Paradigm Shift - Part 3
Education and the Constitution
One of the reasons why the Federal Government seeks not to become actively involved – at least in a primary fashion – from the process of education is in order to avoid even the appearance of impropriety with respect to the First Amendment. In its own way, this aspect of public policy tends to substantiate all that has been said in the previous discussion about religion and public policy, but selective attention has permitted government authorities and Constitutional experts to acknowledge the former point while failing to follow through on the logic of the underlying principle.
Notwithstanding the foregoing issue, most people suppose that whatever powers have not been delegated to the three branches of the Federal government, nor specifically prohibited to the States, belongs to the States. After all, isn’t this what the 10th Amendment, the last outpost of the Bill of Rights, guarantees?
Actually, the answer to the above question is ‘No!’. Whatever the Constitution has not specifically delegated to the Federal Government nor prohibited to the States, “are”, as the Constitution clearly indicates, “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
In addition, and not to put too fine a point on this matter, the 9th Amendment paves the way for, as well as underscores, the provisions of the 10th Amendment. The 9th Amendment says: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
While the precise nature of these ‘other rights’ is not specified, only alluded to (and, especially, through the presence of the Preamble), nonetheless, how quaint and interesting! The Constitution actually indicates that people have potential powers reserved for them which may be entirely independent of government processes , and this tends to suggest that contrary to what Lincoln thought, this is not a nation which is a government of, by, and for the people, but that the people are an entity all on their own, quite apart from government.
Before pushing on with this startling development, let’s backpedal a bit. If the Federal Government is not supposed to become involved in the business of education for fear that, in so doing, it would violate the spirit of the Preamble and the letter of the First Amendment, then what business does any given State government have in regulating education?
What is the precise nature of the twist in logic that extends to State governments a power which transgresses both the spirit and letter of the Constitution? The Constitution does entitle every state government to have a Republican form of government (Section 4 of Article IV), but such a form of government does not entitle states to “make laws respecting an establishment of religion,” for although the 1st Amendment specifically forbids Congress from doing so, the implication of this prohibition encompasses every level of government – and there is no legal argument which could make this fiduciary responsibility of every level of government other than this -- not, that is, without re-writing history and the Constitution to make them something other than they were and are.
As argued previously, public policy -- which is a source of government intentions with respect to the people, and, therefore, the force behind the generation and establishment of many laws – often tends to be another term for the “establishment of religion” for the structural character of a great deal of public policy has the qualities of religious activity and merely uses a different lexicon in order to hide this fact. This is true for the public policy of the Federal government, and this is true for the public policy of state governments.
One of the conclusions which follows from the foregoing is that compulsory education is unconstitutional. States have sought to rush into the vacuum left by the Federal government’s withdrawing (for example, in the realm of education) and where angels fear to tread, and there is a word for those who seek to do what states have attempted to rush into in this respect.
Most forms of government tend to be imperialistic by inclination, seeking to extend the boundaries of their fiefdoms as far as possible. In giving expression to this inclination, state governments have usurped something from the people to which states are not entitled and, in accordance with the provisions of the 10th Amendment, something -- namely, education -- which actually is one of those powers that has been reserved for the people quite independently of government.
The 13th Amendment, passed in 1865 -- the year in which the Civil War ended, states in Section 1: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The citing of involuntary servitude as a separate, though not necessarily unrelated, concept from the institution of slavery is an important one, but there is a very strong case which can be made that compulsory education constitutes both a form of slavery and involuntary servitude.
Historically, public education began, on the one hand, as a method for removing children from the labor pool in order to bolster the bargaining power of older workers, and, on the other hand, public education began (through the writings of Horace Mann and others) as a means of trying to contain what many government officials and scions of social privilege perceived as the threat of Catholicism. Today, education has become, to a great extent, the minor league feeding system for the Big Dance known as ‘economics’.
Whether one is talking about some form of indentured servitude (through, for example, education loans) or enslaving children to serve the interests of governments, corporations, or self-appointed guardians of cultural heritage, compulsory education is a form of involuntary servitude. In many ways, education is a modern form of slavery.
