The Edumacation of the United States of America

How I learned to see the system for what it was and let things unfold as they inevitably will

First off, I want to extend a welcome to the small influx of subscribers I’ve seen in the last month. Thanks for being here. This post might not say anything new to most people who swim in these kinds of waters already, but I am going to share it on some platforms with more conventional-leaning friends. I’m also including a hefty amount of memes because if an idea can’t be expressed in meme form, can it be truly understood by the layman?

Ok, let’s dig in. I’m going with the preface that when I was a kid in Bulgaria, I loved school. I loved learning and I was a great student, even though I missed huge chunks of school during the first three years while I traveled in my mother’s theatre company. Which was still a great learning opportunity, but we’ll skip those stories for now. I wanted to simply say that I loved school because it wasn’t installed in me, I wasn’t homeschooled, and I was fully programmed to believe in the system. All that changed when I saw a Sir Ken Robinson RSA animated lecture in 2011, the year my twins were born.

This was the beginning of my research into the Prussian school model. I was already disgruntled at how long the kids had to spend in the classroom. In Bulgaria, you were either in the morning program (7:30-1:30) or in the afternoon program (12:30- 6:30) with an overlapping lunch (12:30-1:30) you could skip, and each semester you switched. School also always started on September 15th, the schoolyard is filled with flowers and ceremony and was promptly book ended on May, 24th, the National Day of Education - another day filled with flowers and a huge parade on main street. Everyone would be dressed to the nines, hard to find an empty table at a restaurant as parents took their children out to eat, and flower shops made a killing. And then, more than three months of summer vacation which usually meant traveling and reading (the school supplied a recommended book list of about 40 books depending on your grade.) And we still got plenty of playing in.

But of course, parents in the States are at a disadvantage: who’s gonna watch your kids while you have to slave away for your bills, fool? And so the Great Babysitter’s Club paid for by the State finds easy pickings to indoctrinate its participants to enter the cycle of compliance and continuance.

How we are giving, and giving up, the joy and playtime of the early years of our children's lives to feed The School System. A system whose main purpose seems only to be to tenderize us early, to teach us learned helplessness, how to please and appease. To make ourselves more sweet, and digestible, for consumption by governmental, financial and institutional structures for the rest of their lives. 

Gary Sharpe

When my kids became of school age, I thought to myself, well, the first few years are basically arts and crafts, I can certainly teach them how to read and basic arithmetic so I started homeschooling. I recognize that I was privileged because my work was flexible and I had my mom at home to help. If work pulled me away from schooling, I either took the kids with me on “field trips” or as we called them “adventures” or my mom would care for them. And anyway, I wanted to teach the kids compassion, conflict resolution, and basic life skills. I didn’t want to burden them with lots of useless information they were bound to forget.

In Illinois, according to law, you are never to leave your child at home alone under the age of 14, which is so mental compared to Europe where you are left to your wits as early as first grade while your parents work. You make yourself snacks, do your homework, and walk to and from school on your own, locking and unlocking the door with a key that hangs on your neck with a shoelace. This kind of independence is a lesson in itself, teaching the child grit and survival, but even more importantly, trust. But as Gary poignantly states above, we are taught helplessness and that just might be a feature and not a bug.

As the years passed, not having to adhere to a school schedule allowed us to travel annually to Bulgaria during the best month of all - September. Eventually, I switched from calling what we were doing “homeschool” since we weren’t following a curriculum and began referring to the style as freedom school, democratic school, or, even, unschooling, all terms that had been given to a format of learning through play. Although initially against video games, introduced to that world by their dad, I quickly learned how to use them to help the twins be interested in learning stuff they weren’t so keen on. Minecraft and legos are both great for math, for example! One of the twins who was reluctant to read, quickly picked it up from playing video games as he tried to navigate them. But I must admit, trying to follow a schedule with both kids at the same time was difficult. Instead, I focused on what each was interested in and used their interest to expand their understanding of not only the subject but everything indirectly related to it. For example, Calvin’s obsession with tarantulas led to learning about climates on different continents, and while he had fun learning and pronouncing the Latin names of each arachnid, I leaned into more practical knowledge like what to do if bit by the venomous recluse spider. I was having as much fun as they were! We ended up landing on the term “autonomous learning” for our approach, quickly summarized by “learning what we want, when we want and how we want.”

You can imagine my chagrin when their dad, with whom I never saw eye to eye on the whole education thing, convinced one of the twins to go to school. At the height of covid. In a mask-mandated Chicago. My friends, things were not good between the two parents. He insisted that socialization was going to be of utmost importance.

