WE MOVED TO WWW.LIBERATEDYET.COM

With my new iPhone, I installed an RSS reader (Learn what RSS is by clicking here) and get prepetual updates from my favorite blogs, websites, and other web publications. Over the past few weeks I decided to do this over reading the bland myranderings of a coglomerated Canadian media (both in Vancouver, and Canada as a whole). Blogs and citizen media present an amazing way to communicate with the world in an easy access and free resource. Hey, it's why I do it!

Here is a quote from a blog I read this morning called Life Without School. They have different unschooling parrents and sometimes unschoolers blogs about all things unschooling related. In today's post A Look at Interest-led Learning, I really appreciated this quote.

Public schoolers look at life and learning differently than we do, and that's why they come to this conclusion. To most everyone in our society, learning is scripted and preprogrammed by someone else. Learning is like a machine you enter, have things done to you, and when you come out the other end, you are "educated." Some of those prescripted things are fun, some aren't, and if you could possibly refuse to partake in some elements, you would come out "defective."

I dropped out of high school when I was supposed to be in grade 12. Stange eh? In all actuality, I was more like in grade 10, 11, and 12. I had only 32 credits, where I needed 80. I was becoming more lost in terms of things with my life. My instincts and sense of self where at a contractdiction to what was actually happening to me. Something felt off. I attended a Leadership Conference hosted by the BC AFN where the facilitator posted an idea that stuck with me ever since.

If you are not in a place of contributing or learning,
move to a place where you can contribute or learn.

It struck me so hard. I started ditching classes more and attended other conferences, speaking at schools and youth forums, attended ceremonies, being apart of First Nation Youth Caucus's. Although my paradigm of "learning" hadn't completely changed by then, it begun the process. It wasn't until he passed on a book called The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education. Simply put, it changed my life. It has changed my family. Hopefully, it will change my community.

I rebelled and was at odds with the establishment of the school since grade 8. I was indignant (at age 13!) about the treatment of my people (native youth) and our education. I've cared deeply about education since I was in grade 6. And by education, I mean what we learn, how we learn, and how that knowledge is used. I only now realized I lacked the self-confidence or self-esteem to effect real change at the time. It's different now.

But that quote just reminded me of what's really at play in the hearts and minds of schools and parents who were schoolers. As the school season starts, or the process of eliminated passion, inquisitiveness and talent from our young people begin, I am happily reminded of the strong choice I made for myself, and how damn right I was in that choice.

A few days ago a friend took me to a class she was teaching it. She just finished doing once a week classes in a high school with grades 9/10’s. Art class. The project they were working on was doing a tile with an art piece and a word to go with what they did their art on. My friend decided to use Skwxwu7mesh snichem, but didn’t know how to read/pronounce most of the words she was getting from the book, and so she asked me to come for her last class and help out.

High school is a freaky place. It was startling to be back in one of those teenager prisons. Only a year and half ago I took the opportunity and strength to leave. I never looked back and still to this day think it’s the best decision of my life. Other would disagree, and are quick to give me a 10-minute lecture on the spot. But they don’t know what they don’t know.

I left because I was starting to realize things that were beyond my comprehension level. I starting to discover decolonization, where I became aware of the nuances of the oppressive colonial education system. It was here I started to see the authoritarian disciplining, the ridiculous excuses for reckless power on teachers behalf (no matter how utilitarian it may seem). I started to feel there had to be something better.

And there was.

A friend passed on some good words and I took the necessary steps to rid myself of that awful way of looking at learning. Even still I do my best to deschool those habits, behaviors, beliefs. I’m getting better. I now love things that school taught me to hate. Like reading, writing, running, and such. I also look at the world as a place of learning, that all that information and knowledge is valuable, even if I don’t have a piece of paper to prove it. I can prove it other ways, if I need to “prove” it anyone at all.

What became clear when returning to the high school was how right I was. After I decided I leave, my younger sister were curious. At first, like most people, it was shocking and sounded stupid. Throwing away my future. Sabotaging my opportunities. But I had something most “adults” don’t; an ability to dialogue with people my own age. Adults, because of the way they understand young people-older people relation dynamics, have become accustom to adults serving as authoritarian figures. I didn’t and so I could discus the merits and choices I was making. They listened, and wanted to learn more. I then passed on the same names of authors, articles, books and such and they quickly came to the same conclusion I did.

Schools need to be abandoned, and so they dropped out of school, and into life.

So we’re all three “high school drop outs”, which, I see as a positive. It’s curious how we’ve all developed being unschoolers, with my second youngest sister working and gaining a lot of experience and learning different subjects on the side. My younger sister went through difference phases of weird sleep schedules to endless sloth mode to someone who now learns where learning can be done. She is also starting to volunteer and learn more about gardening.

