1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000
Hello everyone, my name is Ryan and welcome to The Vegan Report.

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:11,200
In last week's episode, our guest Adam shared that he wanted to homeschool his son.

3
00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:16,640
A few years ago, I would have frowned at the idea of homeschooling.

4
00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:23,760
I would have thought of it as something very marginal, cultish, and even detrimental to

5
00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:27,240
the future prospects of any kids.

6
00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:28,240
But not anymore.

7
00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:34,880
Today, I think that the institution of school is what's detrimental to kids, to our mental

8
00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:39,960
health, to social cohesion, and even to democracy.

9
00:00:39,960 --> 00:00:46,240
And homeschooling, or any other alternative to schools, should be seriously considered

10
00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:49,920
by any responsible parent.

11
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:56,320
Our guest today, Dr. Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College,

12
00:00:56,320 --> 00:01:01,800
is the reason why my beliefs have so drastically shifted.

13
00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:09,200
His book, Free to Learn, has been hugely influential in shaping my views of school.

14
00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:14,440
In addition to getting the classic book Free to Learn, I invite you to subscribe to Dr.

15
00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:16,320
Gray's Substack.

16
00:01:16,320 --> 00:01:19,160
More details in the description of the episode.

17
00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:22,720
Peter, thank you so much for being here.

18
00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:23,720
Thank you for inviting me.

19
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:25,120
I'm happy to be here.

20
00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:26,520
Of course.

21
00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:29,040
So let's dive right in.

22
00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:32,880
There is a crisis of mental health among younger people.

23
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:36,680
I feel like everyone is aware of that at this point.

24
00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:42,600
We're talking about higher rates of anxiety, higher rates of depression, even sadly, higher

25
00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:44,300
rates of suicide.

26
00:01:44,300 --> 00:01:50,680
And every time someone mentions that issue, the great evil of social medias, and to a

27
00:01:50,680 --> 00:01:55,720
lesser extent, video games, will be blamed for that problem.

28
00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:58,560
And sure, let's be critical of social medias.

29
00:01:58,560 --> 00:01:59,960
I'm all about that.

30
00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:05,760
But I never heard someone mention schools as a probable cause.

31
00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:12,040
Yet if I think about my own experience, and I know it's anecdotal, but school was such

32
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,520
a source of distress in my life.

33
00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:21,480
Because of school, I remember experiencing anxiety, episodes of depression, stress, shame,

34
00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:22,920
tiredness.

35
00:02:22,920 --> 00:02:29,880
So my first question for you, Peter, is what is the responsibility, if any, of schools

36
00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:35,080
in the current mental health crisis experienced by younger people?

37
00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:42,480
I like the way you introduced that question, because I think that one of the reasons that

38
00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:50,680
as a society, we want to blame computers, we want to blame social media, we want to

39
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:58,920
blame anything else really other than school, because we think the school is just so absolutely

40
00:02:58,920 --> 00:03:00,080
essential.

41
00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:06,180
Everybody at school has a halo around it in so many people's minds.

42
00:03:06,180 --> 00:03:12,440
Anything else other than school lets blame for the huge crisis that we're finding among

43
00:03:12,440 --> 00:03:14,640
young people.

44
00:03:14,640 --> 00:03:20,800
But you know, if you ask young people, that's a new idea, right?

45
00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:23,880
Let's ask them what's bothering them, right?

46
00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:26,360
Instead of hypothesizing.

47
00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:33,040
So a few years ago, the American Psychological Association conducted a survey that they called

48
00:03:33,040 --> 00:03:40,440
Stress in America, and they surveyed people of all ages in the United States, asking them

49
00:03:40,440 --> 00:03:46,440
questions like, have you experienced severe stress?

50
00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:51,640
And they had some definition of severe stress over the past two weeks.

51
00:03:51,640 --> 00:03:53,120
And a number of other questions.

52
00:03:53,120 --> 00:04:01,960
The people who came out as the most stressed people in America were high school-aged students,

53
00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,640
more so than adults, more so than adults.

54
00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:11,480
Interestingly, when they asked this question during the summer, when school was not in

55
00:04:11,480 --> 00:04:16,640
session, the rate of saying that they had been highly stressed in the last two weeks

56
00:04:16,640 --> 00:04:22,080
was half what it was during the school year.

57
00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:28,080
When high school-aged students were asked the question, what is the primary source of

58
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,880
your stress, 83% said school.

59
00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:34,000
Now isn't that interesting?

60
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,920
This was done in 2014.

61
00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:43,600
It was published in a very small article by the American Psychological Association.

62
00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:49,800
As far as I know, no newspaper, no magazine ever picked that up.

63
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:52,000
It simply was not relayed.

64
00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:55,400
You know, I've been publishing it on my site.

65
00:04:55,400 --> 00:05:01,520
I now have, I have actually a new article coming out in the Journal of Pediatrics that

66
00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:04,440
brings this to bear and other evidence.

67
00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:08,400
So not only that, but there are also several studies.

68
00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:15,560
We know that the suicide rate among school-aged children and teens is at record levels, way

69
00:05:15,560 --> 00:05:20,600
above, you know, it's like 10 times what it was 40 or 50 years ago.

70
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:26,000
And this has been gradually increasing and it's at record levels.

71
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:32,920
But again, suicides among school-aged children are the rate of them per month is twice as

72
00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:37,840
high when school is in session than when it's not in session.

73
00:05:37,840 --> 00:05:38,840
Twice.

74
00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:42,640
Twice as high according to some of the studies.

75
00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:47,960
And the suicide, you know, during COVID when people were isolated, everybody thought this

76
00:05:47,960 --> 00:05:49,840
was going to be a terrible time.

77
00:05:49,840 --> 00:05:53,760
The suicide rate among school-aged children went down.

78
00:05:53,760 --> 00:06:00,720
So the school, the suicide, suicides pretty much track schooling pretty well, you know,

79
00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:08,880
the evidence is glaring, absolutely glaring, but we don't want to admit it because we just,

80
00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:13,240
everybody thinks, everybody was predicting that during COVID the kids would be suffering

81
00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,820
because they're not in school.

82
00:06:16,820 --> 00:06:19,240
So that's the, that's the way we think about it.

83
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:22,000
You know, it's got a halo around it.

84
00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:29,760
And school has, school is a much bigger source of distress in recent times than it was in

85
00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:31,560
the past.

86
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:37,040
And the reason is because it truly is, first of all, it's taking much more of children's

87
00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:38,880
time than it did in the past.

88
00:06:38,880 --> 00:06:45,920
It's become, the school year is now five weeks longer than it was when I was a kid in the

89
00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:46,920
1950s.

90
00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,840
The school day is longer in many, for many schools.

91
00:06:50,840 --> 00:06:54,640
But the biggest difference is homework for elementary school children.

92
00:06:54,640 --> 00:06:59,880
When I was in school many decades ago, there was no homework for elementary school children.

93
00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:03,740
Now even kindergartners have homework.

94
00:07:03,740 --> 00:07:05,520
So the school day doesn't end.

95
00:07:05,520 --> 00:07:11,880
When the school day ends, you're still doing school when you're back home again.

96
00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:18,560
The pressure of ever since No Child Left Behind in the United States, ever since the passage

97
00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:28,520
of that and the pushing for higher test scores, the pressure and the focus on drilling for

98
00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:34,320
tests, which is about the most boring, uninteresting thing you could possibly do is prepare for

99
00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:38,480
those multiple choice, you know, tests.

100
00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:39,480
I attest to that.

101
00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:40,480
It's horrible.

