The First Big Obstacle in Conversations about Learning
I like to talk about how no one needs school to become a successful, educated intellectual. But when I talk to most ordinary people about this, I routinely face an obstacle. This obstacle has a name: the fundamental attribution error.
Usually it comes up like this: I say something about how I was successful without schooling, and they say “Oh, that’s because YOU are super smart and YOU had fabulous advantages normal people don’t have.” The implication is that my exeriences are not relevant evidence.
Funny, though. My teachers in school, when they told me I could not succeed in life unless I followed their instructions, didn’t seem to feel that I was so special. It’s only after I violated their predictions that they “realized” I was different. That allowed them to save their theory of the how the world works, and to go on persecuting the next generation of young minds. This kind of equivocation about what counts as evidence is also called the self-sealing fallacy or the “no true scotsman” fallacy.
How to get around it?
There’s no sure way around it. People get to decide what they will accept or reject. But I do have some ideas:
- I sometimes say “Yes I am special. And maybe everybody is in one way or another. Let kids learn in any way that fits for them.”
- I sometimes say “Yes. I am special– I’m especially scatterbrained. I have no discipline to speak of. I’m unable to force myself to think about any particular thing. And yet I make a living as an intellectual. How you explain that?”
- I sometimes say “It doesn’t matter who’s special and who’s normal. When the state makes schooling compulsory, the state does the equivalent of establishing a religion. This is wrong for exactly the same reason that a state religion would be wrong. Schooling does not equal education. Compulsory schooling is anathema to a free society, and discrimination based on schooling should appall us.”
- And I sometimes say “Regardless of how you think about school, there is also life. Let’s talk about how learning can happen outside of school, too.”
To make people more receptive, one tactic that helps a lot is to help them discover some talent, skill, or combination of skills that make them interesting and unique. I suspect that a lot of resistance to a philosophy of liberation is based on fear that if everyone is free to succeed in their own way, then “maybe I will be the only one who fails.” There is comfort in the feeling that everyone is forced to play the same game, epecially when the game is rigged to reward mediocrity.
There is definitely comfort in the mediocrity. And I think that fear of failure is that fallacy used yet again to justify not doing or trying something. From a student the “I can’t understand this.” self talk strengthens the fallacy every time it is uttered. Same for the teacher who waves off all technology not forced upon him or her by saying “I am too old to learn that stuff.”
But I do think it takes special characteristics to become a successful self propelled learner. That’s a bit of why I find your experience fascinating. Still, everybody has these characteristics, but not everybody nurtures them so what could be special remains mundane and unappreciated and often untried. You seem to do that, nurture these characteristics, and express how in a very meta-cognitive way so it is easier for an observer to comprehend the process.
[James' Reply: The purpose of this website is to nurture those characteristics. That's what I love to do.]
For young ones still in the system, to know such processes are valid is as important as the opportunity to demonstrate a talent or skill etc. There is something in the rebellion of it.
it’s off topic a little but I thought you might like to know and it does support your philosophy a bit too. I told a young man about your blog here and what I have culled so far. He’s no good this boy. He told me so. His relatives told us both so, him repeatedly. And he does an admirable job fulfilling that role often. But the mere mention of the myth brought to life as a real person, searchable and readily expressing something the boy holds as truth (school is not a place for him to learn), helped him make a move to escape the fallacious role he felt destined to inhabit. He tried something on his own and learned. It was enough proof for him. At least for now, he is different about learning and it is golden. He is of the opinion that most adults lack special characteristics altogether and that helped too. If you, or any “real” person could do it, he is of the mind that he could as well. Which is freaking awesome.
[James' Reply: That is freakin' awesome. Woo hoo!]
Thank goodness my google reader is not blocked by the filters. I had to prove that you were real. So don’t stop. School may be anathema to learning but so many are still in it. It does help to have a portal from which to glimpse a different possibility.
[James' Reply: Thanks, man.]
Comment by boo — March 10, 2009 @ 7:39 pm
>>>Let’s talk about how learning can happen outside of school, too
Exactly. I often encounter a problem with managers equating learning with training. School is about training, which is a synonym for indoctrinating and has Pavlovian undertones. Learning is about evolving who you are and how you do things. I am firmly of the belief that learning should equate more with living – if you’re not learning, are you really living? On a different note, much of the literature on the school system these days tends to empathise a need to put learning ‘back’ into schools – implying that learning is currently largely being done outside of school. This is especially pronounced in the field of IT education.
Pierre Bourdieu wrote some interesting books on the role of education in society – particularly its role in conditioning the individual for a particular place in society (I recommend The State Nobility or Homo Academicus). To quote from Wikipedia:
“For Bourdieu, formal education represents the key example of this process [of generational transfer of symbolic capital]. Educational success, according to Bourdieu, entails a whole range of cultural behaviour, extending to ostensibly non-academic features like gait, dress, or accent. Privileged children have learned this behaviour, as have their teachers. Children of unprivileged backgrounds have not. The children of privilege therefore fit the pattern of their teachers’ expectations with apparent ‘ease’; they are ‘docile’. The unprivileged are found to be ‘difficult’, to present ‘challenges’. Yet both behave as their upbringing dictates. Bourdieu regards this ‘ease’, or ‘natural’ ability–distinction–as in fact the product of a great social labour, largely on the part of the parents. It equips their children with the dispositions of manner as well as thought which ensure they are able to succeed within the educational system and can then reproduce their parents’ class position in the wider social system.”