They are 14 and 16.

Bringing it back to the high school I visited, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It all came back to me, but what was more shocking was seeing these kids who are 14, 15, 16. Supposed to be the same age as my sisters. I’ll be the first to say that my sisters, all of them, are incredibly intelligent mature and stunning beautiful women. But I thought, these kids were the same age as my youngest sister, and my youngest sister can carry a conversations about politics, the world as it is, or massive amounts of random information and knowledge. She’s awesome for it. But it was a sharp contrast between these children and my sister. The maturity level, the knowledge they had possessed, and the interests they have.

It was then I knew I was right.

In Chris Corrigan's latest blog (Parking Lot), he brings up the wonderful challenge to us. Chris is a life learning, experiencing the waves in which life comes at or through us. His latest challenge is about "try(ing) this approach out and see if there is something that gathers your attention and piques your curiosity enough that you’d be willing to engage in a a somewhat public 30 day research project". The question I will ask myself is "In decolonization, liberation, and resurgence, what are the habits that I need to create or foster, and the ones I need to relinquish and dissolve, in order to be a "good" leader, for myself, my family, and my people?"

Chris brings up in this post a concept we had chats about before. Goal setting is something that's always evaded me, despite frequent attempts by School educators. In my recent projects, I've taken up a mentorship with a good friend, Aaron Nelson-Moody, in traditional arts. His first assignment: "Draw. Draw. Draw. Draw, draw, draw." I've picked up "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" a few months ago on the advice of Grace Llywellyn in "The Teenage Liberation Handbook". I have both the workbook and the actual book. I've done a couple of the challenge or tasks and it has greatly changed the way I think. I also found the Right Brain vs. Left Brain Creativity Test. Turns out, they are pretty even. My final numbers were 57% Right Brain, 52% Left Brain.

But what my mentor brought up about goals and passion, is how sometime when we share that passion through telling others of what we are working on, that passion tends to dissipate. I've experienced it myself with story idea's for short stories, or projects I want to get started. So lately, I've been more secretive about them. Not successfully because I still tell most of my friends about my projects, but I've also been recording them so they don't disappear and can find that passion once more. Because regardless if I tell them, my passion may go, but because the project hasn't started or isn't going, I'll find that passion again because I'll be the only one with it.

The other thing my mentor brought up was setting goals for myself, and keeping to them. Even if they are small goals, in a measurable sense. "I'll accomplish this many drawings this week", "I'll read this many chapters this day." Although I think this works for some, I'm finding that it's not apart of my decolonization or deschooling way I want to live my life. I'll ask to talk to him more about "goals"...lol. But for all intents and purposes, this way of, exploration, and inquisitive inqurery into the fabrics of life feels more natural and fulfilling. I don't have a goal, I have question. And I want to see that question answered. But in doing so, I'll return to a child-mind and see where life takes me. As a child-mind, I'll find out some thing don't work, and move around fluid-like to a way that does work. When a child, uncorrupted by school-style learning, goes places with their mind, they keep going in any direction that works. Not judgment or blocks in terms of the acquiring of knowledge. Open, fully, to the things that may come through my mind, and possibly stay there.

So Chris, game is on. 30 day of this question, "In decolonization, liberation, and resurgence, what are the habits that I need to create or foster, and the ones I need to relinquish and dissolve, in order to be a "good" leader, for myself, my family, and my people?"

Page 5 of Field Day: Getting Society Out of School by Matt Hern.

...I think these might be four key questions to ask of schools and schooling:

1.) Is it possible that control of schools is best kept at a local level?

2.) Is it possible that what one needs to know to grow up right cannot be determined by state bureaucrats?

3.) Is it possible that a school (groups divided by age, core curriculum institutions control, six hours per day, five days a week, twleve years) is not the optimal environment for kids to flourish in?

4.) Is it possible that kids and families can direct their own learning (given community resources) in appropriate and reasonable ways?

Written By Dustin Rivers for the December Issue of Capilano Courier.

Duncan Campbell Scott, who headed the federal department of Indian Affairs at the beginning of the 20th century once stated, “Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question.” and for almost 200 years, indigenous peoples of this land have endured a wretched existence at the hands of colonialism, and a colonial education system that was a key element of Canada’s Indian assimilation policy. Western societies have more often than not equated education with intelligence. Yet throughout history, indigenous peoples around the world have had very different understandings of and experiences with learning. For thousands of years, indigenous practices of learning, sharing knowledge, and cultural continuity existed without tests, grades, or degrees. The current situation for indigenous peoples trying to “succeed” in a society that puts so much stock in institutionalised education is thus doubly difficult, as it runs counter to all of their traditions.

