Month: February 2020

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The Freedom Academy (Part 8)

How is the Freedom Academy different from homeschooling and unschooling?

Let’s discuss homeschooling and unschooling separately. First is homeschooling. It’s like school but you do it at home. There is usually still a curriculum which one gets from a homeschooling provider that may or may not be accredited by DepEd. One or both parents act as the teacher, helping the child along with their lessons which they basically go through at their own pace. The parent(s) may also opt to throw in additional lessons not in the standard curriculum but which they think will be interesting, helpful or meaningful for their child (e.g. painting, dancing, stargazing, cooking, carpentry, etc.).

Many homeschooling parents have also formed support groups to help each other and they sometimes plan activities where their kids can interact, play and learn together.

The difference between Freedom Academy (FA) and homeschooling is mainly the absence of a curriculum. We do not pretend to know what is best for your child. We do not force any curriculum on them. Rather, we trust that your child will naturally pursue what is interesting for them, will learn in their own style and in their own pace and in their own way. We provide the necessary support and resources for them to maximize their pursuit of their interests. But the rest is up to them. They are free to decide how they want to spend their entire time at FA. They can play, read, talk to friends, build things, sit and reflect, and even do academic stuff like study math if that is their desire. 

Unschooling is more unstructured and free — it is as the name itself suggests — the absence of school or the removal of school. Unlike homeschooling, there is no fixed curriculum. In practice, parents would usually try to fill in the child’s schedule with what they think is important for them to learn, not necessarily academic in nature, or if the parents are more liberal, they will just allow the child to do what they want the entire day. Some unschooling parents also join homeschooling support groups and activities.

Unschooling is closer to the FA philosophy and belief that every child has a natural capacity for learning, self-development and self-determination. The difference is that FA provides a community for the child that is run by a democratic process. The idea that their voice matters, that their opinions can be heard, and that their vote counts is a powerful experience that will enhance their sense of social responsibility and morality. 

Being in FA also allows the child to develop away from the constant supervision of parents, which is important in letting them exercise independence and building their own social and interpersonal skills in order to thrive in the community. 

These are important skills that they will carry all the way to adulthood.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

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The Freedom Academy (Part 7)

Can kids handle this kind of freedom? Won’t there be chaos?

This idea comes from a misunderstanding of freedom as being able to do whatever you want. Freedom is not just that, however, because just doing whatever you want in a social context, would lead to conditions where you would no longer be free. 

For example, a boy who thinks he can just punch anyone in the face would sooner or later face a bigger or stronger boy (or even girl) who would also harass him, thus limiting his freedom. A girl who thinks she can just take someone else’s property would also find that others would do the same to her.

In order for a community to survive and live together harmoniously, there have to be agreements on how people ought to behave towards each other. With freedom comes a certain responsibility to honor those agreements and respect the rights of others, as long as one still wants to be a part of the community.

In our current society, these agreements are what we have made into our laws. As long as we adhere to those laws, we are pretty much free to do what we want, to pursue our dreams, to do business, arts, to practice a profession, and so on. But the moment we break those laws, there will be consequences that limit our freedom to some degree. A serious crime would lead to a graver consequence like imprisonment which is a severe limitation of freedom.

Now, how does all this apply to the Freedom Academy?

The Freedom Academy is first and foremost, a community — it is composed of kids, teens and adults sharing a common space for a few hours each day, and the foundation for behavior in that community is democracy — the idea that each individual has a certain amount of power over how the community is run and governed.

There are rules in this community, just like in any democratic society, but the difference between the rules here and the rules in any other school is that here, anyone in the community can propose to change any rule, or add a rule, or delete a rule and if that proposal gets a majority vote, then it becomes an official rule. In a traditional school, adults make and enforce the rules. Kids have no choice but to follow.

Another key difference is that here, it is not just adults enforcing the rule, but the kids themselves will form a committee to investigate and decide on consequences when the rules are broken.

In this context, kids will very quickly understand that if they want to continue staying in this community and enjoying their freedom, they must also learn to take responsibility for their actions and make sure to respect the rights of others. Otherwise, they may be asked to leave the community. And then where will they go? Back to school? I think not.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

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The Freedom Academy (Part 6)

If there are no tests, homework or grades, how do we know if the kids are learning anything?