I scrambled around getting vax exemptions. My workload doubled. Not only did I have one twin at home still doing autonomous learning, but I was now buried in mounds of homework I needed to assist with all the while dealing with a very energetic and attention-demanding toddler. Not to mention that after the whole covid fiasco, my distrust in academia, authority, and intellectuals had reached a new low level.

Professional respect is earned, not bestowed. Everyone’s performance is subject to continual evaluation.

Mark Oshinkie 

Jaxon, my sweet people-pleasing boy, was walking in the pits of indoctrination and because of the autonomy learning model I had preached, I had little say. It was his choice to learn what he wanted to learn, when he wanted to learn, and how he wanted to learn it. I made my piece that, at best, Jaxon was exposed to enough critical thinking at home, and at worst, we were about to have the twins involved in the greatest social experiment of our little lives: what happens to a set of twins when one is introduced to the education system while the other not. I disapproved of how Jaxon was starting to cut corners in his learning for the reward of an arbitrary grade, but in a spell of personal weakness, I silently encouraged his ingenuity in cheating the system too.

I also began focusing on Frankie, my youngest, determined to do better now that I had more time since covid and the covid soldiers gate kept me from most of my work. I am lucky that Illinois has such lax homeschooling rules. I know other states are not so lenient.

Fast forward two years later, Frankie is reading by 4, exhibits cunning intelligence and observation skills, and can navigate the shit out of any phone app. That last one I’m not proud of, but here’s the nub of it: my generation will be the last that will be allowed to function in analog. The future will be mostly digital, and there will be no concessions made for the younger generation. Of course, I still hold a reality that one day (really soon if the dollar crashes in the next couple of years) I will be able to take my family back to Bulgaria, have a large affordable house in the Balkans where we breathe fresh air, drink clean water, and survive off the land on organic food.

Maybe you can get me there by supporting this Substack! 😂

Teaching my youngest has been incredibly easy. We dedicate an hour every morning to focused learning, but then after that, everything happens through play. Every chance to get him out of the house, to the beach, to the store, to events, even to work stuff, has been a blessing. He is more academically inclined than the twins. Maybe it’s the lack of vaccines in his body. Or maybe children born to older parents (I had him at 40) are just naturally sharper. Not that my twins weren’t sharp. All kids have the two greatest tools at their disposal: imagination and curiosity. There’s also this:

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem.  That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.

Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920-2012)

Now, you must understand how gobsmacked I was, and the amount of humility it took when my oldest twin announced that he would be joining his brother in 8th grade this school year. Out of the blue. If I think about it, it makes sense as puberty hit Calvin like a semi on a mission, and the thought of being around girls seems to occupy his little 13-year-old brain constantly. So much for social experiments. I can imagine that Calvin is going to be a major pain in the ass for his teachers. His knowledge is pretty vast and his critical skills are en pointe, but sitting him down in a chair for 7 hours and expecting him to pay attention to memorized facts is not his forte.

Already, on the 9th day of school, I received a call from the principal about an incident at school. There was a fight but “don’t worry, “ she added, “Calvin wasn’t involved in the fight. He just took out his phone and recorded it.” My heart sank. I wish she had told me he was in the fight. The thought that my kid, instead of helping, pulled his phone out, immediately reflected on my parental skills, and as much as I want to blame the school system on this one, it’s entirely on me. He deleted the video and is apologizing to the two boys who were fighting today, but I still feel this gnawing me on the inside. Where did I go wrong? We’re not a family that condones this kind of behavior. Heck, a few years back, I got into the middle of a fighting couple downtown, only to see a crowd with their phones recording the scene. I yelled at them proper, like a crazy person, because what kind of Black Mirror bullshit is that? And so now that my kid did the same, it leaves a lot of uneasy feelings. Perhaps being in trouble at school will shape some of his understanding of the world in a way I failed to.

Now, as they leave for school in the morning, we all group hug and I always say, “You’re on a mission to see how they teach. Have a great day. I love you.” But their education won’t be stopping the moment they get home from school.

Oh no, I plan to continue autonomous learning as much as possible. When they were young, I told them that my job was to expose them to as many things as I could and their job was to see which of them they loved. Then, see which things they loved doing also matched what they were good at. After pairing down what they are good at, the next step will be to see what can used as survival or money-making skills. And if they master all this, the things they love, that they’re good at, and that can be a part of their livelihood, perhaps then, they can see how all of that can be synthesized to give back to the world.