Dominant Western views tell us that humans are not animals, yet we truly are. We are learning, human animals. For humanity, learning is an intuitive compulsion and it is not something we need to be forced to do. Institutional education interferes with this inherent desire for knowledge. It stifles creativity and encourages obedience.

Prior to contact, indigenous learning was a community effort. Local indigenous societal structure emphasized the importance of extended family relations and building an intricate community life. Within a nation, there often existed tribes who shared a common language, culture, and kinship ties. Within the tribes existed different clans, and within them existed different houses, usually made up of multiple families (although Coast Salish cultures did not have the same clan system as other coastal peoples).

In traditional Skwxwu7mesh (also known by the Anglicized misnomer, “Squamish”) culture, children were raised by the community as a whole. Elders, adults and children would all be taught in a similar manner. As children matured into young adults, they would go through “coming of age” or “rites of passage” training. This training would focus on a particular role, job, or position in the community that would benefit the people. Roles included: hunters, fishers, canoe builders, basket or wool weavers, spiritual doctors, medicine people, leaders and many more. Natural talents were observed and nurtured by mentors. This was all a part of the learning experience for children.

The process of knowledge sharing, or “education,” was a community effort, with no institutionalized force to “educate children.” Children would grow and through growing they would learn. Typically in a community, mentors would teach individuals different tools to learn. Self-discipline, patience, wisdom, and listening built the foundation for freedom of thought in community life. Festivals, ceremonies, and other events were highlighted to specifically train and teach the younger generations.

This way of life and worldview existed for thousands of years until European imperialists who viewed it as inferior enacted destructive policies of assimilation to further the conquest of the land and people. Residential schools run by Roman Catholic, Anglican, and United churches were funded by the federal Department of Indian Affairs. By forcibly removing indigenous children from their families and communities and placing them in residential schools, church and state policy worked to “civilize” and assimilate the Indians.

Threats of death, starvation, and other coercive tactics were employed on parents and children who resisted. By cutting the children off from their families, the government effectively broke the cycle of knowledge sharing. This atomistic approach to education had existed in Western cultures for a long time but would have devastating impacts on indigenous communities.

Indigenous people were faced with a cruel dilemma. Freedom and prosperity in the western world often meant alienation from the indigenous community. It was a give and take scenario: Learn the colonists’ ways at the cost of alienation in order to better help their own people. Ironically, this Western education disempowered indigenous people from their own senses of purpose, ways of living, and worldviews. The only way to get power was to assimilate culturally and religiously through the residential schools. By conceding and becoming a part of the system, many believed they would be able to save their people. These ideas and this internal conflict are very much alive today.

However, the large proportion of indigenous students in British Columbia who do not graduate sends a signal that something is wrong. But most efforts to reform the system will only make it better at killing creativity. By wheedling, bribing, or bullying children into learning, society is educating them out of their creative capacities. Many talented, creative children think they are not, because what they want to learn isn’t valued. They fear being wrong or stigmatized for making mistakes and continue to feel inferior.

Dividing children into groups based on age, separated from the real world, dislodges then from natural learning with adults (those older then themselves). In this institutional scenario, adults are seen as authoritarian figures, not mentors or friends. This all adds up to a place where the idea of learning freely, like we did before we started school, is not taken seriously at all. We connect learning with school so strongly that we eventually grow to hate learning. This is in contrast to the notion that when we were children, learning was just life, not a part of life that goes on for allotted periods of time.

For most indigenous peoples, the cycle continues like every other group in this apparatus. Children are coerced into schools with the same myths as before: that a western education equals prosperity and healthy indigenous communities.

The future of any learning or education with indigenous or settler will need “people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn what ever needs to be learned” (John Holt). Systems around the world have the similar hierarchies of education: mathematics, science, languages, humanities, art, music, drama, then dance. No education system in the world teaches dance the way we teach mathematics but perhaps we should. Schools should teach any subject that wants to be learned with equal status and respect.
Children need respect and deserve to be treated with dignity. All we need to do is give children guidance when they need and ask for it and to be able to listen respectfully when they feel like talking. We must then trust them to do the rest. With plenty of access to the real world, with guides, advice, and road maps to help them get where they want to go, and not where we think they should go, we’ll have a generation who will learn whatever needs to be learnt in the future because they will love learning.

This issue is a human issue but indigenous people have a vested interest and opportunity in this drastic need for change because our cultures were ripped from us. We had a way of life that exemplified a love of learning. It was not so long ago when learning was held in high esteem and recognized for its foundational contribution to community development. This struggle to attain a society that lives freely in learning is a struggle to regain our rights, culture, and land.