A slave is someone without power, voice, or rights who must act in accordance with the arbitrarily derived whims and wishes of a master. A slave is someone who will be punished for doing other than what the master commands – and the modalities of punishment are varied, subtle and gross -- e.g., truancy laws, suspension, expulsion, detention, poor grades, unfavorable recommendations, a miserable quality of life within the school system, or a school record that will haunt one to the grave). A slave is someone over whom another person or persons has absolute control with respect to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. A slave is someone who, both mentally and morally, is in subjugation to another human being’s whims. A slave is someone who involuntarily serves another person’s economic and political agenda.
The 13th Amendment may have been written with people of color in mind but there can be no question that students who are subject to compulsory education meet the criteria of what constitutes a slave. Furthermore, the very idea of ‘compulsion’ means, by definition, that a student’s life consists of involuntary servitude. If there is no choice in the matter, or if the exercise of choice automatically results in punishment, to one degree or another, then, such servitude can be nothing other than involuntary.
Parents, governments, educators, and businesses may all plea that such an arrangement is in the best interests of the student. However, this was (and is)the form of argument used by slave owners (de facto or by proxy) with respect to that which they considered to be their chattel, and this was (and is) the form of argument used in controlling native peoples through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and this was (and is) the form of argument used in denying women the full status of being considered a person until, at the very least, toward the middle of the last century, and this was (and is) the form of logic which is advanced by every colonial government which exists or has existed.
The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, indicates in Section 1 that:
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Children are citizens. Therefore, children inherit the promise of the Preamble, along with the protections afforded by the 1st Amendment in relation to governments making laws respecting an establishment of religion (i.e., the imposing of a public policy which dictates how one should engage, think about, or evaluate the nature, meaning, purpose, and significance of reality).
In addition, the provisions of the both the 13th and 14th Amendments are applicable to the treatment of children in conjunction with issues of: (a) slavery, (b) involuntary servitude, (c) the abridging of those privileges (among which are the right to life, liberty, together with intellectual, emotional and spiritual property) which are consonant with the promise of the Preamble -- and in order for a process of law to be considered “due” that process cannot be unconstitutional -- as well as, (d) equal protection of the law. Parents no more have the right to aid and abet governments in depriving children of these rights, than do governments.
Children are not the chattel of parents. Ownership is not logically implied by the existence of biological kinship.
Parents have an even greater fiduciary responsibility with respect to children than do governments. Moreover, part of the job of governments is to establish procedural forms of assistance and regulation which will enable parents to observe the fiduciary responsibilities that parents have toward their children so that together, both parents and government can help children to realize the promise of the Preamble according to the assisted choices of the child and not as a result of the fiats or forced impositions of parents and/or governments.
The framers of the Constitution may not have had children primarily in mind when they spoke about the rights, privileges, powers, and protections of people, or when the framers set down any number of the rules and principles which are given expression through the Preamble, Articles, Sections, or Amendments of that document (although the age requirements needed to hold certain public offices is an oblique reference to the existence of people who fall below a certain number of years lived). Nevertheless, one might add to the foregoing considerations that no prima facie case can be advanced demonstrating that the powers which are protected and reserved for the people through the 9th and 10th Amendments should not encompass children.
Furthermore, one has good reason to suppose that at the top of this list of powers which should be extended to not only adults, but to children, involves control over the process of learning. Dictating to children what they should learn, or how they should learn it, or when they should learn it, or why they should learn it, or where they should learn it, is antithetical to the whole spirit of the revolution in thought and political arrangements which led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence as well as the framing the Preamble and the principles and rules of the Constitution which were intended to be subservient to that Preamble. More specifically, trying to control how, what, why, when, and where students learn is in direct violation of the 1st , 13th, and 14th Amendments, and, consequently, this causes one to take a very long, reflective pause in relation to the potential for transgression of fundamental rights with respect to both the 9th and 10th Amendments.
Unreasonable Search and Seizure
One might also throw in the 4th Amendment to the foregoing discussion. This Amendment stipulates:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.”
Part and parcel of what constitutes a person are the emotional, ideational, spiritual, creative, moral, experiential, motivational, and intellectual contents which reside in that person. This is as true for children as it is for adults.
Children have as much right to be secure in their persons from “unreasonable searches and seizures” as do adults. Schooling, testing, and grading all constitute unreasonable instances of search and seizure because the agency doing such searching and seizing has no authority to do so under the Constitution, and the nature of the underlying argument for this contention has been stated in the foregoing pages.
Can “probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized” be given in relation to beliefs, ideas, values, opinions, thoughts, intellectual systems, frameworks, paradigms, world views, creations, and so on of a student? Well, let’s reflect on this matter a little.
