Imagine...

Imagine a school that children want to attend.

A place where their voices are valued and their time is respected.

A place where there are no required classes, no grades, no homework, no tests, no detention, no coercion, no manipulation, no micromanagement, and no shaming.

Imagine a school where kids are happy because they are free to explore and develop their talents and interests all day long if they wish, and at their own pace, and, in the process, learn more than they would at a conventional school.

A place where children learn through action instead of sitting all day in a classroom trying to memorize facts.

 A place where children learn how to communicate effectively, have healthy relationships, and live in tune with their inner genius.

Imagine them growing up in a supportive community where they feel important and cared for.

Imagine them graduating with real-world skills, with their mental health still intact.

 They wouldn't have to go "find themselves" because they were never lost.

A school like this would save lives.

Children are not treated well in school.

Our children are not treated well by the school system. The schools do not recognize children as complete human beings. It disrespects them and shames them. The only value it upholds is compliance. It compels children to abandon themselves out of fear of retaliation and loss.

School forces kids to do the wrong things at the wrong time, developmentally.

Dr Naomi Fisher, a clinical psychologist, author, and speaker, pointed out that school is a developmental mismatch for kids. Read what she posted on Facebook on December 18, 2023:

School doesn't allow time for what's important.

In addition, schooling occupies most of a child’s waking hours and prioritizes a curriculum of academics at the expense of helping children to develop their natural genius. School also ignores life skills, social skills, and practical skills.

As a result, children graduate knowing the Pythagorean theorem and that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but not how to maintain healthy relationships, grow their own food, build a house, or start a business.

School is a major contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people.

We have a mental health crisis among our young people. The number one cause of death among young people is violence, and number two is (S). We can't help but think this is because of how they're treated all day long every day in school.

In school, kids are not allowed to talk, except in an adult-controlled context, or during their few minutes of recess.

They are not allowed to move their bodies, except to line up, except their few minutes of recess. Prisoners have more outside time than kids. Why is this okay?

In school, kids are not allowed to spend much, if any, time learning what they care about. We learn best when we learn things we are interested in. We don't really learn when we're forced to cope with somebody else's agenda and pacing. It is extraordinary stressful and dehumanizing to be micromanaged all day long. It's demoralizing to young people to have no say in how their childhoods are spent.

Kids are real people, but they are not treated like it.

We believe that nothing is more important than kids' mental health. Kids are literally our future, and if they feel sad and hopeless most of the time, it's going to make for a pretty terrible future for all of us. No thanks! We can do better, and we can do better now. Our lives depend on it.

This past December, the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on the mental health challenges kids, teens and young adults are facing today.

Even before the pandemic, more than 1 in 3 high schoolers said they were regularly sad or hopeless, and the isolating effects of the pandemic did nothing to help.

Two of the recommendations Dr. Murthy offered were “supporting the mental health of children and youth in educational, community and childcare settings” and “addressing the economic and social barriers that contribute to poor mental health.”

The consequences last a lifetime.

As a result, children are alienated from their innate genius at a young age. They grow up anxious and depressed. As they grow into adulthood, many feel a deep-seated need to go "find themselves," which is a clear indicator that they lost themselves.

As they get even older, many eventually find themselves needing to do Inner Child work in order to feel whole again, like they did before they started school. Many people continue to live out the same diagrams of fear and shame for the rest of their lives.

We solve this with self-directed education.

We recognize that each child has an innate genius and their own unique path; we reject the standardization of children. We believe in consent; we do not believe in coercion.

We believe that play is learning and learning is play. We do not hinder natural learning. We do not segregate by age. We do not give homework. We create classes together. We do not give letter grades. We offer standardized tests for those families who are interested, but we do not require them.

The research shows that learning happens naturally and incidentally when children are free to follow their own interests, at their own pace, for as long as they wish.

We know that this will enable them to grow up with their curiosity intact so that they may begin adulthood capable of being who they were born to be.

We solve this by providing children opportunities for natural learning in a natural setting.

We know that children do not actually learn from sitting at a desk under artificial lighting doing de-contextualized abstracted problems on a worksheet.

Instead, they learn the same way children have learned since Time Immemorial, from observation and from doing real things that are interesting and meaningful.

We solve this by giving children time and space for real socialization. 

We recognize that for healthy development, children need ample opportunities with other children, both older and younger, to converse, discuss, debate, and negotiate.

We know that real socialization leads to children growing up articulate, able to make themselves understood, able to get along with people who are not like themselves, and able to affect real change in healthy ways.

We solve this by learning in community.

We learn how to have healthy relationships. We recognize that most of us did not grow up learning in-depth relational skills centered around peace and collaboration. To that end, we intentionally and regularly participate in courses, workshops, circles, internships, community outreach, and field trips designed to help us dismantle internalized bias.

We seek continuous improvement of ourselves for the sake of our own ability to get along well with each other, as well as for the sake of modeling healthy relationships for the children.

We solve this by working actively towards collective liberation, and against oppression.

We believe in collective liberation, and that the path towards that is through being actively against oppression. Our rights, liberation, and freedom are intertwined with one another, and we cannot be free while another is oppressed. We steer towards this by working to dismantle obstacles like adultism, sexism, racism, classism, and ableism, while holding space for young people’s embodiment of liberation through play and curiosity as much as possible in the here and now. Community is both a practice and a path in this work.

Many adults may find it difficult to imagine what learning could look like without the usual trappings of school. A big part of our work includes helping adults to deschool themselves, that is, to undo the years of conditioning that made them accept the ideas of being controlled, under constant surveillance and judgment, micromanaged, rendered helpless to affect change, shamed in front of one’s peers, having no control over how one spends their time, not being able to take care of their bodily needs as needed, and having one’s natural ways of learning interrupted and overridden. As such, many adults grew up believing that it is normal to treat children this way. This is adultism.

Adultism is a bias or prejudice against children or youth. It has been defined as “the power adults have over children”, “prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people”, and “bias towards adults... and the social addiction to adults, including their ideas, activities, and attitudes.” -- Wikipedia

 It's not your fault. It's likely the same thing was done to you.

We recognize adultism as a prevalent form of oppression, and we actively work to dismantle it. Our rights, liberation, and freedom are intertwined with one another, and we cannot be free while another is oppressed.