't require kids
to go to any particular classes.

934
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:40,240
And on the other
side of the coin,

935
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:43,240
the difference between parents
who are coercing their kids

936
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:46,260
and schools that are
coercing their kids.

937
00:59:46,260 --> 00:59:49,560
John: Well, the key difference
for me is the difference

938
00:59:49,560 --> 00:59:52,360
between coercion
and non-coercion.

939
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:58,000
In other words, if I thought that
the homeschooling movement

940
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:00,760
was made up
largely or entirely
1:00:00.760,1:00:03.240
of people who wanted
to coerce their kids
1:00:03.240,1:00:05.760
and just thought they could do
a better job of it than schools could,
1:00:05.760,1:00:09.440
I wouldn't have spent
two minutes on this activity.
1:00:09.440,1:00:11.160
My interest in homeschooling,
1:00:11.160,1:00:12.840
and, for that matter,
alternative schooling –
1:00:12.840,1:00:14.760
and I was interested
in alternative schools
1:00:14.760,1:00:19.120
before I became
interested in homeschooling –
1:00:19.120,1:00:23.120
my interest in it is that
it makes it at least possible –
1:00:23.120,1:00:25.320
for those people who want
to give their children
1:00:25.320,1:00:29.600
a natural, organic, uncoerced
learning experience – to do so.
1:00:29.600,1:00:32.280
Not everybody is going
to use it that way.
1:00:32.280,1:00:37.120
People start schools
which they hope will be
1:00:37.120,1:00:39.920
even more coercive
than the schools that exist.
1:00:39.920,1:00:42.640
There are certainly some people
who teach their children
1:00:42.640,1:00:45.400
thinking that they can
pound in learning faster than
1:00:45.400,1:00:47.040
the local schools
were doing it.
1:00:47.040,1:00:48.960
I don't think many of them
stick it out very long
1:00:48.960,1:00:53.160
because they find out
it doesn't work.
1:00:56.560,1:01:02.600
No, I mean, if I look
far enough down the line,
1:01:02.600,1:01:12.400
I like to think of schools as
learning-experiment activity centers,
1:01:12.400,1:01:14.480
somewhat analogous
to public libraries,
1:01:14.480,1:01:17.000
although rather
wider in scope,
1:01:17.000,1:01:20.240
places to which people can come
if they feel like coming,
1:01:20.240,1:01:22.320
to do the things
that they want to do
1:01:22.320,1:01:24.920
for as long as
they want to do them.
1:01:24.920,1:01:31.360
And {I kind of – } I would hope that
somewhere we would find a way
1:01:31.360,1:01:34.840
to call these places
something other than schools
1:01:34.840,1:01:37.160
because they're really
very fundamentally very different.
1:01:37.160,1:01:42.520
"Club" would be nice if we just
kind of dared to do it. [Laughter]
1:01:42.520,1:01:44.680
We have a film
that a friend of mine,
1:01:44.680,1:01:45.720
my friend Peggy Hughes,
1:01:45.720,1:01:48.320
made in Denmark
of the preschool there.
1:01:48.320,1:01:51.160
The film was called
"We Have to Call It School."
1:01:51.160,1:01:54.200
And the film begins with
this young Danish teacher
1:01:54.200,1:01:56.920
there saying in English,
1:01:56.920,1:02:00.120
"We have to call it school
because if we didn't,
1:02:00.120,1:02:01.720
they wouldn't let
the children come here."
1:02:01.720,1:02:03.680
[Laughter]
1:02:03.680,1:02:06.600
But it would be nice if,
in our minds,
1:02:06.600,1:02:12.560
we thought about these
non-coercive gathering-and-activity places
1:02:12.560,1:02:15.080
as something
other than a school.
1:02:15.080,1:02:15.920
I like "club."
1:02:15.920,1:02:18.380
I mean, club has a –
1:02:18.380,1:02:20.800
But you can pick
what word you like,
1:02:20.800,1:02:24.000
or invent a brand new one.
1:02:25.040,1:02:29.520
Ultimately, I suppose I'd like to see
all schools evolve this way.
1:02:29.520,1:02:32.640
I don't think, certainly
not in my lifetime,
1:02:32.640,1:02:34.880
and not in any future
that I can see,
1:02:34.880,1:02:38.160
can I imagine
legislatures striking
1:02:38.160,1:02:42.320
compulsory attendance laws
off the books.
1:02:42.320,1:02:44.640
But I can imagine
more and more schools
1:02:44.640,1:02:48.240
defining attendance
in just the way you define it,
1:02:49.880,1:02:51.640
so that the difference
1:02:51.640,1:02:53.880
between being in school
and not being in school
1:02:53.880,1:02:56.920
gets so fuzzed over
that you can't tell any longer
1:02:56.920,1:03:02.040
when somebody is in
or when somebody is out.{now I don't}
1:03:02.040,1:03:03.240
Have I spoken
to your point,
1:03:03.240,1:03:05.140
or was there something other
you'd like to get out?
