Unhappiness necessary for learning!!
alma
I was shocked to read an article on the BBC website, which included this
=-=-=The former chief inspector of schools in England expressed his doubts over the study's findings that the youngest pupils were more unhappy in the early years of school.
"Our current pre-occupation with happiness and well-being is stupid and is likely to lead to further under-achievement because real learning involves challenge, difficulty and unhappiness."
Unhappiness is part and parcel of the learning experience, he says.
"I don't want kids to be desperately miserable but we don't want them to be complacent and self-satisfied all the time. If kids are always completely confident and comfortable, they aren't going to make much progress."=-=-=
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15490760)
This view is so deeply entrenched in our culture (certainly here in the UK) that I believe it can be one of the biggest barriers to unschooling. I was often (still am) told that unless I made things hard for my children they wouldn't learn anything. A teacher I knew told me that I should face their school-desks (school-desks?!?) against a wall because otherwise they would be able to see all the fun things they could be doing instead. I really struggled at first with the idea that supporting their happiness was a disservice to them. How happy I am that I continued to read on lists such as this.
Alison DS1(9) and DS2(6)
=-=-=The former chief inspector of schools in England expressed his doubts over the study's findings that the youngest pupils were more unhappy in the early years of school.
"Our current pre-occupation with happiness and well-being is stupid and is likely to lead to further under-achievement because real learning involves challenge, difficulty and unhappiness."
Unhappiness is part and parcel of the learning experience, he says.
"I don't want kids to be desperately miserable but we don't want them to be complacent and self-satisfied all the time. If kids are always completely confident and comfortable, they aren't going to make much progress."=-=-=
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15490760)
This view is so deeply entrenched in our culture (certainly here in the UK) that I believe it can be one of the biggest barriers to unschooling. I was often (still am) told that unless I made things hard for my children they wouldn't learn anything. A teacher I knew told me that I should face their school-desks (school-desks?!?) against a wall because otherwise they would be able to see all the fun things they could be doing instead. I really struggled at first with the idea that supporting their happiness was a disservice to them. How happy I am that I continued to read on lists such as this.
Alison DS1(9) and DS2(6)
Schuyler
I think there may be truth to the idea that if you want someone to strive to
change making them miserable where they are can help. The problem is that you
can't predict how they will change, what they will change. The protests going on
in the UK, Spain, the U.S., Greece, and everywhere else in the world are a
product of some folks being miserable. I imagine that isn't the kind of striving
for change the Chief Inspector of Schools would call a good outcome of
unhappiness. And, given that the finding about summer born children doing less
well throughout their school career is the catalyst for the article, however
they are changing it isn't in the way that he is arguing would happen. And what
is exactly the right amount of misery to nudge someone in the right direction of
learning?
I've felt envy. Not masses, but occasional moments of, when I look at how good
Simon's and Linnaea's life is, how much I wish that I had the connection they
have with their family. How much I wish I'd had the power they have. And I can
understand how a grown up child can believe that the suffering they experienced
must have been valuable. It must have given them the edge they have now. I've
had young children argue with me about the necessity of school because otherwise
what the hell where they doing going to this place they hated every weekday?!!
It meant that their parents were making choices that weren't necessarily the
choices that had their interests at heart. And that's too hard to swallow. So
you pass on the notion that being unhappy is what makes you learn even while
trying to be happy in your own life and helping your own children to be happy.
Such fabulous cognitive dissonance.
Simon and Linnaea have been listening to a lot of Tim Minchin lately and when I
read your post I thought of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQmJ_vxHB4&feature=related and how much I
believed that being miserable was the same as being deep and thoughtful. I
haven't felt that way for a long time. But it was an important part of my
worldview when I was 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and then it started to
taper off. I like being happy. I strive to be happy. And I stay where I am
happiest. And I learn all the time!
Schuyler
________________________________
From: alma <almadoing@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, 3 November, 2011 8:45:30
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Unhappiness necessary for learning!!