What would constitute probable cause for the search and seizure of a person’s cognitive life? Can one demonstrate that such search and seizure would lead to a more perfect Union? – not without a lot of contentious point-counterpoint, and, probably, not even then.
Can one show that such search and seizure would be consonant with the demands of Justice? Whose theory of Justice is one going to cite and why should anyone, let alone a child, be required to allow his or her cognitive domain to be the subject of search and seizure in order to serve such a notion of Justice?
Undoubtedly, arguments can be made in this regard. However, the one who is giving an Oath and affirmation in support of such probable cause has a steep slope to climb in order to be able justify negating, undermining, compromising, and ignoring so many dimensions of the Constitution.
Can one demonstrate that one would enhance and secure domestic tranquility through such a process of search and seizure? Parents might think so, but anyone who has been in all too many modern schools with their propensity for violence, fear, shootings, presence of weapons that terrorize through their mere presence, gangs, antagonistic cliques, drugs, extortions, dehumanizing practices, stresses, depression-inducing formats, anxieties, sources of humiliation, alienation, arbitrariness, and oppression – all of which are directly tied to the compulsory nature of the process – knows otherwise.
Can one prove that the Blessings of Liberty will be preserved through such a process of search and seizure? The whole concept is something of an oxymoron unless one can show that depriving people of the blessings of liberty in this compulsory fashion will, in all probability, lead to an enhancement of the Blessings of Liberty for all concerned – not just the majority, but the minority as well ... the ones for whom rights are primarily intended to protect, even as such rights also serve the needs of the majority.
Can one establish, with sufficient rigor, that underlying the search and seizure of cognitive contents of a student via schooling, testing, and grading, there exists a probable cause with respect to the enhancement of the general Welfare? Welfare is a term laden with conflicts arising from differing opinions, beliefs, ideas, values, priorities, interests, commitments, agendas, and world views. As such, these are precisely the kinds of issue from which governments ought to recuse themselves because they tend to infringe upon, among other things, 1st Amendment rights.
Aside from the issue of laws respecting the establishing of religion, or the exercise thereof – both of which are jeopardized by the search and seizure of the cognitive content’s of a student’s person, compulsory schooling (and the concomitant practices of testing and grading), seeking to search and seize the cognitive contents of a person’s mind through compulsory education also interferes with the right to free speech (if one will be penalized for what one says, the speech is not free), as well as the right to peacefully assemble.
With respect to this latter right, the process of peaceful assembly is double edged. On the one hand, it permits assemblage for peaceful purposes (and learning according to one’s own capacity, interests, needs and circumstances is a peaceful purpose), and, on the other hand, this right protects one against being compelled to assemble for purposes which, even if peaceful, are not consonant with one’s way of engaging life. Moreover, the very act of compelling attendance in any assembly is inherently unpeaceful, and, therefore, does not satisfy the conditions of probable cause with respect to either enhancing domestic tranquility or promoting the general welfare, not to mention failing to secure the Blessings of Liberty.
Native peoples have a way of approaching the idea of the general Welfare. Mystics have a way of engaging this issue. Religious frameworks offer a variety of modalities for deliberating upon this issue -- involving both some commonalities and numerous differences. Scientists, philosophers, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, poets, novelists, political scientists, newspaper columnists, educators, movie directors, mathematicians, statisticians, bankers, economists, corporate executives, and jurists all have their own take on this issue of the general Welfare.
Currently, we have no means of constructing a multidimensional regression line which is capable of linking all the foregoing points of view together into a consistent, common expression of what is, or should be, meant by the idea of the general Welfare. Whatever subset of themes, topics, contents, issues, and ideas which is selected from amidst the overwhelming mass of data concerning the problems surrounding and permeating the issue of the ‘general Welfare’ and is proclaimed to be ‘the’ material which a person needs in order to be a cultured, educated, happy, moral, socially aware, well-adjusted, independent, critically thinking, contributing member of society who is ready for whatever the future may bring is entirely arbitrary and cannot possibly be proven to be true prior to the unfolding of history. This is why the choices concerning such issues should be left in the hands of individuals subject to the normal constraints which are needed to secure and protect, for one and all, the Blessings of Liberty, Domestic Tranquility, Justice, and the common defense.