1:03:05.140,1:03:07.560
Jerry: In other words,
do you consider
1:03:07.560,1:03:10.760
that it would be
advantageous for a parent
1:03:10.760,1:03:14.000
to homeschool their kid
in a non-coercive way,
1:03:14.000,1:03:19.945
rather than let them go to
a school that was non-coercive?
1:03:19.945,1:03:21.480
John: Well, if you're
a homeschooling parent
1:03:21.480,1:03:24.080
and there was
in your area
1:03:24.080,1:03:27.400
a non-coercive school
that kids could go to,
1:03:30.200,1:03:33.440
I would be ready to leave it up to
those children and those parents
1:03:33.440,1:03:35.840
to decide how much
they wanted to make use of it.
1:03:35.840,1:03:40.120
Some families, the kids
would be there a lot of the time,
1:03:40.120,1:03:42.480
and other families, they might
not be there much of the time.
1:03:42.480,1:03:44.680
I think of my friends,
the Wallaces in Ithaca,
1:03:48.080,1:03:51.720
their public school system,
as a matter of fact, said to them,
1:03:51.720,1:03:53.360
"You're free to
come and use us
1:03:53.360,1:03:56.000
anywhere you want
or anytime you want to."
1:03:56.000,1:03:56.960
In fact, there's nothing in
1:03:56.960,1:03:58.720
the public school
for them to do there.
1:03:58.720,1:03:59.720
These are, by now,
1:03:59.720,1:04:01.720
two extraordinarily
accomplished musicians,
1:04:01.720,1:04:05.480
and they spent six, seven, eight,
nine, ten hours a day working on music.
1:04:05.480,1:04:07.440
What in the world
are they going to do?
1:04:08.160,1:04:09.520
What has school
got to offer them?
1:04:09.520,1:04:13.120
But if you were very interested in
the kinds of things
1:04:13.120,1:04:16.200
that are likely to be done at school,
or something that needed more people –
1:04:16.200,1:04:20.880
let's say drama, which is
a hard thing to do in small groups –
1:04:20.880,1:04:29.720
well, then it might be
very interesting for you to.
1:04:29.720,1:04:31.240
So if these resources were there,
1:04:31.240,1:04:33.480
we'd say to people,
children, their parents,
1:04:34.280,1:04:36.200
"Those of you who want to
use them a lot, use them a lot.
1:04:36.200,1:04:39.680
Those of you who want to use them
occasionally, use them occasionally.
1:04:39.680,1:04:45.040
I wouldn't try to make
that decision for anybody.
1:04:45.040,1:04:47.240
I think most homeschoolers
would be very glad
1:04:47.240,1:04:51.240
to have some kind of
gathering resource.
1:04:51.240,1:04:52.840
One of the advantages
of such a place
1:04:52.840,1:04:53.400
is that, of course,
1:04:53.400,1:04:57.800
a gang of people can
get together and buy things
1:04:57.800,1:05:00.880
which none of them by themselves
might be able to afford,
1:05:00.880,1:05:02.200
– make sufficient use of.
1:05:02.200,1:05:04.000
Well, they can do it now,
but the question is then,
1:05:04.000,1:05:05.120
"Whose house is it at?"
1:05:05.880,1:05:07.400
There get to be
problems like that.
1:05:08.120,1:05:11.280
If there is a central gathering
and meeting place,
1:05:11.280,1:05:12.960
well that's all the handier.
1:05:12.960,1:05:16.960
Now, one of
the reasons that I went from
1:05:16.960,1:05:19.920
thinking about alternative schools
to thinking about homeschooling
1:05:19.920,1:05:26.440
is that most of the alternative schools,
in the sense that we're using it here –
1:05:26.440,1:05:28.360
I mean, the word has
gotten so fuzzed up
1:05:28.360,1:05:29.840
in the public-education system
1:05:29.840,1:05:32.200
that it no longer has
any real meaning.
1:05:32.200,1:05:35.720
Most of the true alternative schools
of the late '60s and the early '70s
1:05:35.720,1:05:38.240
have long since gone,
mostly for lack of money.
1:05:38.800,1:05:40.240
You know how hard
a struggle it is,
1:05:40.240,1:05:46.360
even with Sri Lankan wages.
[inaudible]. [Laugha]
1:05:46.360,1:05:48.480
Even with those
kinds of sacrifices,
1:05:48.480,1:05:51.600
very few schools
were ingenious enough,
1:05:51.600,1:05:54.880
or resourceful, or lucky,
or whatever to keep going.
1:05:54.880,1:05:56.600
We had a gang
up in the Boston area.
1:05:56.600,1:06:00.960
I don't think one –
maybe one, right? –
1:06:00.960,1:06:01.800
they've all disappeared.
1:06:01.800,1:06:03.240
A lot of them were
doing wonderful work.