I was shocked to read an article on the BBC website, which included this
=-=-=The former chief inspector of schools in England expressed his doubts over
the study's findings that the youngest pupils were more unhappy in the early
years of school.
"Our current pre-occupation with happiness and well-being is stupid and is
likely to lead to further under-achievement because real learning involves
challenge, difficulty and unhappiness."
Unhappiness is part and parcel of the learning experience, he says.
"I don't want kids to be desperately miserable but we don't want them to be
complacent and self-satisfied all the time. If kids are always completely
confident and comfortable, they aren't going to make much progress."=-=-=
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15490760)
This view is so deeply entrenched in our culture (certainly here in the UK) that
I believe it can be one of the biggest barriers to unschooling. I was often
(still am) told that unless I made things hard for my children they wouldn't
learn anything. A teacher I knew told me that I should face their school-desks
(school-desks?!?) against a wall because otherwise they would be able to see all
the fun things they could be doing instead. I really struggled at first with
the idea that supporting their happiness was a disservice to them. How happy I
am that I continued to read on lists such as this.
Alison DS1(9) and DS2(6)
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
change making them miserable where they are can help. The problem is that you
can't predict how they will change, what they will change. The protests going on
in the UK, Spain, the U.S., Greece, and everywhere else in the world are a
product of some folks being miserable. I imagine that isn't the kind of striving
for change the Chief Inspector of Schools would call a good outcome of
unhappiness. And, given that the finding about summer born children doing less
well throughout their school career is the catalyst for the article, however
they are changing it isn't in the way that he is arguing would happen. And what
is exactly the right amount of misery to nudge someone in the right direction of
learning?
I've felt envy. Not masses, but occasional moments of, when I look at how good
Simon's and Linnaea's life is, how much I wish that I had the connection they
have with their family. How much I wish I'd had the power they have. And I can
understand how a grown up child can believe that the suffering they experienced
must have been valuable. It must have given them the edge they have now. I've
had young children argue with me about the necessity of school because otherwise
what the hell where they doing going to this place they hated every weekday?!!
It meant that their parents were making choices that weren't necessarily the
choices that had their interests at heart. And that's too hard to swallow. So
you pass on the notion that being unhappy is what makes you learn even while
trying to be happy in your own life and helping your own children to be happy.
Such fabulous cognitive dissonance.
Simon and Linnaea have been listening to a lot of Tim Minchin lately and when I
read your post I thought of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQmJ_vxHB4&feature=related and how much I
believed that being miserable was the same as being deep and thoughtful. I
haven't felt that way for a long time. But it was an important part of my
worldview when I was 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, and then it started to
taper off. I like being happy. I strive to be happy. And I stay where I am
happiest. And I learn all the time!
Schuyler
________________________________
From: alma <almadoing@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, 3 November, 2011 8:45:30
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Unhappiness necessary for learning!!
I was shocked to read an article on the BBC website, which included this
=-=-=The former chief inspector of schools in England expressed his doubts over
the study's findings that the youngest pupils were more unhappy in the early
years of school.
"Our current pre-occupation with happiness and well-being is stupid and is
likely to lead to further under-achievement because real learning involves
challenge, difficulty and unhappiness."
Unhappiness is part and parcel of the learning experience, he says.
"I don't want kids to be desperately miserable but we don't want them to be
complacent and self-satisfied all the time. If kids are always completely
confident and comfortable, they aren't going to make much progress."=-=-=
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15490760)
This view is so deeply entrenched in our culture (certainly here in the UK) that
I believe it can be one of the biggest barriers to unschooling. I was often
(still am) told that unless I made things hard for my children they wouldn't
learn anything. A teacher I knew told me that I should face their school-desks
(school-desks?!?) against a wall because otherwise they would be able to see all
the fun things they could be doing instead. I really struggled at first with
the idea that supporting their happiness was a disservice to them. How happy I
am that I continued to read on lists such as this.
