Un-Schooling #1

"It's not that you have to create something new. What you are doing human beings have been doing since the beginning of time." A friend of mine who I met with this morning unschooled herself at 13. She said that it was one of the most difficult and most incredible experiences of her life. She was telling, or warning me, that I might come across doubt about myself (or doubt from others) as I endeavor to do something that is quite different from the way I and most of us have been conditioned. But they are just beliefs created relatively recently in the scope of human history.

I found myself asking, ok, what happens when you take education out of the classroom, or put it in one. Most of us were at desks by the time we were 5 years old learning our A, B's, and C's. How many parents have you heard proudly proclaim that their 2 or 3 year old was already reading? When did education become about chalkboards, thick textbooks, and our minds figuring things out as opposed to experiencing them first hand. And I'm saying this as someone who excelled in school, straight A's all the way through.

One of the things that happened when education entered the classroom, was that much of our sense of belonging to a place and a community was disrupted. The natural cycles of listening to the land and each other, of honoring the organic processes of receiving, listening, integrating, and silence were replaced by the impetus to "do, do, do" regardless of day or time or intuition. Of course, this consciousness did not start or end there, but it certainly has impacted our human sense of what has value and importance. Schools place the importance on meeting standards, meeting a status quo, instead what each human being has to offer uniquely in that moment. I'm interested that even now, as Western Culture spreads across the world, there is no question of whether building schools in under-developed cultures is a worthwhile thing to do. It is so woven into our belief system that it is hard to see anything else.

What I'm discovering thus far in my one week of unschooling is that my learning is arising organically. Chances are if I ask a question and go looking, the answer or the journey to get there is very close at hand. That learning is embodied and holistic. Direct Experience is my greatest teacher and guide in discovering my questions. Articulation comes later. That learning is community and each person who shows up is the right person. Realizing this is mutually beneficial for everyone, and reminds me of how much we need one another. The hard lines between teacher and student become fuzzier, and there is a pursuit of process rather than a pursuit of answers. Listening is more important than understanding.

On a slightly different note, this weekend, we watched "Orgasmic Birth". Ina May, a midwife who transformed birth in the US and who has a 3% Cesarean rate as opposed to the national rate which is hovering above 30%, talked about what happened when we took birth out of the bedroom and put it into hospitals. It's interesting to me how quickly a new set of beliefs can emerge. "No, birth has nothing to do with sexuality." It's only recently that research is catching up to what our bodies knew all along. Birth has everything to do with sexuality, and the more we remember this, the more we can follow and listen to the wisdom of our bodies.

As I write this, I realize it may sound like I'm poo-pooing any kind of institutionalized reality. Mostly, I am, but for those of you who might take offense, or ask if I'm just proposing anarchy, I would say that I'm curious about what it means to be awake and I have questions about whether or not institutions can hold waking up as a primary intention. And if they can , what that looks like. It's a question that I carry on this journey with me.