1:06:03.240,1:06:08.040
So I began thinking,
what can people do
1:06:08.040,1:06:11.320
who are not able to get
one of these places going
1:06:11.320,1:06:13.000
and keep it together?
1:06:13.000,1:06:15.040
I suppose one of the things
we have to learn is
1:06:15.040,1:06:17.920
how can we do this
in a way that costs less money
1:06:17.920,1:06:22.040
without starving and
not going into Ethiopian wages,
1:06:22.040,1:06:23.680
or something like that.
[Laughter]
1:06:23.680,1:06:25.560
We don't want
to do that.
1:06:27.320,1:06:29.840
All right, now I'm going to do
a little number thing with hands,
1:06:31.040,1:06:33.640
just so I don't forget,
or so we keep some kind of order.
1:06:33.640,1:06:34.720
Is it one here?
1:06:34.720,1:06:38.110
Did you all –?
I thought so.
1:06:38.110,1:06:38.144
Woman: I'm going to
ask a question.
1:06:38.144,1:06:38.920
John: All right.
You'll be number one.
1:06:38.920,1:06:42.000
And the second?
All right, second here.
1:06:42.000,1:06:43.520
Third here.
1:06:43.520,1:06:47.840
Fourth?
Lady in the red dress shirt.
1:06:47.840,1:06:48.600
Okay.
1:06:49.720,1:06:55.880
All right.
Five.
1:06:55.880,1:06:57.640
Okay.
Now, you have to remember.
1:06:57.640,1:06:58.600
Six?
Okay.
1:06:58.600,1:07:00.280
You have to
remember your numbers,
1:07:00.280,1:07:02.500
and you have to remember
where I am in the numbers,
1:07:02.500,1:07:09.560
because I'm not going to remember
either of those things! [Laughter]
1:07:09.560,1:07:10.269
Yes.
1:07:10.269,1:07:12.080
Woman: I'm number one.
1:07:12.080,1:07:14.640
If our children
are most interested in
1:07:14.640,1:07:18.194
the things that we
are most interested in –
1:07:18.194,1:07:19.060
John: They aren't hearing you.
1:07:19.060,1:07:21.903
Woman: They're not hearing?
John: No way in the world.
1:07:21.903,1:07:22.540
[Laughter]
Woman: Okay.
1:07:22.540,1:07:24.840
John: Got to sing out.
Woman: Okay.
1:07:24.840,1:07:28.055
John: I mean, it is possible.
1:07:28.055,1:07:29.520
Woman: [Laughs]
There are a lot of people here.
1:07:29.520,1:07:31.480
Woman: If our children
are most interested
1:07:31.480,1:07:33.880
in the things that
we are most interested in,
1:07:33.880,1:07:38.674
are we not then as homeschoolers
rearing lopsided children? And –
1:07:38.674,1:07:40.234
John: Everybody's lopsided.
Woman: Okay.
1:07:40.234,1:07:41.680
John: I'm lopsided.
You're lopsided.
1:07:41.680,1:07:45.113
All God's children
are lopsided. [Laughter]
1:07:45.113,1:07:46.600
Woman: And will they fill out?
1:07:46.600,1:07:48.360
John: Yeah.
Woman: Okay.
1:07:48.360,1:07:50.120
John: That doesn't mean to say
they're going to wind up
1:07:50.120,1:07:52.960
knowing everything about everything,
because nobody does.
1:07:52.960,1:07:55.120
But your life
is not just you.
1:07:55.120,1:07:56.640
You've got friends.
They come here.
1:07:56.640,1:07:59.280
You know people.
They have interests.
1:07:59.800,1:08:03.600
The child lives in kind of
bunch of concentric circles of family,
1:08:03.600,1:08:06.520
and then larger family,
and close friends of family,
1:08:06.520,1:08:10.280
and neighbors, streets.
1:08:10.280,1:08:13.520
And this world, as I say,
has many different layers in it.
1:08:13.520,1:08:17.800
And some of your children
may meet people
1:08:17.800,1:08:19.480
who happen to be
very interested
1:08:19.480,1:08:21.360
in things that you're
not much interested in,
1:08:21.360,1:08:23.080
and they may
pick up that interest.
1:08:23.080,1:08:25.040
That's okay.
1:08:25.040,1:08:27.920
As long as –
as I say, as long as –
1:08:27.920,1:08:29.120
as far as we're able to,
1:08:29.120,1:08:32.120
we make it possible for children
to move into the world
1:08:32.120,1:08:33.920
in whatever ways
they want to do it,
1:08:33.920,1:08:35.120
they're going to
find enough there.
1:08:35.120,1:08:37.160
Nobody's going to
die of starvation.