Presumably, with an appropriate approach to preserving and securing the rights of both minorities and majorities, one would have gone a great distance toward forming a more perfect Union. However, notwithstanding such a hope, no one in America can establish probable cause as to why the search and seizure of the cognitive contents of a person (say, a student) through a forced process of schooling will establish the general Welfare without simultaneously transgressing the requirements of many other provisions of the Constitution.
Learning, Understanding and Testing
Furthermore, even if one were able to create such an impossible dream of a legal or public policy argument, one faces another daunting task. More specifically, one cannot show probable cause that testing, grading, and degrees/certificates are the best means to attain such an end.
There is considerable documented evidence which has accumulated concerning the essential importance of not only intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) motivation as one of the key elements in how people learn, but, as well, the central role which is played by there being an absence of stress in relation to the successful formation of long-term memory. All such findings are at odds with the idea of compulsory, arbitrary schooling.
Moreover, the only long-term, well-constructed, valid study involving high school students who went on to college -- and is, therefore, known as the ‘Eight year Study’ -- demonstrates that students who, among other things, learn while attending high school in the absence of any system of grading either do better, or no worse, in college/university than do students who are graded. Once again, such evidence which has been available to us for quite some time (at least since the 1930s), all suggests that learners do quite well in environments which are non-compulsory and un-regimented in nature, and which are rooted in intrinsic forms of natural motivation rather than externally imposed, arbitrary systems of motivation.
The fact of the matter is, tests (whether standardized or not), for example, are fairly worthless as indicators of determining what has been learned by a student. There are a variety of reasons for the absence of reliability and heuristic value with respect to testing as an indicator of what is learned. The present paper only will outline and allude to some of these reasons in passing, for such empirical findings are all extensively documented in an array of books, articles, and papers.
First, for reasons alluded to previously, the very act of selecting what items, topics, ideas, themes, problems, values, judgments, methods, and so on should appear on a test is inherently arbitrary, argumentative, biased, and an infringement upon basic Constitutional rights – especially when such tests are of a compulsory nature. Nonetheless, even if one were to waive this not inconsiderable difficulty, there are a number of other fundamental problems entailed by the process of testing.
For example, most tests revolve around the issue of memory recognition rather than independent recall. If one is given a standardized test and asked to select which choice best reflects the most appropriate answer for a stated question, one doesn’t have to necessarily recall any information, one only has to recognize something as being more correct than the other alternatives.
Being asked to recall who first proposed a general theory of relativity in the absence of any clues tends to probe the issue of potential learning in a different, more rigorous way, of testing learning than if one only has to choose among already supplied names such as: Ptolemy, Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Einstein and Hawking. Moreover, usually speaking, being required to recall something in the absence of hints is very resistant to guessing, whereas such is not the case in instances involving mere recognition.
However, tests of recall rather than mere recognition also tend to be much more difficult to assess. Due to a variation of the user-interface problem, people who are given space and an opportunity to write down whatever they want, often do, and trying to figure out if, under such circumstances, an answer is correct is not always easy, and, therefore, to make things as easy as possible on the person correcting the test, as well as to avoid as many arguments as conceivable (by the teacher, the student, or his/her parents) with respect to the degree of correctness in any given answer, most testing in high school is restricted to tests of recognition – the most rudimentary, least meaningful, most nebulous index of what someone might know.
The term “might” is used above because getting something correct on a test of recognition does not necessarily mean an individual understands much about what has been recognized. Aside from the issue of pure guess-work, and returning to the example noted above, knowing who first proposed a general theory of relativity does not necessarily mean one knows anything more about general relativity than a name.
Of course, one could augment the section of a test dealing with general relativity by asking other questions of a related nature. However, even if one did this, and even if a person did relatively well, none of this guarantees three further important indicators of learning.
Descriptive information concerning a theory is not the same as having critical understanding of the theory being described. In addition, having critical understanding concerning certain aspects of a given theory is not always the same as being able to solve problems using such a theory.
Furthermore, being able to apply the theory in the world beyond the horizons of a school setting does not necessarily follow upon good test scores. Lots of people test well only to fail in the non-school world because the nature of the tests and challenges often are constructed differently in the world outside of school than they are within an environment of schooling.
