Freedom to Learn

Dr. Gray,
This is a great article! It came at the right time :)

Amy

Thanks for sharing these great examples of the values of mixed-age groups. It is so odd that our society groups children by age for some much of their time. The opportunities for them to group my interest or skill level are invaluable and children learn so much from older children. Being from a large family, some of my best memories are spending holidays with cousins of varying ages. We learned a great deal from each other.

What is profoundly depressing for me is that such simple, beautiful and effective solutions and/or preventive measures exist and we are so far from having them as part of our everyday lives. When I worked at UNICEF there was always talk of "political will." It certainly seems that some kind of will is lacking in our society.

Peter,
Great contribution, as always. Some quick responses:
-what if we passed a law that all legislators must be accompanied by a baby or toddler (either their own, a direct relative, or one belonging to a staff member if they themselves are not so fortunate as to have a baby in their life at the moment) whenever they meet in a group whether to caucus or debate and especially to vote; would that increase their rate of compassion and sense of collaboration and reduce the competitiveness and hostility? I tend to think it might.
--we have seen the same thing at our center (www.openconnections.org) that you described at Sudbury Valley and which so many homeschoolers have identified as the single best familial consequence of homeschooling: the improvement of sibling relationships. Two of my daughters, both of whom are on staff at Open Connections, have brought their young ones on campus since they were two weeks old; they quickly become "adopted" by the older youths, especially the teens in the groups that my daughters have facilitated. More generally, the level of respect all around toward youths--so different from the nasty "I-don't-play-with-sixth-graders-because-they're-babies" I remember hearing when I was in junior high.
--and lastly, as a relatively new grandparent myself (four in four years, with another on the way!), and even as one whose fond self-image is that I have always been the more peaceful type, I find that spending copious amounts of time with the newest generation has made me even more mellow and compassionate, especially toward my offspring; I find myself being far less judgmental toward them as they parent than I was toward them when they were growing up. It's not just that they are now on their own and not my "responsibility" anymore. Something else is in play--more feeling-based than thought-based. Having read your essay, I'm inclined to think that it is at least in part due to the pleasantness in our lives of having their young ones to hold, care for, observe, play with, BE with...etc. As I've been saying to all of my friends, grandparenting is all that it's cracked up to be, in a good way. I'd bet that the babies in the classrooms that you described helped with a lot more than bullying--including the subtle (or maybe not-so-subtle) bullying by the teachers themselves.
PAB

I read from this article one of Dr. Gray's frequent themes -- mixed-age play and schooling is beneficial to the future of every child, youth, adult, and old person.

Compare that goal to the goal of public educators, especially their government "leaders". The "leaders" of power need less diversity and more consolidation of public schools.

It is easier to control 1000 schools than it is to control 100,000 schools. So government "leaders" force school consolidation, and with it, more control of students, teachers, and parents.

Another law of government control is separation of groups. In schools that means keep the older kids from influencing the younger kids. Keep the grades, which are just arbitrary dividing lines, separate -- and -- let there be infighting between the groups coupled with wandon authoritarian control from above.

The law is called divide and conquer.

So there you have it. Every group develops a leader, and when there is division, there are students who want power over the group they find themselves in. Some of them are called bullies, others are called class presidents, etc. It all depends what rules the group chooses to follow -- those of the street, or those of the a tolerant society.

Do parents know the motives of their government "leaders"? From here it does not appear they do.

Of course, why should they? Today's parents are the product of compulsory schooling; they now think as "leaders" want them to think, and they have become docile followers of their "leaders".

Parents no longer trust or believe in the ability of their minds to think and make moral judgments.

Critical thinking is one subject in school that "leaders" discourage. To encourage critical thinking is, for them, to create independent thinkers and problem citizens who resist control.

I think babies have a long and bitter battle to win their full potential as adults. Even their docile parents have become their enemies.

This is awesome. The story about Darren made me cry.

Coming to this discussion a little late, but whenever I hear about the latest "anti-bullying" campaign to hit the school system, my blood pressure starts to rise.

As a scientist I was trained to approach a task by first asking the right questions. This includes questioning the underlying assumptions. I hear of so many schools trying to tackle the bullying problem, and all the hoops and circus tricks they are working on to solve this issue, and yet none of them appear to question the fundamental assumption that school is a normal social environment for children. Their solutions all involve maintaining a system that segregates children by age and employs dismally low adult:child ratios (two things that would never have been possible throughout our vast history living in small tribal groups). It drives me crazy that nobody seems to seriously tackle the question "Are schools themselves the cause of bullying?". This is poor science, plain and simple.

As a homeschooling parent I witness over and over again the striking differences in social relations between kids who have never been to school and those who have. Homeschooled kids are almost always in a mixed-age environment and there is at least one adult present for each group of siblings (so, adult:child ratios greater than 1:4). I'm firmly convinced from my observations that Bullying is actually a by-product of the current school system itself, and that no meaningful change will be made until the unnatural and dysfunctional environment of mainstream schooling is recognized for what it is.