8th of October 2009

I’m Romanian. I’m in my eighteenth year of schooling. After graduating  I taught for one year at a secondary school, a time which only added to the frustration I had accumulated while being  a student.

This blog comes from the need to do something, to contribute, if only in a small way, to making children lives better.

Formal education

The University of Bucharest – Language Studies -Romanian Language and Literature

I am now attending the courses of the same College in order to get a master’s degree in teaching.

Informal education

I’ve learned a lot form the books and articles on education I read and the blogs I follow. Here are a few of them:

Marshall B. Rosenberg – Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Daniel Goleman – Emotional Intelligence

John Holt – Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better

Alfie Kohn – Punished by Rewards

Peter Gray’s blog: Freedom to Learn

What do I believe?

That the Romanian educational system is perverting our children, uselessly spending their energy and their time while failing to prepare them for life. It’s this system that has contributet a great deal to the current state of our country.

That real school is not controlled by the state, but by those who are directly involved in education.

That children and young people are full, independent people, equals in every way to adults.

That teachers need help to rethink their attitude towards children.

That change begins with yourself, the teacher. It’s not the system that makes you behave in an aggressive, intolerant  and patronizing manner towards children, insist that they learn every bit of information, even the optional ones, have no creativity in your teaching activity and react insensitively to parents’ needs. You act in this way because you choose to and it’s high time you took responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

What do I want?

To show that it can be done differently. That young people make the right decisions when given the freedom to choose. That inner motivation for learning is the strongest when you have the responsibility of your own development. That students aren’t lazy, stupid, incapable, shallow or selfish, but frustrated, sad, disoriented and hopeless. Just like the teachers. Just like the parents. But they’re too young to change their lives for the better. We have to help them.

28th of January 2010

While reading all of the above, I realized just how much I have changed. Although it started as a cry for educational reform, this blog has been, from the start, much more than that. It’s a place where I can express my opinions, my thoughts and values regarding education. In fact, it all adds up to values, those principles I respect and want to apply in the rearing of my own children: freedom, autonomy, choice, nonviolent communication, community, cooperation, self-directed learning, learning as a by-product of living, free and harmonious development and so on. the most important of all is FREEDOM, the freedom of the child to live and learn as he/she wishes.

From all I’ve read and discussed with other people, I’ve come to the conclusion that educational reform is never going to change the harmful premises of schooling, and just some formal issues. In other words, the pink prison with flowers by the windows and “exciting” activities is still going to be a prison.

What then? I’ll let Peter Gray calm you down: ”We have no reason to be discouraged about the future of education. We just must realize that real reform is not going to occur within the established school system. It will continue to occur outside of that system. The gradual change that will occur is that more and more people will opt out of conventional schooling. To permit that to happen, we need to be sure that people have the legal right to opt out. On a political level, that should be the highest priority for those of us who look for a world in which children can develop freely and happily, with the full experience of democracy and the rights and responsibilities that democracy entails.” (Why Schools Are What They Are)

I’ll keep on writing about traditional schools, although I’ve lost hope that they are ever going to be an appropriate environment for children to grow up in. I will provide further evidence for those who feel there is something wrong with the way children are being treated in schools and, inevitably, get on the nerves of those who don’t agree :).

I’m not trying to prove that I’m right and that parents who send their kids to school are wrong. I think the whole discussion about education can be reduced to values and needs. Some value discipline and curriculum, others value cooperation and freedom. Some think we should force children to learn, others believe kids have an innate desire to learn, which is destroyed by coercion. Both need to know their children are safe and prepared for adult life. It’s just that they choose different strategies.

So what do I want? Just to show that there are others strategies besides state schooling. I had my own Eureka! moment when I discovered Summerhill School.  Now I’m having my second one: unschooling! I’ve managed to chip a little hole in my tiny box and I’m seeing wonderful things, things I wouldn’t have dreamed about in the past. Don’t you want a piece of glass? 🙂