Alison DS1(9) and DS2(6)
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Joyce Fetteroll
On Nov 3, 2011, at 4:45 AM, alma wrote:
So quality is perhaps seen as proportional to suffering and
unhappiness. :-/
And it makes sense that we'd be learning the most when we're tackling
something challenging and difficult. But its the desire for that
knowledge that's driving someone to learn not the challenge. And
really big desire will drive us through something challenging and
difficult which will result in a big chunk of learning.
Without the drive, the learning isn't going to happen.
*Some* kids like external motivators (grades and scores) that give
them goals to shoot for. Some kids like school style learning and are
generally interested in the knowledge. If someone has those factors,
the desire for the external motivator can give them extra drive to get
through more challenging material that they wouldn't tackle on their
own, from which they'll come out the other side with more knowledge.
But, again, it's still the internal drive -- for the information or
grades -- that's the cause of learning a lot.
The problem is educators have their eyes on a big chunk of knowledge
(sculpted by centuries of tradition in England) they want to get into
kids. There are wo truths that educators see: If kids are left to
choose, they may dabble a bit but mostly avoid the knowledge and will
choose fun instead. When kids are made to learn, they'll choose to do
as little as possible to get by. When kids drop out of school or are
forced out, for the most part they continue that pattern.
What educators conclude is that kids are naturally lazy pleasure
seekers. In order to make something of themselves, kids need adult
intervention to force the knowledge into them.
That's the understanding of kids and learning that unschoolers are up
against.
What is actually true -- that educators have no clue about -- is that
kids aren't avoiding the learning so much as they're avoiding the
pressure to learn what doesn't (yet) intrigue them, and avoiding the
increasingly negative association they're picking up about the
knowledge. What is also true is that even when allowed to follow their
interests, most kids will only take in a small portion of that chunk
of learning. (And what they do take in instead is very hard to test.
They might have a big chunk of knowledge and good feelings about
Shakespeare but it won't necessarily be the particular factoids that
are on the test. So it will appear that they don't know much at all.)
But because of the focus on the knowledge, because of the focus on the
amount a child takes in, unschooling will look like some knee jerk
blind rejection of what's important because Mom wants something pie in
the sky, can't-get-a-job-with-it ideal like happiness. And, just as
people can't learn without drive, educators can't be pressured to
learn a new way of seeing education unless they have reasons that fire
up the internal drive to do so. And if unhappiness is accepted as part
of the process, that's one less path to a new way of thinking.
I think we have an advantage in the US in that people here see
happiness as an unalienable right. (It's in our Declaration of
Independence from you guys :-) "Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness." Which, culturally, only fully applies to adults but
there's a trickle down effect on children that won't allow society as
a whole to adopt children's unhappiness as a necessary thing.) Lots of
people come to homeschooling and then unschooling *because* their kids
are very unhappy in school. And when parents accept their kids
unhappiness in school, I think they're more likely to see it as tragic
and something that needs fixed (even if they have no idea how to fix
it.)
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> "Our current pre-occupation with happiness and well-being is stupidThe kids in English boarding schools on TV always seem very unhappy.
> and is likely to lead to further under-achievement because real
> learning involves challenge, difficulty and unhappiness."
So quality is perhaps seen as proportional to suffering and
unhappiness. :-/
And it makes sense that we'd be learning the most when we're tackling
something challenging and difficult. But its the desire for that
knowledge that's driving someone to learn not the challenge. And
really big desire will drive us through something challenging and
difficult which will result in a big chunk of learning.
Without the drive, the learning isn't going to happen.
*Some* kids like external motivators (grades and scores) that give
them goals to shoot for. Some kids like school style learning and are
generally interested in the knowledge. If someone has those factors,
the desire for the external motivator can give them extra drive to get
through more challenging material that they wouldn't tackle on their
own, from which they'll come out the other side with more knowledge.