102
00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:45,360
And we now have the situation in the United States where teachers are being judged on

103
00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:47,000
the basis of those test scores.

104
00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,520
So of course they're spending lots of time on test scores.

105
00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:54,800
All kinds of other creative activity, which used to be kind of fun in school, writing

106
00:07:54,800 --> 00:08:01,060
essays and poems and putting on little plays and these kinds of things have largely been

107
00:08:01,060 --> 00:08:05,680
taken away for the sake of drilling for tests.

108
00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:11,260
Recesses have been in some schools completely eliminated and almost all schools greatly

109
00:08:11,260 --> 00:08:14,160
reduced from what they were before.

110
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:23,200
So we have really changed the school environment in a way that's not that school was ever great.

111
00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:29,860
We've changed it in a way that it is worse, more stressful than it ever was before.

112
00:08:29,860 --> 00:08:39,680
One of the ways I sometimes put this to adults is that would you take, would you as an adult

113
00:08:39,680 --> 00:08:43,000
accept a job that's like school?

114
00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:49,400
Would you accept a job where you are being micromanaged throughout the day, where you

115
00:08:49,400 --> 00:08:55,760
are constantly being judged and evaluated and compared to your workmates?

116
00:08:55,760 --> 00:08:56,760
Who's better?

117
00:08:56,760 --> 00:08:58,080
Who is worse?

118
00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:02,280
Where you have to get permission to go to the bathroom?

119
00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:08,200
Where talking to your colleagues about the work you're doing would be called cheating?

120
00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:11,200
Would you accept a job like that?

121
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:18,280
This is the worst kind of, this is a nightmare job for an adult and yet we require children

122
00:09:18,280 --> 00:09:24,080
to be in this kind of a setting.

123
00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:33,680
Well it resonates with me so much because I'm now a working adult and I understand that

124
00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:38,520
comparison to a deep level.

125
00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:43,760
What explains that halo you talked about around schools?

126
00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:54,600
Why is it this blind spot in people's conversation, minds, thoughts?

127
00:09:54,600 --> 00:10:04,400
For some reason, so first of all what we have to say is that school, along the lines that

128
00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:10,200
we know, although school has gotten worse, as I just described, we basically have school

129
00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:15,000
in a similar manner for several generations now.

130
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:23,320
This has been going on so I went to school, my parents went to school, their parents went

131
00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:29,760
to school, I'm old enough so that the previous generation probably didn't go to school after

132
00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:30,760
that.

133
00:10:30,760 --> 00:10:35,400
So it would be younger people, it would be three or four generations of school.

134
00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:41,400
So you just think school is the key to growing up.

135
00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:48,280
The other thing is that this whole school system has adopted a language that's fundamentally

136
00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:53,600
deceiving and I don't think it's deliberately deceiving but it is deceiving.

137
00:10:53,600 --> 00:11:04,200
So for example, during COVID people were saying, because people were saying children need to

138
00:11:04,200 --> 00:11:07,880
get back to school for the sake of learning, right?

139
00:11:07,880 --> 00:11:13,920
So school becomes learning.

140
00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:20,260
People say should we have more recess or more learning?

141
00:11:20,260 --> 00:11:26,160
People say if we increase the summer vacation, as I've been arguing that we should, we would

142
00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:27,480
decrease learning.

143
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:33,020
So learning, the word learning, which is a good word, we all need to learn.

144
00:11:33,020 --> 00:11:36,840
Learning has become equated with school.

145
00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:40,200
Learning quite properly has a halo around it, right?

146
00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:46,440
We all need to learn and we all need to be educated, we all need education.

147
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:51,440
But we've confounded learning and education with school as if that's the only place it

148
00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:52,980
occurs.

149
00:11:52,980 --> 00:12:00,400
We've forgotten that children learn a huge amount of what they're ever going to know

150
00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:03,800
before they ever start school.

151
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:08,320
They learn their entire native language, they learn a huge amount about the world around

152
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:11,200
them.

153
00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:16,600
So learning is going on more rapidly than it does once they start school.

154
00:12:16,600 --> 00:12:22,560
And so we've got to get over this idea that school is learning.

155
00:12:22,560 --> 00:12:28,640
School is a certain kind of training in certain kinds of things and yeah, there's a little

156
00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:30,200
bit of learning that goes on.

157
00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:36,000
But most of what all of us learn, we learn outside of school.

158
00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,920
And so we've got to get away from that kind of language.

159
00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:42,320
We've got to get away from this idea that school is so essential.

160
00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:49,220
The other thing we kind of, you know, it's like we sort of, we almost turned teachers

161
00:12:49,220 --> 00:12:50,220
into saints.

162
00:12:50,220 --> 00:12:51,360
I like teachers.

163
00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:55,720
Most teachers are good people, but they're not in a good system.

164
00:12:55,720 --> 00:13:01,480
But we have this view that, you know, that if you're a teacher, you're just kind of a,

165
00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:03,160
you know, a saint.

166
00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:06,780
And if we're blaming schools, then we're blaming teachers.

167
00:13:06,780 --> 00:13:10,280
And so that's another part of it, I think.

168
00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:21,560
So I just, I think that the part of the problem is as a society, if we were to admit what

169
00:13:21,560 --> 00:13:29,320
we should know, if we were to admit the facts that school is driving a lot of kids crazy,

170
00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:37,680
that school is a huge part of the cause of the mental health crisis among young people,

171
00:13:37,680 --> 00:13:41,000
what would we do about it?

172
00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:45,720
Are we ready to really change in a serious way?

173
00:13:45,720 --> 00:13:51,380
Are we really ready to, you know, school has come to serve so many purposes.

174
00:13:51,380 --> 00:13:52,880
It's babysitting.

175
00:13:52,880 --> 00:14:01,160
It's, you know, it's keeping teenagers off the job market when there's not too many jobs

176
00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:02,160
available.

177
00:14:02,160 --> 00:14:05,720
It's serving, it's serving various social roles.

178
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:12,160
And it's also serving a discriminatory function because wealthier people do well better in

179
00:14:12,160 --> 00:14:13,440
school than poor people.

180
00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:18,160
You can't discriminate against somebody because they're poor, but you can discriminate against

181
00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:20,360
somebody if they didn't do as well in school.

182
00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:32,080
So this is, school is serving a lot of societal purposes in addition to the purported purpose

183
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:34,720
of education.

184
00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:38,360
So I think that it would just be a huge step.

185
00:14:38,360 --> 00:14:46,400
On the other hand, it wouldn't be such a huge step to say, well, let's at least try to turn

186
00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:49,300
back the tide of what's happened in school.

187
00:14:49,300 --> 00:14:54,640
Let's try to go back a little bit to where schools were 30 or 40 years ago where we,

188
00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:58,920
the school year wasn't as long, where the school day wasn't long.

189
00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:01,800
Let's reduce homework instead of increase it.

190
00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:04,880
Let's do away with standardized tests.

191
00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:09,620
Let's give teachers more authority in the classroom because most teachers are decent

192
00:15:09,620 --> 00:15:13,760
people and they will change the curriculum to fit what the kids need and what they're

193
00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:16,760
interested in to the degree that they can.

194
00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:21,920
Not that they can totally solve that problem if you've got 30 kids in your class, you can't

195
00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:26,080
please everybody, but you can at least move in that direction if you have authority to.

196
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:33,480
But these days teachers are, I've heard teachers tell me I'm no more free than the kids.

197
00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:36,300
This is the curriculum I've got to teach.