1:08:37.160,1:08:39.480
I don't care whether you live
on an isolated farm,
1:08:39.480,1:08:42.920
or this sterile suburb that
everybody loves to talk about,
1:08:42.920,1:08:45.800
or the wicked big city
that I live in,
1:08:45.800,1:08:50.240
the fact is that human life,
as people live it,
1:08:50.240,1:08:53.800
has got more than enough
food for thought
1:08:53.800,1:08:56.080
for children to bite into
and to grow.
1:08:56.080,1:08:57.600
As they feel the need of more,
1:08:57.600,1:09:04.120
they're going to know more about
where to go to look for it.
1:09:04.120,1:09:07.000
All right.
Now, let's see, two?
1:09:07.000,1:09:09.600
Woman: May I just
say to my friends here,
1:09:09.600,1:09:12.630
wait until
they get married.
1:09:12.630,1:09:13.640
John: The chldren?
Woman: Right.
1:09:13.640,1:09:15.560
Then their lives
will widen up.
1:09:15.560,1:09:17.120
Because our first just did.
1:09:17.120,1:09:19.640
I'm still at homeschooling
with a six-year-old.
1:09:19.640,1:09:22.320
I just want to thank you,
John, from my heart
1:09:22.320,1:09:24.200
for having helped us
very much here.
1:09:24.200,1:09:25.720
And I don't
have a question.
1:09:25.720,1:09:26.640
But I wanted to tell you
1:09:26.640,1:09:29.680
that today, my sister-in-law
had to hang up the phone
1:09:29.680,1:09:34.080
in order to go across the street
to walk her third-grader home
1:09:34.080,1:09:38.280
because she has been molested
within 400 feet of her own home.
1:09:38.280,1:09:41.440
And this doesn't even state
how I feel about the fact
1:09:41.440,1:09:43.160
that they're not learning going
to these places
1:09:43.160,1:09:48.040
that are supposed to be teaching –
or pouring it in, as you say.
1:09:48.600,1:09:51.320
I don't think that
we have to defend ourselves
1:09:51.320,1:09:53.560
any more than if you're
walking down the street
1:09:53.560,1:09:55.400
and someone starts to kill you,
1:09:55.400,1:09:57.560
because I believe
taking my children out of
1:09:57.560,1:09:59.960
the public school system
saved their lives,
1:09:59.960,1:10:05.200
not just morally, religiously,
mentally – every way possible.
1:10:05.200,1:10:07.880
And I appreciated
the story in GWS
1:10:07.880,1:10:11.480
about the little girl who was
diagnosed as terminally ill
1:10:11.480,1:10:15.280
because this was worth
all the pennies I paid,
1:10:15.880,1:10:18.160
the pink wage we
pay you for GWS.
1:10:18.160,1:10:25.320
Thank you, John,
very much.
1:10:25.320,1:10:25.480
John: Well, you're welcome.
[Applause]
1:10:25.480,1:10:27.920
We had an interesting story
in the Globe the other day.
1:10:29.440,1:10:30.520
I cut out the clipping.
1:10:30.520,1:10:33.480
We always have about three times
as much stuff to print in GWS
1:10:33.480,1:10:37.400
as we ever have room to print,
which is frustrating.
1:10:37.400,1:10:38.555
This was about
a young man –
1:10:38.555,1:10:44.720
he's now 18 –
and he was autistic,
1:10:46.280,1:10:48.200
which is,
to this day,
1:10:48.200,1:10:52.560
by the supposed official experts,
called "incurable".
1:10:52.560,1:10:54.800
"Autistic" and "retarded,"
they're not the same thing.
1:10:54.800,1:10:58.480
I mean, he just had a whole bunch
of these labels stuck on him.
1:10:58.480,1:11:01.560
It's hopeless –
"vegetable," "institutionalized."
1:11:01.560,1:11:03.320
If you can get him
in and out of the bathroom,
1:11:03.320,1:11:05.800
that's probably
as much as you can do.
1:11:08.000,1:11:11.560
And somebody got
interested in this boy
1:11:11.560,1:11:13.040
when he was
seven or eight,
1:11:13.040,1:11:18.240
noticed that he seemed pretty
energetic and lively, and liked moving,
1:11:18.240,1:11:24.080
and they got him started running –
and running distances.
1:11:25.800,1:11:28.187
Took him on long runs
or this, that, the other
1:11:28.187,1:11:29.920
– and they got him
into this running world.
1:11:29.920,1:11:32.280
The boy's now 18,
I think.
1:11:32.280,1:11:33.760
I don't remember whether
this was because he was
1:11:33.760,1:11:36.080
getting ready to run in
the Boston Marathon or not.
1:11:36.080,1:11:38.560
But at any rate, he's become
an extremely good runner.
1:11:39.760,1:11:44.080
Incidentally, he has not
caught up with his age,
1:11:44.080,1:11:47.960
but he talks intelligently
and intelligibly,
1:11:47.960,1:11:48.860
reads –
I don't know –
1:11:48.860,1:11:50.120
something on
a 6th, 7th grade level.
1:11:50.120,1:11:51.280
But all this is going up.