But, again, it's still the internal drive -- for the information or
grades -- that's the cause of learning a lot.
The problem is educators have their eyes on a big chunk of knowledge
(sculpted by centuries of tradition in England) they want to get into
kids. There are wo truths that educators see: If kids are left to
choose, they may dabble a bit but mostly avoid the knowledge and will
choose fun instead. When kids are made to learn, they'll choose to do
as little as possible to get by. When kids drop out of school or are
forced out, for the most part they continue that pattern.
What educators conclude is that kids are naturally lazy pleasure
seekers. In order to make something of themselves, kids need adult
intervention to force the knowledge into them.
That's the understanding of kids and learning that unschoolers are up
against.
What is actually true -- that educators have no clue about -- is that
kids aren't avoiding the learning so much as they're avoiding the
pressure to learn what doesn't (yet) intrigue them, and avoiding the
increasingly negative association they're picking up about the
knowledge. What is also true is that even when allowed to follow their
interests, most kids will only take in a small portion of that chunk
of learning. (And what they do take in instead is very hard to test.
They might have a big chunk of knowledge and good feelings about
Shakespeare but it won't necessarily be the particular factoids that
are on the test. So it will appear that they don't know much at all.)
But because of the focus on the knowledge, because of the focus on the
amount a child takes in, unschooling will look like some knee jerk
blind rejection of what's important because Mom wants something pie in
the sky, can't-get-a-job-with-it ideal like happiness. And, just as
people can't learn without drive, educators can't be pressured to
learn a new way of seeing education unless they have reasons that fire
up the internal drive to do so. And if unhappiness is accepted as part
of the process, that's one less path to a new way of thinking.
I think we have an advantage in the US in that people here see
happiness as an unalienable right. (It's in our Declaration of
Independence from you guys :-) "Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness." Which, culturally, only fully applies to adults but
there's a trickle down effect on children that won't allow society as
a whole to adopt children's unhappiness as a necessary thing.) Lots of
people come to homeschooling and then unschooling *because* their kids
are very unhappy in school. And when parents accept their kids
unhappiness in school, I think they're more likely to see it as tragic
and something that needs fixed (even if they have no idea how to fix
it.)
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Joyce Fetteroll
On Nov 3, 2011, at 6:42 AM, Schuyler wrote:
many people are unschooling because they and their kids were happy
with school?
(I think the fear that kids will never want to leave home because
they're too happy sounds reasonable in that light ;-) But biology
drives kids to want to be independent, to do it themselves. They might
not label what they feel as unhappiness or misery but discontent, the
need for something different will grow.)
Being unhappy or dissatisfied is definitely a good motivator. It's why
I've often said that support is not helpful for adopting an
unschooling way of life. Support for the struggle as someone is
changing is good. Support for how hard this is, how difficult it is to
change, how this state of discomfort is common to all parents, can
make people feel more comfortable about where they are and makes it
easier not to change.
If there's solidarity in suffering through the misery, it can help
people put up with the bad conditions and not seek change.
But making people miserable? Yeah, there's no predicting what change
they'd decide to make. In America there are AK-47s and other high
powered weaponry available as choices :-/
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> I think there may be truth to the idea that if you want someone toThis is true. If someone's happy, why would they change anything? How
> strive to
> change making them miserable where they are can help. The problem is
> that you
> can't predict how they will change, what they will change.
many people are unschooling because they and their kids were happy
with school?
(I think the fear that kids will never want to leave home because
they're too happy sounds reasonable in that light ;-) But biology
drives kids to want to be independent, to do it themselves. They might
not label what they feel as unhappiness or misery but discontent, the
need for something different will grow.)
Being unhappy or dissatisfied is definitely a good motivator. It's why
I've often said that support is not helpful for adopting an
unschooling way of life. Support for the struggle as someone is
changing is good. Support for how hard this is, how difficult it is to
change, how this state of discomfort is common to all parents, can
make people feel more comfortable about where they are and makes it
easier not to change.