198
00:15:36,300 --> 00:15:40,880
My response to them always is, well, that's not true because you're free to quit and the

199
00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:43,680
teachers are not and the kids are not.

200
00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:49,120
But as long as they're in that job, as long as they feel they have to be in that job,

201
00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:52,040
there's truth in what they're saying.

202
00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:53,280
Yes.

203
00:15:53,280 --> 00:16:00,240
And I think part of it is an American phenomenon because if we look at Europe, for instance

204
00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:06,840
France, the school year I think is shorter, you have more vacations and that is reflected

205
00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:17,680
with work too because in European countries workers have longer vacation time than American

206
00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:19,240
workers.

207
00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:30,920
Okay, so in your book Free to Learn, you attribute seven cents to school so you go into the consequences

208
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:33,400
of having that system.

209
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:39,400
And again, let's be clear, we're not blaming the teachers.

210
00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:48,400
I survived school because of a few teachers who were truly interested in my success in

211
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:52,200
creating a relationship with me and I'm really grateful for them.

212
00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:57,220
We're talking about the institution, we're talking about that system.

213
00:16:57,220 --> 00:17:09,200
And the number one sin goes at the heart of the problem, school's pause, which is no freedom.

214
00:17:09,200 --> 00:17:12,720
We're attacking the freedom of kids.

215
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:17,320
And you talk about how school is actually euphemism for prison.

216
00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:23,280
So could you please talk about this in more details?

217
00:17:23,280 --> 00:17:34,520
Yeah, I wouldn't exactly say that it's a euphemism for prison, but school is a kind of prison.

218
00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:35,520
Think about it.

219
00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:40,640
I mean, first of all, the children have no choice about being there.

220
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:47,440
If they have very enlightened parents who have the capacity, whether it's the economic

221
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:54,400
capacity or the time capacity to homeschool them or to find some kind of an alternative,

222
00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:57,280
a democratic school they could go to.

223
00:17:57,280 --> 00:18:00,040
But for most kids, there's really no choice.

224
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:02,240
They don't, they're there.

225
00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:10,680
They're there for, they can say as much as they want, I don't want to go to school, but

226
00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:12,280
they have to go to school.

227
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:14,320
They're being forced to go.

228
00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:15,720
So that's the first part.

229
00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:23,920
And then once they're there, they are, as I said, they are, they are, they are told

230
00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:28,440
exactly what to do, exactly where they have to have to be.

231
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:34,480
What we think of in America as basic human rights are taken away.

232
00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:40,680
Free speech, freedom of assembly to get together with whoever you please, you know, pursue

233
00:18:40,680 --> 00:18:43,400
your own interests.

234
00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:48,840
These things, the right to trial by jury, if you're accused of due process, if you're

235
00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:55,960
accused of some wrongdoing, these are totally taken away from children when they're in school.

236
00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:58,200
You don't have a right to defend yourself.

237
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:04,400
You don't have any way to defend yourself, any due process if you've been blamed for

238
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:05,400
something.

239
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:09,240
So you are, you are really in a prison like situation.

240
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:17,800
There was a film done quite some years ago called The War on Kids in which what the filmmaker

241
00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:26,480
did is he went, he filmed, he went through a big city school, high school, and he filmed

242
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:27,800
what was going on.

243
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:30,600
He filmed what a typical day was like.

244
00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:38,200
He filmed, he filmed the, you know, the metal detectors in the school that the kids had

245
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:41,920
to go through.

246
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:47,760
And he, and the fact that they could, they were not free to leave their classroom and

247
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:48,760
so on and so forth.

248
00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:54,360
And then he went through a maximum security prison, a real prison.

249
00:19:54,360 --> 00:19:59,560
And at the end of that film, you felt if you had to be in one or the other, you would rather

250
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:01,560
be in the prison.

251
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:05,040
They could go to the library whenever they wanted.

252
00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:10,760
They had more time out in the exercise yard for recess than kids had.

253
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:16,240
Now granted, you know, kids do go home at a certain time.

254
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:22,400
But while you're there, this is constraining even more than a prison is.

255
00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:25,280
You're not free to decide what you want to read.

256
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:29,240
You're not free to decide what, who you want to talk with.

257
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:34,960
You're not free to go out and play when you want to go out and play.

258
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:38,960
You're, you are really being controlled.

259
00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:43,520
So that's what I mean when I say that school is a prison.

260
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:45,700
And there is also the monitoring part.

261
00:20:45,700 --> 00:20:47,400
You have no privacy in school.

262
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:49,720
You're always watched.

263
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:51,440
You have no privacy in school.

264
00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:57,120
And while we're saying that it's worth pointing out that it's more and more true that children

265
00:20:57,120 --> 00:21:00,360
have no privacy anywhere.

266
00:21:00,360 --> 00:21:06,280
You know, I think this is a huge part of the mental health problem that we all need privacy.

267
00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:08,040
We all need time alone.

268
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:14,280
We all need time just with our peers when there's no authority figures overseeing us.

269
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:22,480
So children, not only are they increasingly imprisoned in school, but when they're out

270
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:27,480
of school, they're more or less under sort of home lockup.

271
00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:33,440
You know, there is kind of a home in prison because at least in the United States, we

272
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:40,360
have become so paranoid about the possibility that children could be kidnapped or something

273
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:44,680
awful could happen if children are allowed to run free, even if teenagers are allowed

274
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:45,680
to run free.

275
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:49,080
This is another part of the change that's occurred.

276
00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:54,480
So not only are children's time being taken up more and more with schoolwork, but even

277
00:21:54,480 --> 00:22:00,240
when they do have free time, they're not allowed to just go out and play and explore as they

278
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:01,240
used to.

279
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:06,560
They're not allowed to just get together with their friends without some adult around.

280
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:13,280
And more and more, they're put, you know, they go off to some kind of adult directed

281
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:18,120
sports rather than just going out to play or some kind of adult directed activity, which

282
00:22:18,120 --> 00:22:19,600
are again is school like.

283
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:28,120
And so they're constantly under surveillance by adults as opposed to and constantly being

284
00:22:28,120 --> 00:22:32,360
in a situation where somebody else would correct them if they're doing something wrong.

285
00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:34,160
You're not allowed to make mistakes.

286
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:43,720
You know, I really believe that part of growing up is making mistakes and correcting them

287
00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:52,240
yourself, learning from your own mistakes, that misbehavior even is part of growing up.

288
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:55,280
You need to misbehave a little bit.

289
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,800
It's the perfect time.

290
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:02,520
You need to be able to talk with your peers about this without your adult, your parents

291
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:07,800
finding out about it or without some other authority figures, adult authority figures.

292
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:16,200
But now young people are so constantly monitored, constantly that that is that they don't really

293
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,760
have private time.

294
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:22,920
And then we blame them for going on social media, which is the only place where they

295
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:30,440
can get together with others without or some in some sense on the computer, whether they're

296
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:34,680
texting one another or they're doing we think that we think is so shameful that they're

297
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:36,080
spending so much time in the community.

298
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:37,440
Well, why are they doing that?

299
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:46,360
There was a there was a survey done a number of years ago in which the author of this book

300
00:23:46,360 --> 00:23:52,360
was originally done as a doctoral dissertation, interviewed hundreds of teenagers across the

301
00:23:52,360 --> 00:24:00,840
country on why they're why they're on on the computer so much interacting with other kids,

302
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,040
other kids rather than interacting in person.

303
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:06,280
And the basic response was we're not allowed to get together in person.

304
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,240
This is the only way we can get together.

305
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:15,280
And we need to get together in a way that that is private from adults.