But I certainly don’t think that’s very possible with the indoctrinating approach of the Prussian education system. Already, I’ve come across some ideological differences and inconsistencies as, last year, they had Jaxon watch CNN in class and read some mumbo jumbo about the Federalists. I ended up in a long discussion about history with him, showing him other sources about propaganda and history, but frankly, I can’t wait for the time when I can simply show him a meme or two, to shorthand the conversation.

What a bummer Norm isn’t around anymore.

I have to be pretty diligent because some elements are pretty sneaky and teenagers are harder to navigate once puberty is in full swing. And authority can slow play its hand once your children are in its grip. It will seduce them with arbitrary awards and false promises about being prepared for the future all the while turning them into cogs in its wheel.

And higher education is even less appealing. Very few vocations require an accredited institution and even those are turning out to be carbon copy factories void of critical thinking.

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.

Nicholas Butler

I graduated with a degree that cost me half of what it costs young people for the same degree out of the same institution. And no one ever, ever, has asked for proof of my diploma. And I work in my field! That’s what I get for going to a liberal arts college. Perhaps the only worth was the network of friends I made along the way, but is it actually a net positive? I could have easily spent the thousands of dollars on traveling or creating my own company which I still did straight out of college on a shoestring budget and countless hours of labour of love. But college was four of my most energetic and fearless years I’ll never get back.

college is lost opportunity and vast expenditure and debt accumulation that will never pay for itself.

el gato malo

And then, to what end? To become indebted not only financially, but to the system for allowing you to spend your precious intellect on its service?

At least, when I was in college, smartphones hadn’t dumbed us down. We still showed up with the empathy we gained during childhood when if you called a kid fat on the playground, you saw how much that hurt them and you never did it again. We didn’t believe that men could birth babies or insisted on “safe spaces” and believe me, some of our childhood trauma was enough to make a psychologist cry. We didn’t beat down anyone who questioned an idea. And we still read books, FFS. For fun.

Now, we get college kids who graduate into mediocrity but were promised greatness so they’re all clamoring for the same managerial class positions without any real skills but can bang away at keyboards telling you how to best follow the government’s rules.

When I came to the States with my 6th grade education and zero English-speaking skills, I changed 12 schools in a matter of two years, skipping 7th grade entirely in the process because of an administrative error, graduating High School at 15 only to find out that the art college I wanted to go to didn’t accept applicants under 16. But by the time I was a Junior in H.S., I had already lost any interest in “good grades” even though I still thought it was super important to pursue higher learning. I wasn’t smart enough to understand that college was useless or that it was going to work against me in the long run. Now, after self-educating for years post-college, I’d like to spare my kids the effort, time, and resources. Yes, I am a parent who wishes their child doesn’t go to university or college. I’d be fine with a trade school of some kind if they want to learn a specific skill set, but the rest of it? Too much of a conspiracy theorist to think they’ll get anything useful out of it.

This post has already gotten too long for email, so I will leave you with this: there is another resource that helped me orient my views toward schooling. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention John Taylor Gatto. Last year, when I was expecting a call from Jaxon’s 7th grade teacher regarding his progress, I thought I was going to get attacked for his lack of certain academic knowledge and sitting on my bookshelf was Dumbing Us Down. On the cover was a golden seal denoting the 25th anniversary of its publishing and it also happened to be the 25th day of the month. I took it as a sign. I picked up the book and read it in a few hours. I felt armed with responses I was sure I was going to need to defend my unschooling practices. After all, once while picking up Jaxon early from school so we could go to the beach on an unusually warm November day, I wrote “unschooling” as the reason and got the side eye from the office lady. But instead, his teacher informed me that whatever academic knowledge Jaxon lacked was more than answered by his willingness to learn, his curiosity, his assistance to her in class needs, his gentle approach to conflicts in class, and his humour. She said it was unique to her experience for a 12 year old boy to exhibit such properties. I felt comfortable enough to tell her how I felt about education and my reluctance to him starting school. And she agreed that the system doesn’t allow for personal growth. She listened. And she understood.

There are people stuck inside the grind of the system, being polished into the rocks that will be used for the future grind. But just once in a while, you find the ones that are perfect for skipping along the surface.

The truth is that schools don't really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. Although teachers to care and do work very, very hard, the institution is psychopathic -- it has no conscience. It rings a bell and the young man in the middle of writing a poem must close his notebook and move to a different cell where he must memorize that humans and monkeys derive from a common ancestor.

John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down

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