Let me answer this with a story.

Back when I was teaching at a Chinese high school, I had a student who had very high grades in her Chinese class. There was a poster on the bulletin board in the hallway and it was written in Chinese. So I called over this student and asked her to tell me what it was saying. She just smiled and said, “I don’t know, sir. I can’t read that.”

I said, “Why not? You have the highest marks in Chinese class.”

She replied, “Oh we just memorize that stuff. We don’t really understand it.”

This simply illustrates that even with test and grades, we still have no clue if our kids are really learning anything, or if they are able to apply what they have learned in useful and practical ways.

Forcing kids to do homework and take tests and get high grades is not a reflection of learning but a reflection of our need to validate their learning according to our standards. I am not saying though, that this is without merit. Certainly this type of instruction is useful in higher education or professional education when a person has decided to pursue a certain field.

I wouldn’t, for example, willingly place myself under the care of a medical professional who did not pass certain standards of medical practice, who would call themselves “doctors” merely on their own say-so, and without really earning that degree.

However, to place certain standards of children who did not willingly agree to be judged under those criteria, and then to grade and classify them as having passed or failed those standards, is a wrong way to measure learning.

Learning is the learner’s business, not the teacher’s. True learning happens when children choose to engage in areas and activities that interest them, and when they are given as much time as they want to perform and master them. 

And you don’t really need grades to know if they have learned anything. In real life, we don’t go around asking to see people’s grades to see if they know anything. We talk to them, we observe their attitudes, and we look at their work output.

That will be pretty much how it works at the Freedom Academy.

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.

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The Freedom Academy (Part 5)

If kids can do whatever they want, won’t they just bum around, spend their time chatting or play video games all day? How will they ever learn anything?

This seems like a simple question but it is loaded with an underlying assumption that I would like to challenge.

The assumption here is that kids don’t learn anything when they are bumming around or chatting or playing video games or doing whatever it is that kids do. We have been programmed to think of “learning” primarily as academic learning. This is not surprising since most of us were brought up in the school system.

However, common sense and practical experience tells us that children, even before they go into school, are already tremendous learners. Think about a baby learning to crawl, then to stand, then to walk. Think of how much brain power goes into just coordinating the limbs, the large muscle groups, then the finer muscle groups like the fingers and toes. 

Think of how they learn to understand what we are saying to them, and then later to talk and communicate with us. Here in the Philippines, they even pick up two or three languages all at once. Think of how they learn the names of things, how they can read your expressions, to understand your moods just by the tone of your voice, to know what makes you happy and what makes you sad or angry.

They do all this and more before they even step inside a classroom.

People (and yes, children ARE people) are natural learning creatures. We are always learning something even when we are bumming around, or just talking to friends. In fact, a lot of us adults learn primarily through talking to others, through conversation, and even when we are just joking around and having fun, we are still learning.

And how about video games? Let me tell you something, I’ve been playing video games before I was 10 and I will probably play them up to the day I die. Video games have taught me many things — how to think out of the box, how to strategize, hand-eye coordination, how to type fast, how to find solutions, even how to communicate and coordinate with others (with multiplayer games). Won’t you say these are useful life skills?

The point here is not really whether the kids are learning anything because they obviously are. It’s whether the adults or parents think they are learning anything. That is another thing I would like to challenge. Being a parent myself, I would like to tell my fellow parents, it’s not always about you and what you want for your child.

Yes, I get that we want the best for our children, but sometimes that means leaving them alone to figure out their own path, to find their own voice, to forge their own strength. It means loving them enough to trust them, trust their marvelous capability to adapt to and understand the world around them in their own unique way, which may not necessarily be your way, and that should be fine.

You see, when you put your children in traditional schools, you are teaching them to conform to others. They always have to follow someone else’s standard of excellence or someone else’s view of what they ought to be doing with their time and even their lives. And we put them through this for more than a decade. No wonder so many graduate from school and have no clue what to do — they have become so accustomed to hearing other voices that they have forgotten their own.

In the Freedom Academy, we leave the kids alone to find their own direction, to find out who they really are, and to lead lives that they themselves find meaningful, all in their own time.

Don’t you think that’s the best preparation we can give them for adulthood?

Email me at andy@freethinking.me. View previous articles at www.freethinking.me.