306
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:18,600
And so that's why they're doing it.

307
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:23,120
And as soon as their adults, you know, they might have been on Facebook, but as soon as

308
00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:29,020
their parents are on Facebook, they're off of Facebook onto something else.

309
00:24:29,020 --> 00:24:31,080
It feels like a dictatorship.

310
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:36,760
I feel like you're describing the dictatorship.

311
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:44,080
Another component, another characteristic that you describe about school is sin number

312
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:52,360
four, which is an unquote judging students in ways that foster shame, hubris, cynicism

313
00:24:52,360 --> 00:24:54,720
and cheating.

314
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:59,680
You make the point that we teach children that their worth is determined based on others'

315
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:03,240
judgments through class, rank or grades.

316
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,520
And you mentioned that earlier.

317
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:11,600
And when the value is placed on grading, rather than learning, cheating becomes a preferable

318
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:18,320
option because it's more about scoring big than learning something new.

319
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,680
What you are describing here is a violent system of competition.

320
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:27,520
And I'm worried about what kind of adults will come out of this.

321
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:35,280
I've seen students go as far as taking drugs like Adderall.

322
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:39,680
And I mean, without a prescription to get a nudge in the classroom.

323
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:46,800
I've also witnessed students displaying like an obsession with their success or lack of

324
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:51,560
success and their self image and self esteem.

325
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:57,560
And as I witnessed that, I wondered, is it how you create a narcissist, basically?

326
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,440
I know that you wrote about this subject.

327
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:07,280
So what exactly is the impact of school in adulthood?

328
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,440
Because those children are going to grow up.

329
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:18,920
And I know you don't like the word grow up.

330
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,440
So I think that what school you're absolutely right.

331
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:30,040
School is we have turned what we call education into a competition.

332
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:35,360
And I think that I think that essentially all students, students are not stupid.

333
00:26:35,360 --> 00:26:45,800
They realize that what is important to the adults, what they have to do in order to beat

334
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,480
this system is get high grades.

335
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,880
It has even the best students.

336
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:56,840
If you talk to them, they'll say this has really very little to do with learning.

337
00:26:56,840 --> 00:27:01,720
This has to do with knowing how to get high grades.

338
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:03,560
And there are certain rules.

339
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,760
This kind of and you know, the best students will say, you know, I've learned to play the

340
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:07,760
game, right?

341
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:08,760
The game.

342
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:13,020
And I'm all for games, but this is a game that they didn't choose to play.

343
00:27:13,020 --> 00:27:16,360
This is a game they're being required to be in.

344
00:27:16,360 --> 00:27:21,960
And it's and it's a game that's taking an enormous amount of time, an enormous toll on

345
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:23,560
their lives.

346
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:29,880
But basically, it's a game of can you score higher than other people on the tests and

347
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:35,280
that way get an A, you know, or if you're at the lower level, can you score high enough

348
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,120
so you pass so you eventually get out of this system?

349
00:27:39,120 --> 00:27:40,440
Right.

350
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:50,000
And I think every kid learns certainly by the time they're in fourth or fifth grade.

351
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:56,640
What you need to do is you need to cram this information into your head long enough to

352
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:57,640
take the test.

353
00:27:57,640 --> 00:27:59,840
Then you can forget it.

354
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:00,840
Right.

355
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,680
You learn it in a superficial way.

356
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,120
You learn it.

357
00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:09,920
You learn just as much as you need to know to get whatever the grade is.

358
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:13,920
You feel you need to get on the test and that's it.

359
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:20,520
It would be a waste of time to really delve into something because you're not being tested

360
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,080
on actual real deep knowledge.

361
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:30,240
You're just being tested on this kind of shallow memorized information or ability to if it's

362
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:34,120
arithmetic or math, the ability to carry out these calculations.

363
00:28:34,120 --> 00:28:35,900
You don't have to understand why they work.

364
00:28:35,900 --> 00:28:37,680
You don't have to really know it.

365
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:43,920
You just have to remember the system for doing it.

366
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:49,600
And whatever it is, you are learning in this shallow way and then you're forgetting about

367
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:50,600
it.

368
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:58,080
Now, every student knows that, all right, so if you write this information into your

369
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:01,480
brain long enough for the test, that's legitimate.

370
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,240
That's within the rules of the game.

371
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:10,920
If you were to write this information on the cuff of your shirt or on a piece of paper

372
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,940
that you stuck up your sleeve, that would be cheating.

373
00:29:14,940 --> 00:29:20,000
But I think every student knows that there's a fine difference between those two things.

374
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,400
And is it really cheating to do that?

375
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:24,720
Who are you cheating?

376
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:26,480
Everybody wants a high grade.

377
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,520
Your parents want you to get a high grade and so on and so forth.

378
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:37,200
So the whole idea of cheating becomes, you know, this is not really cheating.

379
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,360
This is just because this is just a hoop I'm going through.

380
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:42,120
It's a meaningless hoop I'm going through.

381
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,880
I'm just giving myself a little extra help to go through the hoop.

382
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:49,840
Well, where does that stop?

383
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:57,320
And where does this idea, the other thing that's, see, I believe that we human beings

384
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:03,560
are naturally, if we allow ourselves to be naturally playful.

385
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:10,720
And what playful means is that we do things, including learn things, because we want to,

386
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,920
because we're motivated to, because it's fun to do it, because it's meaningful to do it,

387
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:16,800
and so on and so forth.

388
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,320
But school takes that all away.

389
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,700
In school, we're not allowed to follow our own interests.

390
00:30:22,700 --> 00:30:26,600
We're not allowed to do the things that we want to do, to learn the things that we want

391
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:31,200
to do, at the time that we want to learn them, in the way that we want to learn them.

392
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:34,680
So we're forced to do it in this other way.

393
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:40,680
And the motivation for doing it in this other way has nothing to do with any kind of intrinsic

394
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:47,120
sense of I have accomplished what I personally want to accomplish.

395
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,400
It has to do with rewards from the outside world.

396
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,600
I have pleased my teacher.

397
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:54,920
I have pleased my parents.

398
00:30:54,920 --> 00:31:01,440
I have gotten this material reward of a high grade, and that's going to be my ticket maybe

399
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,080
to go on to college.

400
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:08,340
And then if I get high grades there, maybe that'll be my ticket for the next event.

401
00:31:08,340 --> 00:31:18,120
So what school is doing is teaching us to work for extrinsic rewards, rather than because

402
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:23,060
it's something that's really meaningful and interesting to us.

403
00:31:23,060 --> 00:31:26,200
And then I think that persists through life.

404
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:37,000
So once you are finished with school, now what is the measure of your worth?

405
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,360
In a sense, the grade becomes sort of the measure of your worth.

406
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,920
I've proven to all these people that I can do this.

407
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:52,120
I think once you leave school, the measure of your worth becomes are you in what society

408
00:31:52,120 --> 00:32:00,440
regards as a high prestigious job, and are you earning a lot of money?

409
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:06,280
I remember one time, I'm no longer teaching, but back when I was teaching in college, I

410
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:15,200
would sometimes meet with my advisees as a group, and I would ask them questions like,

411
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:21,600
so what are you thinking of going on into once you finish college?

412
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,440
And they would tell me things like, oh, I'm thinking I want to be a doctor, or I'm thinking

413
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:31,760
I want to be a lawyer, or I want to be a business executive, or whatever it is, they would tell

414
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:32,760
me.

415
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:38,120
And then completely independently of that, at some other point, I would say, so I'm interested,

416
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:42,480
when you have free time, what is it that you really like to do?