After discussions with my two younger sisters, who like me, and many others, are beginning to question the school system they have been raised to place their lives in. When thought about deeply, many begin to understand or just know the failures of the modern school system. We see the flawed, the crippled parts, the failures. Some try to correct said shortcoming through many ways, but after over a hundred years of compulsory schooling (sometimes way more compulsory then now), some Indigenous (and humans) are beginning to look different at schooling and learning.

For those who might not be familiar, I left the high school system half a year ago. After years of struggle and idiocracy, I finally began to learn what I was in. Where I once wanted to change it to help my people, Indigenous and youth, I now look back and now know more about this apparatus. It dehumanizes people into workers er’, machines.

Let’s take a trip back to the beginning. Schools are one of the oldest system’s that govern our current society that hasn’t changed or evolved into something very different from what it set out to be. Where the economic, social, and political systems have changed, the education system has not. It was based on a few idea’s. Getting children ready for the industry. After about 8th grade you could walk to some industry, say mining, and get a good job, support your family and make a modest salary. This system of forced “learning” was later expanded and increasingly things were built on top of a faulty foundation.

Then, the settlers figured their amazing system of “equality” through “education” would help civilize the Indian’s. Residential schools popped up to educate the Indian, and, according to some, it worked. Indian’s became educated. They learned the White man’s ways. We’re still told to “get an education” to learn the White man’s ways.

Schools, are not about learning. Schools are in place to teach obedience over learning. Bells, schedules, time tables, enforcers, administrators, homework-Nazi’s, and the like all used to enforce and create obedient workers. It doesn’t say children, or people, learn one way. It doesn’t say children learn for 67 minutes, no more, no less.

Fight the system, not the people. With schools we can have some of the greatest people in the world, being the monsters the system makes them out to be. In any system of exploitation, whether it’s capitalism or band councils, it turns good people into evil people. While the system is inherently malevolent the people that contribute to it can be honorable and good.

Learning is our gift. Yet we are lead to believe tests, homework, and pointless exercises based on a one-size-fits-all approach to learning. You don’t tell a child, “Okay, here are pages 1-14 on walking. I want you to read pages 4-9 by Thursday, and then on Friday we’ll have a test. You and Johnny will work on a project to present walking and information about walking. Your scores, along with the 40 other people in this room will be compared and we’ll choose whose the best and worst. Unfortunately not everyone can be “the best” because that would make me look like a bad teacher, now wouldn’t it.” No, of course not. Children learn how to walk because everyone around them is walking. Children learn how to read when the subject at hand stimulates them. Juggling, reading, writing, singing, and anything that inspires the mind all can be acquired.

Homework is one of the stupidest forced things school can possibly make children do. Teachers are paid based on if they have homework to mark, not if children learn the subject at hand. I agree with my friend here[1] [2] [3], that homework should be at least banned.

Many of our people have been brainwashed by this school = life memento. My grandmother firmly believes you can only be successful, or happy, if you attend school, make good grades, continue to university. It stems back to residential school where no Indigenous would be acknowledged unless they went to residential schools.

Look, we throw a lot of fancy words in front of these kids in order to attract them to going to school in the belief that their gonna have a better life, and we know that all were doing is breeding a whole new generation of buyers and sellers, BUYERS AND SELLERS! Pimps and whores, PIMPS AND WHORES! and indoctrinating them into a life long hell of debt and indecision!

- Lewis Black in the 2006 film Accepted

So what are you really slaving away for? 12 years for a piece of paper, then bred to believe happiness exists inside a post-secondary institute. Then another 3 or so years for a Bachelors, but everyone has a bachelors these days, so you have to go for some more years for a Masters. THEN, after all these years of schooling you take a job in something you don’t love because it pays well. We’re all being made to do things we don’t love, to make more money. I say no. I say no to this because we should follow our dreams and our visions and aspirations and do the things we love to do. You’ll never work a day in your life is you do the thing you love to do.

So our futures are now being driven to make money. Buy this car to drive to work; drive to work to pay for this car. I don’t think that’s life at all. With the way capitalism as run rampant, the world will turn in to an evil individualistic life where courtesy, honor and respect begin to disappear.

Below are some links I recommend you check out. I never plan to send my children to any kind of compulsory school, and I hope you actively question the entire system and look at alternatives for our future.
Below are some links I recommend you check out. I never plan to send my children to any kind of compulsory school, and I hope you actively question the entire system and look at alternatives for our future.

• http://www.chriscorrigan.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.UnschoolingResources
• http://www.unschooling.com/library/essays/index.shtml
• Nine Assumptions of Schooling
• How to get into university without a high school diploma
• The 7 Lesson School Teacher
• My experience with writing

Suggested books:

• The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (Anything by him)
  
• Instead of Education by John Holt (Really anything by him)