Finally, even if one has recognition, recall, critical understanding, and problem-solving capabilities with a transfer of learning to a non-school context, no test can determine how long one is going to remember what has been learned. Unless one has eidetic memory like the subject ‘S’ of the case studies compiled by the Russian psychologist Luria, the vast majority of us tend to forget most of what we learn – this is as true for very bright students as it is for less-gifted individuals.
Medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, doctoral candidates, and so on all appear a lot smarter shortly after completing a test for which they have studied than they do as little as 6 months later, let alone years after. So, what is the point of a test which focuses on tasks of recognition, while ignoring issues of recall, critical understanding, problem solving, transfer of learning to non-school environments, and the fact that much of what is learned is relatively short-term?
The more complex and rigorous a test, the more complicated is the process of evaluation. Most teachers either don’t have the time or will not take the time to probe these various dimensions of learning.
Universities are filled with scholars who are at odds about many of the ‘facts’ and issues concerning any given topic. Journals, conferences, symposia, and libraries are filled with more of the same.
Does this mean there is no such thing as an undisputed fact or no such thing as the truth? No, not necessarily, but it does mean that what a teacher believes to be true is not always the same thing as such a belief being true.
Students tend to be held hostage by the paradigms through which teachers, school systems, governments, and scholars understand the latter’s experience of the world. Teachers, school systems, governments, and scholars all tend to believe students should be held hostage to such paradigms because these world-views are the cultural heritage which is being passed on to them ... the Constitution says otherwise.
Introducing learners to various ideas and sharing such ideas with learners is one thing. Compelling students to learn such ideas under threat of penalty is, Constitutionally speaking, quite another matter.
However, even if the Constitution did not preclude such compulsory forms of imposition, there is a tremendous injustice done to students when they are forced to rub their faces in the arbitrary and personal conceptual meanderings of other people due to fear of being punished via grades, permanent notations in one’s school record, suspensions, expulsions, letters of complaint to one’s parents, or having a degree withheld, simply because out of a prudent cautiousness, a student resists such an onslaught or does not given her or his consent to this sort of gross violation of the security of one’s person that infringes on matters of personal conscience, meaning, belief, identity, purpose, and choice.
All the noble principles encompassed by the Declaration of Independence are paraded before students as a wonderful part of history but, of course, these students should not ever get the idea that such principles, documents, and history have any relevance to what goes on in classrooms and schools today. All that stuff about rights, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, despotism, oppression, involuntary servitude – that’s all behind us now.
Students live in a brave new world where such principles no longer apply – except as teachers and schools, like King George, believe these sort of principles ought to be applied in order to advance the purposes of the educational rulers. The needs and learning of students to become mature, free, self-aware, critically thinking, responsible, moral, independent constructive, co-operative participants in a community of like-minded and like-hearted individuals become sacrificial lambs upon the altars of educational orthodoxy.
The purpose of a test should be to determine strengths and weaknesses in order to shape subsequent learning -- nothing more ... unless, that is, there is a demand arising from someone’s agenda (the teacher, principle, school board, superintendent, union, Department of Education, media, higher education, and/or business) which “must” be satisfied. Grading adds nothing but arbitrariness, stress, oppression, persecution, compulsion, meanness, ego-games (on the part of both teacher and student), inequitable standards, bias, prejudice, resentment, anger, as well as cruel and unusual punishment to a testing situation – and all of these listed factors have been proven, time and again, to undermine a person’s potential for learning.
None of the foregoing is rocket science. The fact testing persists for reasons other than the only valid one noted above -- namely, to point out strengths and weaknesses -- indicates the underlying issues are not about learning, per se, but, rather, about what and how someone demands that someone else learn under considerable penalty for failure to do so.
From a pedagogical perspective, using testing as other than a transitory and very problematic means of assessing strengths and weaknesses is never justified. From a pedagogical perspective, using grading as in incentive to learning is almost invariably counterproductive except for those individuals whose self-esteem is highly dependent on such forms of recognition – a condition which is not necessarily emotionally or psychologically healthy for such individuals.
From a Constitutional perspective, compulsory schooling, testing, and grading are all antithetical to the principles which are inherent in the Preamble, Articles, and Amendments of that document. Among other things, States have entwined themselves in the dubious process of making “laws respecting an establishment of religion” as well as passing laws which “prohibit the free exercise thereof” by imposing a system of compulsory education upon people as a matter of public policy – public policy which has all of the characteristics of an established religion to which children must pay obeisance at the risk of grave consequences for expressing resistance to such a demand for submission. In addition, there are all of the other, previously mentioned Amendments which are violated by the process of compulsory education.