417
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,040
And maybe the one who said, I really want to be a doctor, would say, well, I really

418
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:47,040
love the woods.

419
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,080
I like hiking out in the woods.

420
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:53,000
And the one maybe who wanted to be a lawyer said, I like little kids.

421
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:54,200
I like to be around little kids.

422
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,280
I like to play with little kids, and so on and so forth.

423
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:01,400
And then at some point, I would say, so to the one who wanted to be a doctor, I'd say,

424
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,440
so you really like to be out in the woods.

425
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,440
Why don't you want to be a forest ranger?

426
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:11,120
You know, a doctor, you're not going to get out in the woods much.

427
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,560
You're going to have very little time for me in the woods.

428
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:19,280
And the one who wants to be a lawyer, I say, you know, why don't you, you know, we need

429
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:22,280
really good, kind nursery school teachers.

430
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,120
Why don't you want to do that?

431
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:29,360
And they would feel like I had insulted them because I'm suggesting a lower level job to

432
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,600
them that would be fun for them and interesting to them.

433
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:37,080
But it would rank them in society's eyes as lower.

434
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:42,640
And sometimes I would talk about, you know, people would say, well, I need to have a high

435
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:43,640
income.

436
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:45,920
And I'd talk about, well, why do you need to have a high income?

437
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:52,400
How much you really need to make in order to fulfill the needs that you that are real

438
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,800
needs for you to be happy.

439
00:33:55,800 --> 00:33:59,400
And I'd point out that, you know, once you have there's actually data on this.

440
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:05,120
Once you once you have enough money to satisfy certain basic needs, after that, there's no

441
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:07,520
relationship between income and happiness.

442
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:12,080
So why have why why strive for why break your neck for higher income?

443
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:13,480
Why struggle for that?

444
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:14,760
Why is that even important?

445
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,240
I think it's only important because it's a status symbol.

446
00:34:18,240 --> 00:34:28,760
So so we create people growing up who are working for status symbols, working for the

447
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:36,120
the recognition of achievement from other people rather than their own internal sense

448
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:38,800
of this would be great fun.

449
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,560
This would be meaningful to me.

450
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:45,920
This would be something that I feel I'm really doing something for the world.

451
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:52,800
And there is also a financial incentive to that competition because there there are scholarships

452
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:58,880
and that's scholarships are often seen as something great.

453
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:00,880
And I've benefited from them.

454
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:02,640
So I'm not here to complain.

455
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:11,760
But I did notice that often scholarships are given to people who have the means, you know,

456
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:17,480
to put time and efforts in their studies and not have like a part time job or something

457
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:18,480
like that.

458
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,880
So there is a social inequality component to to that.

459
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:30,160
And then if you don't get good enough grades, you don't get the scholarship, which is unfair

460
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:38,400
because you should get the scholarship in order to finance your efforts to get better

461
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:39,400
grades.

462
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:43,160
It's very twisted the way we think about this.

463
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:47,760
Yeah, I think that that's true to the degree that's true.

464
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:54,040
Some colleges, universities, the way they do this financial aid is if you get accepted

465
00:35:54,040 --> 00:36:00,560
and if you are financially needy, then they supplement, then they give you financial aid.

466
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,880
That's the way I think it should be done, not scholarships based on the set.

467
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:06,680
There should be a separate decision.

468
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:08,920
Have you done well enough to be accepted or not?

469
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:15,360
And then if you're accepted, do you need financial aid or not?

470
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:19,040
And some schools do it that way.

471
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:28,080
Yeah, so we talking about the violence of competition, there is also a more explicit

472
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:32,520
form of violence I associated with school.

473
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:38,400
I recently watched Real Time with Bill Maher and he was having a conversation with the

474
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:45,320
famous David Sedaris and they were talking about how children were problematic.

475
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:52,720
And Bill Maher said children are feral and they need adults to civilize them.

476
00:36:52,720 --> 00:36:54,160
They're different than they used to be.

477
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:57,000
They're I mean, they're naturally feral.

478
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,520
I mean, it's true.

479
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:03,520
We all read Lord of the Flies, right?

480
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,160
What did we get out of that book?

481
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:07,160
Kids are feral.

482
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,080
They have to be civilized by adults.

483
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:19,080
And then David Sedaris responded, half joking that corporal punishment had some virtues

484
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:24,560
and might we might benefit from a comeback from corporal punishment.

485
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:30,760
I feel like a lot of people who say that they're wounded or offended by something don't when

486
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:32,680
they were never hit by their parents.

487
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,120
So I think it's true.

488
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:41,080
I know people who have never ever hit their hit their children and so they don't know

489
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:42,880
what pain is really.

490
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:47,640
But I think that if you don't want to hit your kids, then that's fine.

491
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:48,640
Of course, that's fine.

492
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:50,880
But other people should be allowed to.

493
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:54,560
And I was astonished by that discussion.

494
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:59,520
I kept wondering where are those ideas coming from?

495
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:04,120
Let's talk about the history of schools.

496
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:06,400
Schools did not always exist.

497
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,720
When and why did schools appear?

498
00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:12,280
How did people manage to get an education before schools?

499
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:21,720
And how did this other contempt for children was born in our society?

500
00:38:21,720 --> 00:38:22,720
Yeah.

501
00:38:22,720 --> 00:38:38,120
So, well, first of all, the schools as we know them for the masses really began to appear

502
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:43,040
as part of the Protestant Reformation.

503
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:53,000
I mean, going as far back as the 17th century, there began to be some Protestant schools.

504
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:58,200
They were developed especially in the German state of Prussia initially, but then they

505
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,960
began to spread to other places.

506
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:08,240
Even the colonies in the United States, what became the United States, the American colonies

507
00:39:08,240 --> 00:39:11,860
had Protestant schools.

508
00:39:11,860 --> 00:39:18,680
And in Massachusetts where I live, schools became more or less compulsory already back

509
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:25,480
in the 1700s and even in the 1600s.

510
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:32,680
And they were run by the Protestant churches of the local town.

511
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:41,520
And the reason for compelling children to go to them is because the Protestant religions

512
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:51,760
of that time believed that we were all going to hell unless we were saved.

513
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:56,000
And the way you become saved is by learning the Bible.

514
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:01,680
And unlike the Catholics, they believed that it's important for every person to read the

515
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:03,320
Bible themselves.

516
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:08,240
Hence learning how to read became part of school.

517
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:13,960
And the other thing, of course, even more important than reading the Bible is believing

518
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:17,760
it.

519
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:23,120
And equally important to that is obedience, obedience to authority.

520
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:34,200
So the whole system of theology is a hierarchical system.

521
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:39,000
God is at the top.

522
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:46,080
And we human beings, our job is to follow God's commands, follow God's orders.

523
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:50,200
And within the Catholic church, the hierarchy spreads itself all the way down through the

524
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,640
pope and the bishops and so on and so forth.

525
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:58,920
But the Protestants said each person has to get the word directly from God and that they

526
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:01,000
do that through the Bible.

527
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:06,840
But the Protestants still held to the view that obedience to authority on earth is very,

528
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:08,640
very important.

529
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:13,040
So schools were developed really for three purposes.

530
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:18,680
One, for those children who couldn't read or were growing up in families that couldn't

531
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:24,160
read so that they would know how to read, so that they would be able to read the Bible.

532
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:29,360
In the American colonies, the reader that children learned from was called the Little

533
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:31,480
Bible of New England colloquially.

534
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:37,840
It's basically Bible passages and little ditties about how if you lie to your parents, you'll

535
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,120
go to hell and burn forever and so forth.