1:11:52.480,1:11:55.960
He's become
a fully-functioning human being –
1:11:55.960,1:11:57.800
because he was allowed and helped
1:11:57.800,1:12:01.800
to do the things
that he liked best.
1:12:02.600,1:12:05.240
People grow through their strengths,
not their weaknesses.
1:12:05.240,1:12:06.960
One of the many simple truths,
1:12:06.960,1:12:12.000
which the giant educational,
psychological, medical, etc. institutions
1:12:12.000,1:12:14.080
don't seem to be able
to learn is just that:
1:12:14.080,1:12:17.560
that people learn by and
grow through their strengths,
1:12:17.560,1:12:20.840
not by having people pound
away at their weaknesses.
1:12:20.840,1:12:22.680
Somebody had
the wit and the imagination
1:12:22.680,1:12:25.360
to see that this boy
had a talent,
1:12:25.360,1:12:30.280
a gift, a love,
something he wanted to do.
1:12:30.280,1:12:32.680
And then all this other stuff
kind of went along with it.
1:12:32.680,1:12:35.140
Well, we know that,
1:12:35.140,1:12:37.836
and they don't know it
out there. [Chuckles]
1:12:37.836,1:12:42.819
And it's going to be
a long time before they do –
1:12:42.819,1:12:44.400
which is interesting.
Okay, now let's see.
1:12:44.400,1:12:45.880
Yes.
1:12:45.880,1:12:50.760
Woman: I have a lot of resentment
against my public school education
1:12:50.760,1:12:54.000
and further education here
at the University of Michigan,
1:12:54.000,1:12:55.680
although I learned,
as you said,
1:12:55.680,1:12:58.680
to play the games very well
and got good grades,
1:12:58.680,1:13:01.960
but felt that I didn't
develop a lot of interest,
1:13:01.960,1:13:04.240
because I was too busy
playing the games.
1:13:04.240,1:13:06.920
But I wondered how
you would answer the question,
1:13:08.160,1:13:09.560
if I hear you correctly,
1:13:09.560,1:13:14.240
that you allow a child to choose
what he wants to learn.
1:13:14.240,1:13:17.000
I can't imagine how
a person would ever choose
1:13:17.000,1:13:20.200
to learn things
like trigonometry,
1:13:20.200,1:13:23.600
or things that they say maybe
later that you're going to need.
1:13:23.600,1:13:25.800
John: Well, you will
need trigonometry
1:13:25.800,1:13:29.560
if you're a surveyor –
in no other place and way.
1:13:29.560,1:13:30.380
I'm glad you picked that.
1:13:30.380,1:13:31.840
Woman: Well,
I didn't take trigonometry,
1:13:31.840,1:13:33.924
but the algebra
I used, for example.
1:13:33.924,1:13:33.953
John: Now, now
[inaudible] –
1:13:33.953,1:13:36.760
Woman: I didn't enjoy learning it,
but I've used it a lot.
1:13:36.760,1:13:39.040
John: Okay, well,
if you had not learned it,
1:13:39.040,1:13:41.080
and if you got to
a place in life
1:13:41.080,1:13:43.160
where you needed it to do
something you wanted to do,
1:13:43.160,1:13:45.040
then you would
learn it very quickly.
1:13:45.040,1:13:47.080
It's no mystery.
It's not hidden.
1:13:47.080,1:13:48.753
The time to learn stuff is –
1:13:48.753,1:13:50.907
Woman: So you learn things
when you need them,
1:13:50.907,1:13:53.000
not when the school system says,
"This is geometry year."
1:13:53.000,1:13:56.560
John: Right, right.
You learn things when you –
1:13:56.560,1:13:58.320
As a species,
as a living creature,
1:13:58.320,1:14:01.080
we human beings
are incredibly good
1:14:01.080,1:14:02.840
at learning stuff
when we need to –
1:14:02.840,1:14:06.960
if we have not been convinced that
we're so stupid that we can't do it –
1:14:06.960,1:14:10.040
which, unfortunately,
in a great many places, does happen.
1:14:10.040,1:14:12.200
Man: I don't know who
you're on right now,
1:14:12.200,1:14:15.080
but I just want to point out that
I'm enjoying learning algebra.
1:14:15.080,1:14:19.976
I'm alternatively educated.
[Laughter]
1:14:19.976,1:14:19.994
Woman: [Inaudible]
1:14:19.994,1:14:21.460
John: Good.
And thank you.
1:14:21.460,1:14:23.160
Woman: What kind of school
are you in now?
1:14:23.160,1:14:24.760
Man: Well, actually,
it's a public school,
1:14:24.760,1:14:28.440
but it's an attempt at being
an alternative school.
1:14:28.440,1:14:31.360
And it's not as close as
the school I went to before it,
1:14:32.960,1:14:37.600
but it's closer than
the standard public schools,
1:14:37.600,1:14:40.400
and it has the atmosphere
of an alternative school.
