I've been thinking back on my experiences with the monopoly system. I realize now that I more or less ignored it. At least as much as I could. I was thin and wore glasses 'til I was 15, so I got teased a lot. But, somehow I was never bullied. Well, almost never. From things I've read about it, I think it was because I never acted afraid. Bullies, like all animals, can sense fear. And they can sense the lack of it.
I learned the things that interested me. And I learned them when I was interested. I read a lot. My parents tell stories about me, about how when they went to visit friends and took us kids with them my sister would watch TV but I would read. Sometimes even dictionaries and encyclopedias.
So in school I was often ahead of the teachers for stuff that I'd already taught myself. I rarely did homework, and goofed off in class. But I almost always made As and Bs on the tests. If it was stuff I didn't care about I still managed to pick up enough to pull Cs mostly.
But no or very little homework hurt my grades. "He could do so much better if he would just apply himself" they told my parents.
I was doing what I now think of as 'life learning'. The Sudbury style schools have organized it a bit more, and formalized it a bit, and now call it 'democratic education'. Even those who fit into the mold of public education learn more outside the classroom than inside.
I think shando is right about the village. But ...
<ul>... the village has to be willing to let each kid find her special path to the future. They must wait for the kid to ask a question, before giving the best answer they can. But that's not the way the monopoly system works. They force-feed the kids on a schedule they pulled out of their ... I mean the air. That's why it takes the public schools years to teach something a motivated senior can learn in a few months.</ul>
The village I grew up in did not help me do that. But at least they did not stop me from doing it myself. As I ignored them, they also ignored me.
Like I said earlier, I now wish I had been willing (or able?) to "apply myself" back then. But I didn't. I suspect, but will never know for sure, that if I'd been in an actual democratic school (rather than the virtual one I created for myself) that I would have done much better. Still, my life has been amazing. I went to college and got several degrees. And I've had some pretty cool jobs. Built some pretty cool stuff. Learned a lot of pretty cool things. And I still get up every morning raring to go, to find out what ever it is I'll discover that day. It's almost never earth shattering, but that's OK. It's still cool.
LB