536
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:49,040
This is what little children were learning to read on.

537
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:53,080
But these were the first schools that looked like schools today in the sense that there

538
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:58,400
was a school master, they were called a master at that time, standing in front, giving them

539
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:01,760
lessons and then the children had to feed it back.

540
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,560
One of the things we know about indoctrination is the way you indoctrinate people is making

541
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,520
them repeat the same thing over and over.

542
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:14,200
Make them memorize it, make them say it over and over and over again.

543
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:20,480
And that was how biblical indoctrination was occurring through the schools.

544
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:28,360
The way at that time that you enforced children to do these things was not so much by shame

545
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:32,960
and embarrassment as we do today, it was by literally beating them.

546
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:37,920
If you didn't get it right, if you made mistakes, you might be beaten with a stick.

547
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:44,080
So that was the way schools began and the clear purpose of schools, it didn't have really

548
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:48,880
anything to do with education in the sense of learning the things you really need to

549
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:49,880
know.

550
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,520
There was not even any pretense that this had anything to do with learning the things

551
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:58,480
you need to know to live an adult life, to do your job, to be a good citizen in other

552
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,480
senses other than the religious sense.

553
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:08,920
It was all about saving souls, keeping people from being sinful.

554
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:13,200
To many of the Protestants, play itself is sinful.

555
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:17,920
Play is the devil's work.

556
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:19,400
Children are born in sin.

557
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:24,280
So this idea that children are naturally sinful, this was part of the Protestant beliefs at

558
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:25,280
that time.

559
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:30,400
Fortunately, most Protestants don't feel that way today, but that was the origin of a lot

560
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:35,320
of the Protestant beliefs, so that was the origin of schools.

561
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:36,560
So we've got to keep that in mind.

562
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:41,960
Now, the other thing in terms of your question about, well, what about before there were

563
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:43,280
schools?

564
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:48,960
First of all, throughout most of human history, of course, there were no schools, and yet

565
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:55,720
people have become educated throughout history.

566
00:43:55,720 --> 00:44:02,600
There is actually good evidence that before there were schools, both in Europe and in

567
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:09,040
America, most people could read, most children could read, most children learned to read

568
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:11,920
at home.

569
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:17,040
It was well understood that if you were growing up in a literate family, if your parents could

570
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:19,600
read, you would read.

571
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:21,720
Every kid learned how to read from their parents.

572
00:44:21,720 --> 00:44:23,640
It's not hard to learn how to read.

573
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:27,880
Today, homeschooling kids learn to read from their parents without any particular training

574
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:28,880
even.

575
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:29,880
They just pick it up.

576
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:30,880
Go ahead.

577
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:38,320
That's very surprising to hear because we have this impression that our ancestors without

578
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:47,840
schools were just those ignorant peasants and they had no idea of what a book is.

579
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:48,840
Right.

580
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:49,840
Think about the time.

581
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:57,680
First of all, almost everybody had a Bible and they could read the Bible.

582
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:03,560
What schools I think were not so much interested in whether people could read or not, they

583
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:05,060
were concerned.

584
00:45:05,060 --> 00:45:09,000
I think that the school personnel, people who started schools were more concerned that

585
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,280
people were reading the wrong things.

586
00:45:12,280 --> 00:45:20,000
People were reading Thomas Paine's revolutionary writings.

587
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:28,960
People were reading works that were going to stir up the masses because the masses really

588
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:35,640
… There's even evidence in the United States that at the time of slavery, it was illegal

589
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:42,520
to teach blacks reading, to teach black kids reading, but yet a very high percentage of

590
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:44,960
slaves could read.

591
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,200
They picked it up.

592
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:51,980
Some of them who wrote by autobiographies later on talked about how they would bribe

593
00:45:51,980 --> 00:46:00,200
the white kid to teach them letters and then they learned to read.

594
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,240
It's not that hard to learn to read.

595
00:46:02,240 --> 00:46:07,800
I studied children who were growing up outside of school in unschooling and in democratic

596
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,780
schools where reading is not taught.

597
00:46:09,780 --> 00:46:13,320
They all learned to read, not all at the same age.

598
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:20,120
They learned at various ages when they get interested in it, but reading is not hard.

599
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:26,400
If you compare reading to learning your oral language, you're learning an enormous amount

600
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:28,880
when you learn to speak a language.

601
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:37,040
Reading is just taking a code and turning that into a code, a fairly simple code.

602
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:42,000
Anybody can learn it unless they're blocked about it.

603
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:46,960
We make reading hard in schools.

604
00:46:46,960 --> 00:46:53,680
We make it hard because we want everybody to learn at the same age, in the same way,

605
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:59,880
at the same time, whether or not they have any interest in reading at that time.

606
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:07,600
We give them readers that 90% of the kids have zero interest in.

607
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:12,120
When you are interested in reading and when you're reading for meaning and you want to

608
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:13,520
read, you learn how to read.

609
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:18,080
The kids outside of school who learn how to read, they see how they learn how to read.

610
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:19,720
They learn how to read.

611
00:47:19,720 --> 00:47:23,320
They don't start off learning how to read by learning the phonics.

612
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:28,680
They start off by reading certain words that are important to them.

613
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:32,760
A lot of kids these days are learning to read on the computer.

614
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:33,760
They're playing video games.

615
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:35,080
There's a word on the screen.

616
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:39,240
They need to know that word in order to play the game.

617
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:44,800
They pick up words and at some point they've picked up enough words that they kind of even

618
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:50,600
unconsciously infer the grammar, infer the phonetics.

619
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:55,960
This word cat and this word hat, they have a similar sound.

620
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,160
They also look similar.

621
00:47:58,160 --> 00:47:59,160
This is the difference.

622
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:03,560
A-T, that's the at part.

623
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:05,800
The difference here is in this first letter.

624
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:06,800
They make this assumption.

625
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:08,680
They don't have to be taught that.

626
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:16,120
They pick it up at some point after they've learned enough sight words.

627
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:21,320
In school, that system doesn't work of picking up words because you have to be interested

628
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,680
in what you're reading for that to happen.

629
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:28,800
In school, you're forcing kids to read who aren't interested in reading and you're forcing

630
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,920
them on material that they're not interested in.

631
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:37,680
The only way you can teach them is the mechanical way of making them sound out the letters and

632
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:42,160
sound out words and it becomes a mechanical thing.

633
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:44,440
That really slows the process down.

634
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:51,040
I also think that that becomes a source of what we call dyslexia because you're creating

635
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:55,000
reading blocks in people by doing that.

636
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,680
I never thought about this.

637
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:04,200
There are also relatively high rates of illiteracy.

638
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:09,680
School isn't, like you said, even doing a good job at teaching kids how to read and

639
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:12,520
write.

640
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:21,160
I think the worst thing you can do to a writer is make their book required in school.

641
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:23,400
Children will hate it.

642
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:29,680
I know that I picked up books that I had read in schools and I hated them, but now as an

643
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:38,320
adult I find a new appreciation for those books.

644
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:49,400
Still on reading, I did an informal study a few years ago where I invited people who

645
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:54,360
are homeschooling or unschooling their children.

646
00:49:54,360 --> 00:50:01,960
I did a search for people who had a child who had been diagnosed with dyslexia while

647
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:09,840
in school and who then took the child out of school for homeschooling or unschooling.

648
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:16,240
I asked the question, did the child subsequently learn how to read and if so, how did that

649
00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:18,120
happen?

650
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:26,120
I had about 60 responses to that, if I remember right.

