“Which in fact, when it’s all over and the last bell rings, they have not learned.”
Unschooling The World
But,” I went on, “you don’t actually think that the original system would work in the modern world, do you?”
Ishmael considered that for a while, then said, “Your schools would work perfectly if … what, Julie?”
“If people were better. If teachers were all brilliant and if kids were all attentive and obedient and hardworking and farsighted enough to know that learning everything in school would really be good for them.”
“You’ve found that people won’t be better, and you’ve failed to find a way to make them better, so you do what instead?”
“Spend money.”
“More and more and more and more money. Because you can’t make people better, but you can always spend more money.”
“That’s right.”
“What do you call a system that will only work if the people in it are better than people have ever been?”
“I don’t know. Is there a special name for it?”
“What do you call a system that’s built on the presumption that people in this system will be better than people have ever been? Everyone in this system is going to be kind and generous and considerate and selfless and obedient and compassionate and peaceable. What kind of system is that?”
“Utopian?”
“Utopian is right, Julie. Every one of your systems is a Utopian system. Democracy would be heaven—if people would just be better than people have ever been. Of course, Soviet communism was supposed to have been heaven too—if people had just been better than people have ever been. Your justice system would work perfectly if people would just be better than people have ever been. And of course your schools would work perfectly under the same conditions.”
“So? I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.”
“I’m turning your question back to you, Julie. Do you actually think your Utopian school system will work in the modern world?”
“I see what you mean. The system we have doesn’t work. Except as a device to keep kids off the job market.”
“The tribal system is a system that works with people the way they are, not the way you wish they were. It’s a thoroughly practical system that has worked perfectly for people for hundreds of thousands of years, but you apparently think it a bizarre notion that it would work for you, now.”
“I just don’t see how it would work. How it could be made to work.”
“First, tell me who your system works for and who it doesn’t work for.”
“Our system works for business but it doesn’t work for people.”
“And what are you looking for now?”
“A system that works for people.”
Ishmael nodded. “During the early years of your children’s lives, your system is indistinguishable from the tribal system. You simply interact with your children in a way that is mutually enjoyable, and you give them the freedom of the house—for the most part. You won’t let them swing on the chandeliers or stick forks into electric light sockets, but otherwise they’re free to explore what they want to explore. At age four or five, kids want to go farther afield, and for the most part they’re allowed to do so within the immediate vicinity of the home. They’re allowed to visit other kids down the hall or next door. In school, these would be social-studies lessons. At this stage, kids begin to learn that not all families are identical. They differ in membership, in manners, in style. After this point in your system, children are sent off to school, where all their movements are controlled for most of the waking day. But of course that doesn’t happen in the tribal system. At age six and seven children begin to diverge widely in their interests. Some will continue to stick close to home, some will—”
I was waving my hand. “How are they going to learn to read?”
“Julie, for hundreds of thousands of years, children have managed to learn the things they want to learn and need to learn. They haven’t changed.”
“Yes, but how do they learn to read?”
“They learn to read the same way they learned how to see, by being around sighted people. The same way they learned how to speak, by being around speaking people. In other words, they learn to read by being around reading people. I know you’ve learned not to have any confidence in this process. I know you’ve been taught that this is something best left to ‘the professionals,’ but in fact the professionals have a very doubtful record of success. Remember that, one way or another, the people of your culture managed to learn to read for thousands of years without ‘professionals’ teaching them to do it. The fact is that children who grow up in reading households grow up reading.”
“Yeah, but not all kids grow up in reading households.”
“Let us posit, for the sake of argument, a child who is growing up in a household where the cooking instructions on food packages are not read, where the messages on television screens are not read, where telephone bills are not read, where the parents are totally, one hundred percent illiterate. Where the parents can’t even tell whether they’re holding a one-dollar bill or a five-dollar bill.”