1:14:40.400,1:14:47.120
But many of
our classes are chosen,
1:14:47.120,1:14:50.680
I mean, rather than –
1:14:50.680,1:14:53.640
Beyond the state requirements that
the public schools have to follow,
1:14:53.640,1:14:54.640
most of our classes
are chosen.
1:14:54.640,1:14:59.040
Woman: Do you have
friends in regular public school?
1:14:59.040,1:15:01.440
What I wonder is if you feel,
in comparison,
1:15:01.440,1:15:03.600
that you're getting
a far better education.
1:15:03.600,1:15:05.100
Man: Well, the –
Woman: Obviously, you do.
1:15:05.100,1:15:08.280
Man: I was in the public schools
until 7th grade.
1:15:08.280,1:15:10.360
And 7th grade,
I jumped around,
1:15:10.360,1:15:13.000
and it was
because of just
1:15:13.000,1:15:15.320
all sorts of problems
I was having in public schools.
1:15:18.560,1:15:21.280
Yeah, I think my education
since I've gone into alternative schools
1:15:21.280,1:15:24.960
has been infinitely better.
1:15:24.960,1:15:27.280
John: Good.
Well, I'm glad to hear that.
1:15:27.280,1:15:30.920
But I do want to make clear,
as far as I'm concerned,
1:15:30.920,1:15:34.240
I'm not trying to make –
never have tried to make
1:15:34.240,1:15:38.440
a distinction between public and
conventional private schools.
1:15:39.040,1:15:41.920
If you remember
"How Children Fail,"
1:15:41.920,1:15:46.960
you'll remember that
somewhere along in the book I wrote,
1:15:46.960,1:15:51.160
"School is a place where
children learn to be stupid."
1:15:51.160,1:15:51.240
[Laughter]
1:15:51.240,1:15:53.720
Now, let me tell you about
the school about which I was writing.
1:15:53.720,1:15:54.600
I was not writing about
1:15:54.600,1:15:59.480
some poor old PS 111
in the middle of the downtown,
1:15:59.480,1:16:03.680
I was talking about
an extremely exclusive,
1:16:03.680,1:16:07.400
high-powered, selective,
private elementary school,
1:16:07.400,1:16:09.600
one of the two or three
outstanding such schools
1:16:09.600,1:16:12.480
in the whole
Boston-Cambridge area –
1:16:12.480,1:16:16.640
the top of the top
of the top of the top!
1:16:16.640,1:16:19.000
They had an admissions policy
1:16:19.000,1:16:21.440
under which a kid could
not get into the school
1:16:21.440,1:16:24.520
if she or he did not
have an IQ of 120.
1:16:24.520,1:16:27.120
That was the cut-off!
1:16:27.120,1:16:31.200
It was at that school
that I wrote,
1:16:31.200,1:16:33.760
"School is a place where
children learn to be stupid."
1:16:33.760,1:16:36.680
So I'm not drawing a line –
[chuckles] never have drawn it.
1:16:36.680,1:16:38.360
I'm not drawing it here saying,
1:16:38.360,1:16:41.040
"Ooh, look at all these terrible,
rotten public schools on one side.
1:16:41.040,1:16:42.640
Ooh, look at these –"
1:16:42.640,1:16:45.520
What I was saying then
is that what I came to realize
1:16:45.520,1:16:47.240
in that school
with these kids
1:16:47.240,1:16:51.800
is that you cannot coerce learning
or attempt to coerce it
1:16:51.800,1:16:54.160
without making people stupid –
1:16:54.160,1:16:57.960
without making them afraid,
shifty, evasive, clever tricksters.
1:16:57.960,1:17:01.960
Yeah, the cleverest tricksters,
they'll sail on to Harvard, MIT, Yale –
1:17:01.960,1:17:03.800
I did that game.
1:17:03.800,1:17:07.040
Dope out the teacher,
guess the exam.
1:17:07.040,1:17:09.680
Everybody knows
how it goes.
1:17:09.680,1:17:12.440
And everybody who does it
knows that 90% of that stuff
1:17:12.440,1:17:17.120
you throw out just like dirty dishwater
as soon as the exam is passed.
1:17:17.120,1:17:19.360
How many people on
any university faculty
1:17:19.360,1:17:20.960
could pass an exam –
1:17:20.960,1:17:24.200
other than, perhaps basic
English reading and writing –
1:17:24.200,1:17:28.440
outside of their own specialty?
1:17:28.440,1:17:33.720
I mean, just very, very few –
and they know it.
1:17:33.720,1:17:36.800
I mean, this idea that there's
some great body of knowledge
1:17:36.800,1:17:38.960
which they all share –
it's just nonsense!
1:17:38.960,1:17:40.440
Never was true –
not true now.
1:17:40.440,1:17:42.120
It's a fraud.
1:17:42.960,1:17:44.640
I mean, I think
a lot of people say it sincerely.