651
00:50:26,120 --> 00:50:27,600
It wasn't really that many.

652
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:33,600
It was something like 15 responses.

653
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:39,480
Essentially what all of them said was, yes, my child learned how to read, but not right

654
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:41,120
away.

655
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:44,920
My child was terrified about reading when I took him out of school.

656
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:46,240
He was terrified.

657
00:50:46,240 --> 00:50:47,240
Reading was scary.

658
00:50:47,240 --> 00:50:50,280
He didn't want to have anything to do with reading.

659
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:55,480
The child had been diagnosed with dyslexia, but what the parents recognized was that this

660
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:57,440
is not a cognitive problem.

661
00:50:57,440 --> 00:50:59,360
This is an emotional problem.

662
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:05,000
This child has been terrorized in school about reading.

663
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,000
Think about it.

664
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:11,320
For whatever reason, maybe reading comes a little more difficult to you.

665
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:12,680
I can identify with this.

666
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:17,560
I was a late reader in school and I hated reading out loud in front of the other kids

667
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:18,560
and the teacher.

668
00:51:18,560 --> 00:51:21,000
It was terrible.

669
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:25,440
Because school wasn't as pressured, I didn't suffer as much as kids might today as a result

670
00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:29,560
of that.

671
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:34,600
Then you begin to feel like I'm stupid, I can't read, I hate reading, I don't want to

672
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:37,160
have anything to do with reading.

673
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:42,800
At some point by third grade or so and you're still not reading, it's really interfering

674
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:48,920
with your ability to do school and you get this diagnosis of dyslexia and then experts

675
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:53,080
try to work with you who are supposed to be experts on dyslexia, at least if they've got

676
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:59,960
such experts there, with various ranges of results.

677
00:51:59,960 --> 00:52:06,400
What essentially every one of these parents said is, at first I tried to teach reading

678
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:08,960
but my kid would have nothing to do with it.

679
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:16,080
So I finally gave up and I said, when and if you're ever ready to learn to read, that's

680
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:18,120
up to you.

681
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:23,520
What they all said is, at some point the child decided I'm ready to read.

682
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:25,720
Some of the children basically taught themselves.

683
00:52:25,720 --> 00:52:27,840
They didn't need any help from the parents.

684
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:33,600
Some of them asked for some help, but once they were ready to read, they learned to read.

685
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:37,600
There was nothing wrong with their brains that made it cognitively impossible for them

686
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:38,600
to read.

687
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:45,280
This is a myth that we've developed that dyslexia is due to some kind of abnormality in the

688
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:46,280
brain.

689
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:49,760
There may be differences in the brain, in different ways that people learn to read,

690
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,360
different ways people interact.

691
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:58,200
The usual way to solve this problem of differences is let people choose their own way.

692
00:52:58,200 --> 00:52:59,200
People know better.

693
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:05,000
The kid knows much better than any expert what works for him or her.

694
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:08,800
You just have to let the kid do it.

695
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:11,200
That's amazing to hear.

696
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,320
It's a good segue for my next question.

697
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:19,680
I'm thinking about the parents who are out listening and they're wondering, what can

698
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:21,600
I do?

699
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:23,360
What is the alternative?

700
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:32,120
If school is that bad for my kid, what are my options exactly?

701
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:38,440
It partly depends on where you live, but in the United States, homeschooling is easy to

702
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:41,840
do and is completely legal.

703
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:48,960
Large numbers, increasing numbers of families are homeschooling.

704
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:55,520
The most recent poll, 11% of families with school-aged children in the United States

705
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:59,080
are homeschooling at least one of their children.

706
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:00,840
That's a huge number.

707
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:05,400
A lot of that increase occurred as a result of COVID, but most of the people who started

708
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:07,880
homeschooling then are staying with it.

709
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:11,400
Before COVID, it was about 5% of families.

710
00:54:11,400 --> 00:54:14,900
More than double during COVID.

711
00:54:14,900 --> 00:54:19,840
As more and more people are doing it, it becomes more and more acceptable to do it.

712
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,520
There are more and more resources for doing it.

713
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:27,360
There's more and more opportunities for getting kids together who are homeschoolers so they

714
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:28,820
have social groups.

715
00:54:28,820 --> 00:54:33,020
More and more opportunity for parents who are doing this to get reinforcement from other

716
00:54:33,020 --> 00:54:36,680
parents for doing it.

717
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:42,100
The homeschoolers that I've been most interested in and have conducted research on are those

718
00:54:42,100 --> 00:54:44,500
who call themselves unschoolers.

719
00:54:44,500 --> 00:54:48,640
They are not trying to do school at home.

720
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:56,080
They are rather allowing their child to direct his or her own education and they're facilitating

721
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,000
it.

722
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:02,600
You know how I said that children learn so much before they ever start school?

723
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:07,160
They're just basically allowing the children to continue that.

724
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:08,720
Children get interested in things.

725
00:55:08,720 --> 00:55:10,840
They read about things when they're interested.

726
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:14,840
Once they know how to read, they get involved in building things.

727
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:16,200
They get involved in exploring.

728
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:18,840
Children are naturally curious.

729
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:20,880
They're naturally playful.

730
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:25,720
They're curious and their curiosity leads them to want to understand and know things.

731
00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:32,920
Their playfulness leads them to play at things where they're developing skills.

732
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,860
So they're just allowing that to occur.

733
00:55:36,860 --> 00:55:43,160
My colleague Gina Riley and I did a study a few years ago of grown unschoolers.

734
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:47,840
So these are people who didn't go to school growing up and they weren't homeschooled.

735
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:54,200
They were legally homeschooled, but they were allowed to pursue their own interests.

736
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:58,760
We identified 75 such people and we found they were doing very well in the world.

737
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,480
If they wanted to go on to higher education, they were going on.

738
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,160
They were in all kinds of careers.

739
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:06,400
They were happy with their lives.

740
00:56:06,400 --> 00:56:11,320
So here's people in our world today who are not doing anything that looks like school

741
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:16,560
during what we think of as their kindergarten through 12th grade years.

742
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:18,720
And yet they're doing very well as adults.

743
00:56:18,720 --> 00:56:23,760
They're clearly educated by any meaningful definition of education.

744
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:29,400
They believe they're more responsible, that they're happier, that they're in careers that

745
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:36,240
they love because they were allowed to take charge of their own life as they were growing

746
00:56:36,240 --> 00:56:37,760
up.

747
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:47,440
The other thing is that there are schools for self-directed education.

748
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:54,600
In some cases these are certified schools, so they're legally schools.

749
00:56:54,600 --> 00:57:00,280
But at the extreme case, such as the Sudbury Valley School where my own son was a student

750
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:07,200
many years ago, there are no courses being offered.

751
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:10,480
Kids can get together and create a course if they want, but that doesn't happen very

752
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:11,680
often.

753
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:19,680
So you've got kids there from age four through what we think of as high school age, not segregated

754
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:20,680
by age.

755
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:22,480
They're interacting.

756
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:27,460
All the rights that I said that children are deprived of in typical schools, they've still

757
00:57:27,460 --> 00:57:28,460
got here.

758
00:57:28,460 --> 00:57:33,000
They've got the right to free speech, right of free association, right to go wherever

759
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:38,640
they want on campus, and the right to vote on any rules that affect them.

760
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,240
So all the school rules are made by a school meeting.

761
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:47,480
This is a democratic society for children.

762
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:51,280
Staff members also have an adult, but the number of students greatly outweighs the staff

763
00:57:51,280 --> 00:57:52,280
members.