Is Compulsory Education Necessary?
Finally, one should ask whether one can prove that the ‘common defence’ demands compulsory education or its two ugly step-sisters, testing and grading, and, consequently, constitutes probable cause for the sort of search and seizure of cognitive contents which compulsory education tends to require? Defense against what? Defense against whom’s version of reality? Defense in support of what vested interests or what agendas? Defense in support of which principles and at what costs to the future viability of our ‘common defence’?
Moreover, even if one could agree on what we should be defending ourselves, in a common way, against, there is the very thorny issue of how best to do this without destroying, undermining, compromising, or prostituting the other principles which are at play within the Preamble.
Governments which try to assign priority to common defense above all other principles are very rarely democratic in spirit -- even though the appearances of form may suggest otherwise. The idea of commonality is a community of people, not a community of government officials or jurists.
If only some groups benefit from a certain mode of defense, then, the whole idea of commonality has been lost. If only some individuals give their consent to a certain kind of defense, then, the thread of commonality is missing.
In the ‘real world’, one may never attain unanimity with respect to the issue of commonality. Nevertheless, at the very least, commonality implies people should have a choice of opting out of a proposed solution for common defense and to be able to do so without penalty or prejudice.
Therefore, to cite ‘common defence’ as the basis of probable cause for a government’s authority to search and seize the cognitive contents of students via the agency of compulsory schooling, testing, and grading is suspect on a number of grounds. Most importantly, the alleged bridge which connects ‘common defence’ of a particular variety to the compulsory education of students along arbitrarily chosen lines is a figment of the very active, self-serving imagination of government officials and jurists – not to mention, once again, a violation of the 1st Amendment.
Is there a need for learning? Yes, there is.
Is there a need for compulsory learning? Not only is the answer to this question no, but the Constitution forbids it.
So, the question becomes: how do we proceed? How will children learn if someone doesn’t force them to do so?
Very nearly every child learns one, or more, languages without ever being forced to do so. If given an opportunity, and left alone to proceed at his or her own pace, free from pressure, stress, and the expectations of others, children will learn a great many things. If children are given help as they ask for it and in the way they ask for it and in accordance with their capacities and circumstances, they will fill in conceptual holes which they haven’t been able to fill in for themselves with respect to the manner through which they engage and try to understand life.
Children never tire of asking questions about life, reality, and the world. Adults are the one’s who almost invariably pull the plug on this ‘infernal’ question generator. Whether out of ignorance, or impatience, or preoccupation with other things, or low self-esteem, or too much pressure from too many sources, or personal unhappiness, or intolerance, or jealousy, or defensiveness, or lack of empathy and compassion, adults are the one who oppress and curtail a child’s learning. Sometimes these adults are parents; sometimes they are neighbors; sometimes these adults are government officials, and sometimes they are teachers.
Kids will learn about cars, planes, trains, electronics, relationships, money, computers, games, sports, emotions, comic books, current events, jobs, their community, DVDs, movies, music, and pretty much everything else if they have an interest in such things. However, if they don’t have an interest in such things, well, the truth of the matter is, they will tend to learn very little, and they will tend to learn even less if they are forced to do so.
Learning does not begin on the outside and have to be force-fed to a person. Learning begins on the inside, via intrinsic motivation (curiosity is part of this) and reaches outward toward the world.
Some people may worry that if there were no compulsory schooling, then, how would children learn? Children would learn through: parents, experience, libraries, clubs, community centers, mentor relationships (both friends and other adults), apprenticeship programs (whether technical, craft, scientific, or entrepreneurial), home schooling, the Internet, organized sports, life long learning courses, in-house education programs through their place of employment or volunteering, community service projects, and the list goes on.
The modern world has been made possible by people who learned because they wanted to and not because they had to. Adults have never taught children anything that the latter individuals didn’t want to learn except the unpleasantness and problems which are entangled with issues of compulsion, force, and oppression.
For every hundred things for which force and compulsion are used as the wings on which learning is to take flight, the average child may remember not more than a few, and, only then, because such morsels of information are rooted in a context of resentment, anger, hurt, and sense of betrayal which tends to serve as the more dominant flavoring, coloring, and focus of what has been learned. Is the value of the former in terms of the costs of the latter ever, really worth it?
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