1:17:44.640,1:17:46.640
I don't think they're lying
when they say it.
1:17:46.640,1:17:49.440
But I mean, it's a fraud
because it's just not so!
1:17:49.440,1:17:53.880
Nobody remembers that stuff.
1:17:53.880,1:17:55.440
Harvard University –
1:17:55.440,1:18:00.440
if you're taking some big course,
they announce an exam.
1:18:00.440,1:18:04.600
Some professor's going to
have an exam in his or her course.
1:18:04.600,1:18:05.640
Professor announces it:
1:18:05.640,1:18:07.760
"We will have such an exam
on such and such a day,
1:18:07.760,1:18:10.280
and it will cover such and
such and such a topic."
1:18:10.280,1:18:14.600
And then you spend a certain amount
of time discussing this in review.
1:18:14.600,1:18:17.160
Nobody springs surprise exams
on their students
1:18:17.160,1:18:20.800
because they know
perfectly well what would happen.
1:18:20.800,1:18:24.791
No, it's a very –
1:18:24.791,1:18:25.000
All right.
[Laughter]
1:18:25.000,1:18:28.560
I'll get out of that.
I'll go on all night.
1:18:28.560,1:18:29.200
[Laughter]
1:18:29.200,1:18:31.360
Let's see, now,
where are we in our numbers?
1:18:31.360,1:18:32.960
John: Yes.
1:18:32.960,1:18:36.984
Dorothy: I'm 4.
John: Good.
1:18:36.984,1:18:37.340
Dorothy: I help coordinate
1:18:37.340,1:18:40.480
a homeschooling
support group in Chicago,
1:18:40.480,1:18:44.480
and I'm noticing
more and more
1:18:45.880,1:18:50.440
the split that you have alluded to
in homeschooling as well
1:18:50.440,1:18:54.480
between those who wish to
coerce learning and those who don't.
1:18:54.480,1:18:59.280
And those who do
are very much interested –
1:18:59.280,1:19:00.720
as it happens in Illinois –
1:19:00.720,1:19:04.480
in keeping those of us
who don't want to coerce
1:19:04.480,1:19:09.960
in a semblance of unity with them
vis-à-vis the state.
1:19:09.960,1:19:12.040
And it's becoming
more and more difficult,
1:19:12.040,1:19:13.920
I think, for that to happen.
1:19:13.920,1:19:17.520
And I wonder if you would
comment on that, and also on –
1:19:17.520,1:19:20.720
There is a definite
one-way flow of energy happening
1:19:20.720,1:19:24.720
because those of us
who do not wish to coerce
1:19:26.280,1:19:31.280
give support and assistance
very often to those who do,
1:19:32.920,1:19:35.760
because they believe they
have the right to choose.
1:19:35.760,1:19:38.080
And those who
wish to coerce
1:19:38.080,1:19:41.280
really don't think that the rest of us
do have the right because,
1:19:41.280,1:19:43.480
"We're not doing it
the right way, you see."
1:19:43.480,1:19:46.880
So, would you
comment on that?
1:19:46.880,1:19:51.400
This is not a problem I want solved
because I don't see it being [inaudible]
1:19:51.400,1:19:52.947
John: That's good,
because it's –
1:19:52.947,1:19:53.880
Dorothy: – we're
not going to do that.
1:19:53.880,1:19:56.720
But I would like a comment
from you, if you will, on that,
1:19:56.720,1:20:01.320
especially vis-à-vis legislation,
and that sort of thing,
1:20:01.320,1:20:07.000
when our interests tend to be
moving further and further apart.
1:20:07.000,1:20:12.354
And what would you think we should do
in terms of strategies about this?
1:20:12.354,1:20:13.840
John: Thank you, Dorothy.
1:20:15.400,1:20:18.000
I first think of something
a friend of mine used to say:
1:20:18.520,1:20:23.985
"This isn't a problem,
it's a predicament."
1:20:23.985,1:20:24.180
Dorothy: Right.
[Laughter]
1:20:24.180,1:20:28.600
John: The word "problem"
kind of cooks up in our mind
1:20:28.600,1:20:30.960
a picture of something
which we could make go away
1:20:30.960,1:20:32.880
if we could just figure out
the right thing to do.
1:20:33.440,1:20:35.988
Things like death and taxes
are predicaments,
1:20:35.988,1:20:38.280
and they're just
part of reality.
1:20:38.280,1:20:41.680
Yeah, this is a part of reality,
and we are living with it,
1:20:41.680,1:20:46.840
and we're going to be living with it
as far in the future as I can see.
1:20:47.400,1:20:50.640
It doesn't trouble me that –
1:20:50.640,1:20:54.400
I'm going to
respond in several sections.
1:20:54.400,1:20:55.320
First place,
I don't think
1:20:55.320,1:20:59.000
it's a cause for worry
or concern or distress
1:20:59.000,1:21:01.400
that we may be
helping people
1:21:01.400,1:21:05.740
to get rights which they
would not help us to get.
