WORD OUT! The Blog to Build a New Society

Blake Boles, author of College Without High School: A Teenager’s Guide to Skipping High School and Going to College , spoke recently at the Harbourfront Library in Nanaimo, B.C. The event was a great success. As I sat at the back of the room, I could see parents and students grinning and nodding in acknowledgment. It seems that several of the students were already on this path and loved to hear the stories of others who had successfully homeschooled their way to university.

A review of College Without High School was recently featured in Macleans Magazine and created a storm of interesting comments. You can see the entire article and comments here but some of my favorite comments are:

From Joy: The only thing I would challenge Boles on is when he states "Unschoolers aren’t Einstein-like geniuses". Pretty sure Einstein would have unschooled today and/or been drugged.

THWim writes: I've found that what they're (unschoolers) good at they're very good at, but you can't ever assume that you have a common base level of knowledge.

From TedTylerEzro: There is nothing like being psychologically tortured in a social-darwinian hell for years on end to improve socialization skills.

Em says: One of the benefits of high school is that it is a low risk environment in which you can be exposed to a variety of different subjects.

Mellisa says: Everything about life, common sense, hard work, human relationships, etc. that I've learned I learned in the year and half I dropped out in Grade 8-9.

The most interesting thing revealed to me by the comments is how well Blake Boles understands his subject. College Without High School addresses every objection or obstacle raised and explains how to allay the various fears college admission officers may have about a homeschooler's educational experience.

If you are contemplating an alternative to regular high school, this book will help you understand both the advantages and disadvantages and will provide a framework to help you you create the best education for you.

With the first round of money allocated to the American education stimulus package due to arrive on the doorsteps of state and local schools any day, squabbles erupt as to the best use of this money. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the concern of misuse of funds in a recent interview with Education Week.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $115 billion to support education, most of it through the Federal Education Department. Almost two-thirds of the money is flowing through state governments, either in the form of increases in aid for disadvantaged students, in special education funds, or in state stabilization dollars for local school districts’ budgets.

As administrators scramble for dollars to feed the monstrous education machine, one has to stop and ponder. Is this the best use of all this money? As with the auto industry, could it be that we are not approaching this issue in the right way?

John Taylor Gatto, author of Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, describes the American education system as a “…master corporation bleeding resources from the productive economy in a parasitic relationship…”. He recently spoke at the 2009 New Hampshire Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire explaining what is wrong with our present system and how we might go about changing it. You can view his complete speech on Book TV on C-Span 2.

Weapons of Mass Instruction presents John Taylor Gatto’s full analysis of American education and his concept of open source learning.

The British Columbia Ministry of Education has been administering Foundation Skills Assessment tests to students in grades 4 and 7 since 2000. Since that time, classroom teachers have become increasingly concerned about the negative effects of these tests on student learning, the waste of time and resources and the controversial use of the results by the Fraser Institute to rank BC Schools.

In December 2008, more than half of the province's teachers voted 85 per cent in favour of not preparing for, supervising or marking the FSA. They are not alone in this opposition.

In the United States, John Taylor Gatto, author of Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling calls standardized testing an “ugly phenomenon” and “a travesty of education”. In the final chapter of his book, he invites students and teachers to join him in an open conspiracy which he calls The Bartleby Project, inspired by Herman Melville’s short story Bartleby the Scribner published in 1853.

John Gatto explains, “Bartleby is a human photocopy machine in the days before electro-mechanical duplication, a low-paid, low-status position in law offices and businesses. One day, without warning or explanation, Bartleby begins to exercise free will - he decides which orders he will obey and which he will not. If not, he replies, "I would prefer not to. … The simple exercise of free will, without any hysterics, denunciations, or bombast, throws consternation into social machinery - free will contradicts the management principle. Refusing to allow yourself to be regarded as a "human resource" is more revolutionary than any revolution on record. "

Gatto’s call to action is simply this, ‘Let a group of young men and women, one fully aware that these tests add no value to individual lives or the social life of the majority, use the power of the internet to recruit other young people to refuse, quietly, to take these tests. No demonstrations, no mud-slinging, no adversarial politics - to simply write across the face of the tests placed in front of them, "I would prefer not to take this test."

Learn more about John Taylor Gatto’s analysis of compulsory schooling in Weapons of Mass Instruction.

Scotland's national home education support organization, Schoolhouse, is hosting Learning Without Limits, an international conference to celebrate choice, diversity and freedom in education. John Taylor Gatto, author of the upcoming Weapons of Mass Instruction and the bestselling classic Dumbing us Down will deliver the keynote address. The conference will be held from Friday September 12th - Sunday September 14th, 2008 in Arbroath, Scotland, home of the Declaration of Arbroath which famously asserted the sovereignty of the Scottish people and is also said to have influenced the drafting of the US Constitution.

The conference will present a unique opportunity for professionals in the public, private and voluntary sectors to engage in discussion and debate with parents and young people as 'consumers' of education services. It is aimed at all those with an interest in educational rights and freedoms, including policy makers, formal and informal educators, youth and community workers, children's reporters, representatives from children's and family support organisations, parents, academics, researchers and learners aged 12 and over.

For an Earth Day follow up, check out these free environmental activities from Thom Henley and Kenny Peavy, authors of As If the Earth Matters. You can Save the Earth or participate in Water Wasters / Water Savers to raise awareness, promote conservation and have fun, all at the same time!

Do you have any Earth Day or environmental education activities? Share them in the comments below!