764
00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:57,820
It never is this case, but if it was ever the staff versus the students, the students

765
00:57:57,820 --> 00:58:01,160
would win on any vote.

766
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:04,520
So this is a radically alternative school.

767
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:08,600
The school that my son went to has been in existence now for 54 years.

768
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:13,360
It has got hundreds and hundreds of graduates who are doing well in the world.

769
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:17,960
I did a study of the graduates a long time ago and found that they're doing very well

770
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:19,520
in the world.

771
00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:26,560
So it's basically been proven that you don't need school as we know it to do well in the

772
00:58:26,560 --> 00:58:32,240
world, to be well educated by any meaningful definition of education.

773
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:38,760
My definition of education is that education is everything that a person learns that helps

774
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:46,000
that person to live a satisfying, meaningful, and moral life, whatever it is.

775
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:51,280
So education does have a whole halo around it in my view, but I don't equate education

776
00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:56,000
with school, as school as with compulsory schooling.

777
00:58:56,000 --> 00:58:59,280
Education comes from all the experiences that you have.

778
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:04,260
And so this kind of a school, the Sudbury Valley School that my son went to, schools

779
00:59:04,260 --> 00:59:12,280
modeled after it, unschooling, these are all ways that people become educated.

780
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:19,120
And this is very wise, and I'm happy that there are options out there for parents.

781
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:22,480
You mentioned the right to vote.

782
00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:29,480
And for my final question, I would like to talk about the political side of this issue.

783
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:33,320
Children are maybe the most vulnerable members of our society.

784
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:38,160
And I wonder if it would be beneficial to give them more political power.

785
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:44,400
I know that some politicians want to make it so that 16-year-olds get the right to vote.

786
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:50,560
And this is just one way to give children more power, one, the power to defend their

787
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:56,280
interests and have their voice heard about issues concerning them, two, give them power

788
00:59:56,280 --> 01:00:02,760
early so they can learn what it's like to be a citizen of democracy, and finally, three,

789
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:09,700
if children had more power, I'm certain that schools would not stay open for very long.

790
01:00:09,700 --> 01:00:12,560
So is it going too far?

791
01:00:12,560 --> 01:00:18,460
I know that through your organization, you do a lot of advocacy work.

792
01:00:18,460 --> 01:00:21,440
What do you think about this suggestion?

793
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,840
It's really an interesting question.

794
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:31,520
John Holt, who was really the originator of the idea of unschooling and who wrote a book

795
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:41,560
who played a big role in the idea of self-education and so on, he actually wrote a book that children

796
01:00:41,560 --> 01:00:49,520
should be liberated in the sense of having political power and having even the power

797
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:52,960
to decide where they want to live, a lot of liberation.

798
01:00:52,960 --> 01:00:55,860
And that's a very controversial idea.

799
01:00:55,860 --> 01:01:00,560
And to be honest, I don't know where I stand on that.

800
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:06,280
The truth of the matter is, of course, that children start off completely dependent on

801
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:07,280
their parents.

802
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:09,580
They can't live without their parents, right?

803
01:01:09,580 --> 01:01:16,240
And so where is the transition point between when you're no longer so dependent on your

804
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:25,280
parents that you really feel comfortable expressing a political view, where you really feel comfortable

805
01:01:25,280 --> 01:01:36,160
and capable of presenting political opinions and so on that are independent of your parents?

806
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:42,000
And if children are voting, but they're only kind of voting what their parents tell them

807
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:45,200
to vote, then they don't, you know, what is the sense in that?

808
01:01:45,200 --> 01:01:46,680
What's the meaning of that?

809
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:53,120
It basically doubles or triples or quadruples the parents' vote, right?

810
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:55,520
So it's interesting.

811
01:01:55,520 --> 01:02:04,380
On the other hand, I do think it certainly made sense to bring it down to 18 from 21.

812
01:02:04,380 --> 01:02:08,280
I think it makes a lot of sense to bring it down to 16.

813
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:12,640
You know, by 16, you're pretty independent thinker.

814
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:16,280
You're pretty willing to disagree with your parents.

815
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:20,560
You may be very willing to disagree with your parents.

816
01:02:20,560 --> 01:02:23,840
So I think it makes a lot of sense to do that.

817
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:30,720
Maybe if we try 16 and that works, then down to 14, something like that.

818
01:02:30,720 --> 01:02:31,720
I wouldn't mind.

819
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:39,120
But on the other hand, the idea that school should be a practice place for democracy and

820
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:42,720
real democracy for the children at the school.

821
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:53,120
You know, it's so ironic that we in America pride ourselves in being democratic.

822
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:59,520
And yet we raise our children in schools that are the most autocratic institutions that

823
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:01,200
we have.

824
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:05,600
They are completely deprived of democratic rights when they're in school.

825
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:07,200
They're completely they have no freedom.

826
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:08,320
They have none of these things.

827
01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:09,320
It becomes a joke.

828
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,560
I remember in school, kids would say, oh, yeah, free world.

829
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:15,920
Ha ha ha.

830
01:03:15,920 --> 01:03:21,400
You know, you're studying that you're studying in your civics class about all these rights

831
01:03:21,400 --> 01:03:26,160
and you yourself are being deprived of these rights while you're in school.

832
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:30,360
So the whole idea of the Sudbury Valley School when it was first started, there are now dozens

833
01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:33,680
of schools modeled after it was let's raise.

834
01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:38,800
If we want to raise children to be good democratic citizens, we need to raise them in a school

835
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:43,320
where they are democratic citizens, at least of that school.

836
01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:46,260
So they're learning the principles of democracy.

837
01:03:46,260 --> 01:03:48,200
They're learning what voting means.

838
01:03:48,200 --> 01:03:49,920
They're really voting.

839
01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:51,920
They're making the decisions for their school.

840
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:54,120
They've got due process.

841
01:03:54,120 --> 01:03:58,880
If somebody is accused of violating a rule in the school and the rules have to do with

842
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:03,840
things like no bullying and no littering and if you place with something, you have to put

843
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:06,280
it away afterwards and so on.

844
01:04:06,280 --> 01:04:12,460
If you're accused of it and you and you are claiming that you didn't do this, that you

845
01:04:12,460 --> 01:04:17,280
didn't violate a rule, then you have a right to a little trial of your peers.

846
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:18,980
And that goes on at the school.

847
01:04:18,980 --> 01:04:25,080
So you're actually experiencing democratic citizenry growing up in the school.

848
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:28,040
I think that is wonderful preparation.

849
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:34,600
And I think one of the results is that graduates of schools like that are more likely to participate

850
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:43,320
in the democratic processes of their city, of their state, of their nation when they

851
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:47,000
do grow up and leave school.

852
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:51,000
This is a wonderful answer and a great way to end the conversation.

853
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,260
It was so pleasant to talk with you, Peter.

854
01:04:54,260 --> 01:04:55,600
Thank you very much.

855
01:04:55,600 --> 01:04:58,280
Did you have anything more to add?

856
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:06,320
Well, I could go on forever, but I think we've covered enough ground for this time.

857
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:07,320
Great.

858
01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:08,320
OK.

859
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:13,120
Thank you again, Peter, for having been a guest on the podcast.

860
01:05:13,120 --> 01:05:15,000
Thank you, everyone, for listening.

861
01:05:15,000 --> 01:05:19,320
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you know.

862
01:05:19,320 --> 01:05:22,360
Let's encourage more people to take action.

863
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:25,240
Again, thank you so much for caring.

864
01:05:25,240 --> 01:05:28,360
And I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.