1:21:05.740,1:21:07.320
Dorothy: I'm not worried
about that.
1:21:07.320,1:21:11.240
John: Now, there's
no reason in the world
1:21:11.240,1:21:13.640
not to work
together with people
1:21:13.640,1:21:16.720
with whom we disagree
about many things
1:21:16.720,1:21:19.120
on those things
about which we agree.
1:21:19.120,1:21:23.160
Because when we improve
the legislative situation,
1:21:23.160,1:21:25.160
then we've made things
easier for all of us.
1:21:33.760,1:21:37.600
Another thing
I would have to say is –
1:21:37.600,1:21:39.360
Well, first of all,
1:21:39.360,1:21:43.820
a lot of the people who begin
as coercive homeschoolers change.
1:21:43.820,1:21:46.434
Dorothy: I've seen
a lot of that [inaudible].
1:21:46.434,1:21:51.640
John: Their children teach them [laughter]
about how learning really works.
1:21:51.640,1:21:54.240
And if – and this is
very, very often true –
1:21:54.240,1:21:58.880
if they care enough about their children
to pay attention to their feelings
1:21:58.880,1:22:04.640
and pick up these messages,
they become educated,
1:22:04.640,1:22:08.840
and they become
less and less coercive –
1:22:08.840,1:22:11.320
minimally coercive.
1:22:11.320,1:22:13.840
My experience is that the people
who do not make that change
1:22:13.840,1:22:17.280
don't stay in
homeschooling very long.
1:22:17.280,1:22:19.240
That is, people who –
1:22:19.240,1:22:21.360
whether for reasons
religious or other,
1:22:21.360,1:22:24.680
believe in high-pressure coercion,
1:22:24.680,1:22:27.880
soon find ways to get together with
other people who feel the same way
1:22:27.880,1:22:30.000
and they start
some kind of coercive school.
1:22:30.000,1:22:31.720
I don't think
you're very likely
1:22:31.720,1:22:35.280
to find people doing
coercive homeschooling
1:22:35.280,1:22:37.720
for four or five
years in a row.
1:22:37.720,1:22:39.480
I mean, their children
would hit the road,
1:22:39.480,1:22:45.680
if nothing else happened.
[Laughter]
1:22:45.680,1:22:49.880
I'm untroubled
by having people start
1:22:49.880,1:22:53.920
in a position which is
very far from my own,
1:22:53.920,1:22:56.520
partly because I believe people
should have the right to do this
1:22:56.520,1:22:58.640
however they want to do it,
not just if they agree with me,
1:22:58.640,1:23:01.400
and partly because I have
a lot of confidence, as I say,
1:23:01.400,1:23:02.880
that they will learn
from their children,
1:23:02.880,1:23:05.800
that they will move
away from coercion.
1:23:05.800,1:23:09.040
As I have said
at teachers' colleges,
1:23:09.040,1:23:11.760
one reason homeschooling
works well in practice
1:23:11.760,1:23:16.200
is that the home is an absolutely
splendid teacher-training institution.
1:23:16.200,1:23:17.720
[Laughter]
1:23:17.720,1:23:19.000
The numbers
are small enough
1:23:19.000,1:23:24.600
so you can really hear the messages
that your children are sending.
1:23:24.600,1:23:26.760
And you're in a position where,
if you choose to,
1:23:26.760,1:23:28.420
you can learn from them.
1:23:28.420,1:23:32.240
Now, when I first discovered,
as a fifth-grade classroom teacher,
1:23:32.240,1:23:34.440
that a lot of children
were so scared
1:23:34.440,1:23:36.600
of the weekly
arithmetic test
1:23:36.600,1:23:39.120
that they couldn't
think about arithmetic,
1:23:39.120,1:23:40.480
I stopped giving the tests.
1:23:40.480,1:23:41.960
And it wasn't more than
about two weeks
1:23:41.960,1:23:43.280
before the school administration
1:23:43.280,1:23:45.120
told me that I had to
start giving them again,
1:23:45.120,1:23:48.560
and they fired me
at the end of the year.
1:23:48.560,1:23:50.600
So I was not
in a position to do
1:23:50.600,1:23:53.600
what my conscience and
intelligence and instincts
1:23:53.600,1:23:55.120
told me needed
to be done.
1:23:55.120,1:23:56.960
Parents aren't
in that position.
1:23:56.960,1:23:58.400
"You can start
with a little desk,
1:23:58.400,1:24:01.300
an American flag,
a schedule on the blackboard –
1:24:01.300,1:24:01.800
[Laughter]
1:24:01.800,1:24:06.080
– but the day you find out
it isn't working, you can say,
1:24:06.080,1:24:07.640
"We're going to do
something different."
1:24:07.640,1:24:10.666
You have that
freedom to move –
1:24:10.666,1:24:12.775
[Recording ends prematurely]