If there's solidarity in suffering through the misery, it can help
people put up with the bad conditions and not seek change.
But making people miserable? Yeah, there's no predicting what change
they'd decide to make. In America there are AK-47s and other high
powered weaponry available as choices :-/
Joyce
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
-=-"Our current pre-occupation with happiness and well-being is stupid and is likely to lead to further under-achievement because real learning involves challenge, difficulty and unhappiness."-=-
Part of what shocks me is the casual and frequent use of the term "stupid" in the UK.
But yes, the idea that the youngest children were probably not more unhappy than older children is stunning.
-=- I was often (still am) told that unless I made things hard for my children they wouldn't learn anything. -=-
My mother-in-law said years ago, of my pre-school-aged boys, "You need to frustrate them." She was serious. She wanted to see them baffled and uncomfortable so they could learn to endure bafflement and discomfort.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Part of what shocks me is the casual and frequent use of the term "stupid" in the UK.
But yes, the idea that the youngest children were probably not more unhappy than older children is stunning.
-=- I was often (still am) told that unless I made things hard for my children they wouldn't learn anything. -=-
My mother-in-law said years ago, of my pre-school-aged boys, "You need to frustrate them." She was serious. She wanted to see them baffled and uncomfortable so they could learn to endure bafflement and discomfort.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Regan
On 03/11/2011, at 10:04 PM, Joyce Fetteroll wrote:
In the school context, instead of keeping a certain level of unhappiness in school children's lives to get them to "make progress", schools could be strewing teasers of all sorts, keeping interesting possibilities within reach, visible, imaginable. Keeping interest, and the natural desire to understand and be competent, alive.
Parents don't need to ensure that their children are somewhat unhappy for them to efficiently learn to walk or talk. They learn to walk, talk (and can be happy too!) if parents keep the possibilities for change open - keeping their worlds interesting, holding their hands as they begin to toddle, talking to them about interesting things, listening with love, being ready to help etc.
Unhappy can sometimes lead to inertia, whereas happy is often energizing.
Debbie.
> If someone's happy, why would they change anything?I can make a meal I'm happy with, and at the same time be thinking of ideas of what I could do a bit differently next time. It's the excitement about possibilities, rather than misery with how things are, that drives the exploring and the learning. It's at the heart of strewing, it's at the heart of people making progress with all sorts of things they learn about. They don't need to be unhappy with how things are. Being interested in or excited about how things could be is a wonderful and natural starting point for learning and growth.
In the school context, instead of keeping a certain level of unhappiness in school children's lives to get them to "make progress", schools could be strewing teasers of all sorts, keeping interesting possibilities within reach, visible, imaginable. Keeping interest, and the natural desire to understand and be competent, alive.
Parents don't need to ensure that their children are somewhat unhappy for them to efficiently learn to walk or talk. They learn to walk, talk (and can be happy too!) if parents keep the possibilities for change open - keeping their worlds interesting, holding their hands as they begin to toddle, talking to them about interesting things, listening with love, being ready to help etc.
Unhappy can sometimes lead to inertia, whereas happy is often energizing.
Debbie.
Meredith
Joyce Fetteroll <jfetteroll@...> wrote:
---Meredith
>But biologyAnd what most educators don't get to see where learning is concerned is that people naturally Like to learn and are naturally motivated - arguably even driven - to learn and discover, so much so that we have a word for times when there's an uncomfortable lack of learning and discovery: tedium. Educators sometimes seek to induce tedium for that reason, but it falls flat for the same reason inducing other kinds of suffering does - there's no way to control what kids will choose to learn to relieve the tedium. My partner can fold fifteen different varieties of paper airplane and aim them with mind-boggling accuracy as a result of classroom tedium - definitely not what the teacher had in mind!
> drives kids to want to be independent, to do it themselves. They might
> not label what they feel as unhappiness or misery but discontent, the
> need for something different will grow.
---Meredith