Learning as we go…

<p>“Anytime that, without being invited, without being asked, we try to teach somebody else something, anytime we do that, we convey to that person, whether we know it or not, a double message.”</p>

<p>“The first part of the message is: I am teaching you something important, but you are not seeing how important it is. Unless I teach it to you, you will probably never bother to find out.”</p>

<p>The second part of the message is:” What I’m teaching you is so difficult, if I didn’t teach it to you, you wouldn’t learn it.”</p>

<p>“The double message of distrust and contempt is so very clearly understood by children, because they are extremely good at receiving emotional messages. It makes them furious, and why shouldn’t it?”</p>

<p>“Once I realized this, I found that I had to catch myself all the time. I have to catch the words right on the edge of my tongue. The problem is that we human beings like teaching…”–pg. 129</p>

<p>John Holt<br />Learning All the Time</p>

<p>Wow. I looked up the word “contempt” because it seems so harsh. And, anytime (everytime?)—contempt? (I do not like absolutes.)</p>

<p>“Open disrespect for a person or thing…” OK. I see that alot. I’ve done it to others and have had it done to me. Force feeding information that I do not want right now. Invading my space.</p>

<p>“Lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike….” Can it feel that way? If so, I never allowed myself to feel that toward my “teachers,” nor did I admit to feeling that my “teachers” disliked me….do we learn to judge ourselves by our teachability?</p>

<p>Is it a sign of contempt to deliberately cross another’s boundaries? Do children have a right to boundaries? Do they feel violated when we attempt to teach them what they do not want to know?</p>

<p>If it is so, when is it justified? Or, is it just not that big of a deal?</p>

<p><a class="small" title="Click for more information about this dictionary" href="http://dictionary.reference.com/legal/aboutmwlaw.html"><span style="color: #666666;">Source</span></a>: Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.<br />contempt<br />n 1: lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike; “he was held in contempt”; “the despite in which outsiders were held is legendary” [syn: <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=disdain"><span style="color: #666666;">disdain</span></a>, <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=scorn"><span style="color: #666666;">scorn</span></a>, <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=despite"><span style="color: #666666;">despite</span></a>] 2: a manner that is generally disrespectful and contemptuous [syn: <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=disrespect"><span style="color: #666666;">disrespect</span></a>] 3: open disrespect for a person or thing [syn: <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=scorn"><span style="color: #666666;">scorn</span></a>] 4: a willful disobedience to or disrespect for the authority of a court or legislative body</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html"><span style="color: #666666;">The Six Lesson School Teacher</span></a> is the title of a speech made by a former three time Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, author of _Dumbing Us Down_ and other books about let’s say–the pitfalls of compulsory education? Many homeschoolers are familiar with the writings of Gatto. I religiously passed this site on to others homeschoolers on various support lists when I first began homeschooling and encountered the site from another homeschooler. This one speech made that big of an impact on me and my perspective as a former teacher, present homeschooler. It blew me away.</p>

<p>A year of so has gone by, and somewhere in the midst of settling into our lives here, I tucked this article away in my archives and went on about the process of our homeschooling journey.<br />A conversation with a friend has brought the article back out into my mind and onto my screen for yet another reading and has brought me specifically to lesson four:</p>

<p>“The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me). This power lets me separate good kids from bad kids instantly. Good kids do the tasks I appoint with a minimum of conflict and a decent show of enthusiasm. Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. The choices are mine. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.<br />Bad kids fight against this, of course, trying openly or covertly to make decisions for themselves about what they will learn. How can we allow that and survive as schoolteachers? Fortunately there are procedures to break the will of those who resist.<br />This is another way I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. It is no exaggeration to say that our entire economy depends upon this lesson being learned. Think of what would fall apart if kids weren’t trained in the dependency lesson: The social-service businesses could hardly survive, including the fast-growing counseling industry; commercial entertainment of all sorts, along with television, would wither if people remembered how to make their own fun; the food services, restaurants and prepared-food warehouses would shrink if people returned to making their own meals rather than depending on strangers to cook for them. Much of modern law, medicine, and engineering would go too — the clothing business as well — unless a guaranteed supply of helpless people poured out of our schools each year. We’ve built a way of life that depends on people doing what they are told because they don’t know any other way. For God’s sake, let’s not rock that boat!”</p>

<p>My friend and I were talking about feeling helpless and dependent, a feeling that I have with injustice to myself, learned to embrace as part of my nature at times–alot. She remembered this speech and mentioned it.</p>

<p>” This is the most important lesson of all, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. ”</p>

<p>Imagine that–feeling like I must wait for and that I am dependent on others to define my life for me. You don’t do that? It’s just me?</p>

<p>Am I the only one who learned that lesson well? </p>

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