It is quite clear that traditional schools that focus
on extrinsic motivators like grades to drive student learning , and rewards,
consequences and punishments to deal with discipline problems and get
compliance do not promote the autonomy, competence and relatedness needs of
students. The transmission model or DI – direct instruction of teaching does
not focus on students ' constructing ' their own knowledge and making meaning
of their world as constructivist education does, ignoring the need for autonomy
in learning.
The question is what about ' homeschoolers', '
un-schoolers,' non-traditional schools that have a libertarian bent.? Are they
consistent with SDT principles?
Historically, education has been the responsibility of
parents and kids were educated in a mainly informal way. Kids, from their early
teens either worked in the home or with their parents or became apprentices and
learned vocations while on the job. Kids that were academically gifted became
scholars. More than 2000 years ago in Israel ,compulsory elementary schooling
was introduced for kids from the ages of 6-7 in order to compensate for parents
and address the more complex educational needs of kids. This means that schools
are now partners with parents. Parents can focus more on informal learning. See the kitchen as a classroom - http://tiny.cc/68mzr
Homeschooling is an alternative for a very small
minority in the community. Homeschooling communities provide lots of
opportunities for constructivist and cooperative learning and lots of social
activities too. Some challenging kids do much better in this environment than
in school.
Public education is the mainstream and people who are
concerned with all children should not being doing their own thing , creating
alternatives , but trying to become mainstream.
The alternatives have in common a distaste for
traditional education , but what do they have in common?
Alfie Kohn finds a lot about ' libertarian ' education
inadequate . I also think that kids
needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are not addressed adequately.
Alfie Kohn talks about the ' Trouble of Pure Freedom ' and the focus on the individual kid's
learning , and the lack of community –
cooperative learning, that characterize libertarian schooling.
The libertarian worldview sees adult
involvement as an authoritarian restriction
of personal autonomy. Total autonomy is not developmentally appropriate . Kids
need guidance and many of them need structure at the same time that they need
the opportunity to learn how to make good decisions. –
In an essay on student choice , and the need to
sometimes limit student choice.
AK says ……….. on closer examination, however, it seems clear
that what must occasionally be restricted is not choice but individual choice.
(It is an interesting reflection on our culture that we tend to see these as
interchangeable.)- to affirm the importance
of community does not at all compromise the right to make decisions, per se, or
the importance of involving everyone in a class or school in such a process. In
fact, we might say that it is the integration of these two values, community
and choice, that defines democracy
We see from the above that a libertarian approach
comprises ' competence ' , autonomy ' and relatedness.
Competence is compromised by the lack of structure
, teacher stimulation and guidance, cooperative learning, collaborative problem
solving, social and moral learning within a community.
Autonomy is compromised by limiting choice – one has
more possibilities within a community - . True autonomy is the ability to be self determined within the context of a
community and other peoples' choices.
Relatedness is compromised by the lack of
cooperative learning within a caring community, and a lack of teacher
involvement.
Allan
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