On another note: I’m not sure if you are aware of him but Tim Ferris (http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog) seems to have a similar attitude to learning. See especially his posts on language learning.
I have always been fairly successful through schooling (from primary right through to graduate school), but on reflection I attribute a lot of this to my own drive to learn – something my brothers, who weren’t so ‘academic’, have also both demonstrated. You may be interested to know that when I was training as a teacher here in New Zealand, a lot of emphasis was put on the role of reflection in our practice as learners – the role of teacher was also presented as that of someone who models learning for the students.
Comment by Kerry — March 11, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
I get what you’re saying, but I’m stuck on the next obstacle. I don’t know what to do about what you’re saying (even though I agree) because I can’t envision a system other than schools to give kids learning experiences. I’ve tried to imagine it, but I can’t. Can you help me?
Stay-at-home teaching parents or professionals are fabulous for those who can get them, I’m sure, but I don’t see how everyone could get them.
Apprenticeships are good if the kid knows what he/she wants to do from a young age, or if they can take the knowledge to another realm if they want to move to something else.
What about before they’re old enough to apprentice, though? What would be the alternative to what is done now?
Comment by Tanya — March 15, 2009 @ 6:19 pm
Just found this post and it resonated with me. School, for me, was akin to watching paint dry. As a young kid, I really couldn’t understand why I was supposed to sit in the same room for 7 hours a day, when life was all happening outside. I’m not sure if I was already a daydreamer before I entered grade school, or I became one afterward as my mind was forced to entertain me because the lessons presented at the front of the room didn’t. Some people may say, “Well, you aren’t in school to be entertained.” Those people are entitled to their opinions, but I’ll always maintain that you will best learn what you want to learn, and that often occurs because there is some entertainment value (fun) in the lessons you are drawn toward. Great post.
Comment by Christopher Laney — April 13, 2009 @ 9:49 am
What I miss from the comments in this blog are the dissonant opinions. Everybody commenting here mainly agrees with you and add some extra ideas. Sadly I don’t heartily disagree with your ideas (because I could be the one with such an opinion).
[James' Reply: Oh, I'm afraid I agree with you. But there's a simple explanation: the people at whose sacred cows I am laughing don't know about me, yet. My book is not yet published. Few have seen my ideas.
Once word gets out, then most of them will continue to ignore me. Some will be offended and write comments.
There has actually been one negative comment, so far, but it was from an anonymous commenter, and had no substance. I deleted it. It was a one-liner about how I'm a bum who lives off public funding. Which is weird, because I don't live off public funding in any way. The bum part is a matter of opinion, I guess.]
There is a feedback loop between those readers who dropped out of school or had a lousy time there and yourself and it’s natural. It’s just that I miss ideas from people who had a great time at school and went on to become clever and bright adults, living fulfilled lives. I believe these people exist, in case you were wondering.
[James' Reply: Absolutely they exist. I would have liked to be one of them. Of course, I'm not opposed to schooling. I'm opposed to school-ism. I'm opposed to the school system as a monopoly and as an institution that, for the most part, has the effect of training people to be dependent on schooling.]
I myself didn’t have such a great time there, but as a shy individual, didn’t have the courage to fight back and stand up for myself and out of boredom ended up among the best in the class (grade-wise). That in turn led to a good university and a good career in something I like, so it cannot have been that bad now, can it?
[James' Reply: Adversity can lead to something good. Look how it inspired Victor Frankl! But I'm sure you wouldn't say that it was a good thing that he spent time in a Nazi death camp.
Of course, school is not adversity for certain kinds of people. I'm just not one of those.
I'm trying to raise a beacon for people who loved school and want to understand what education beyond school can be, and for those who hated school and want to understand what education beyond school can be.]
I’m sure things can be made better in terms of what you teach and how to maximize learning for each kid, but to oppose the concept of school as a whole is not necessarily the best path.
[James' Reply: I agree. I don't oppose school. I oppose compulsory schooling.
I also don't oppose "health food", but I would oppose compulsory health food.
I don't oppose helmets, but I do oppose federal and state helmet laws.
I don't touch drugs, and rarely alcohol, but I oppose laws that criminalize them.
I don't oppose religion, but I am not religious, and I do oppose official discrimination on the basis of religion. (Fortunately, that's prohibited in our Constitution.)
These are difficult issues with good arguments one way and the other. Civilization building is hard! In general, I support the idea of finding a way for different kinds of people with different kinds of lifestyles to live together without rampant violence or oppression.]
Also, homeschooling is just not an option in some non-US countries, what would you recommend then?
[James' Reply: Civil disobedience, of course. Which is what I did when I was in school.]
I think a nice experiment to try would be to apply these ideas (all the ideas in your blog, not those in this article in particular) to a schooling curricula and see where would that lead. Maybe one of those alternate schools of thought in schooling might embrace some of them.
[James' Reply: I appreciate Montessori schools. There is one school, though that I would have loved to go to: Summerhill, in England. When I was 13, I drooled over that. But it was not to be!]
Comment by Vinko Vrsalovic — April 18, 2009 @ 7:11 am