Free to Not Learn

On Saturday, April 14, several of the E=mc2 students put on an event at the Guilderland Public Library. They each had an exhibit of sorts where they could talk about their work thus far this year, and they all participated in a discussion panel where they talked about the E=mc2 program itself. The event was called “Free to Learn: GHS Students Present a Year of Open Inquiry.” Being there, seeing how excited these kids were about what they had done and to hear about how much they appreciated the program that allowed them to do such work, was one of the greatest moments of my life. The work I’ve done for E=mc2 is, undoubtedly, the most important work that I’ve done, and to see some of its fruit was incredibly gratifying. My favorite part was, of course, the panel discussion, where students talked about the program and explained what it had done for them and what lessons it had taught them. Statements that had first appeared in emails between Bott and myself many years ago were now coming from the mouths of our students; the clearest sign of our success. After all, the E=mc2 program is not about projects; it’s about students. It’s not important what the topic of a student’s research is because the real lessons are not related to subject matter. The goal of the program is to help students think, and to give them a space where they can think, and a by-product of this is the learning of some deeper lessons about learning itself. The casual discussion of how traditional schooling oppresses students in front of an audience containing a school board member, two superintendents, and half a dozen teachers is a sure sign that some of those lessons have been learned. It made me very happy to sit in that audience and listen to the students talk about such things.

And yet, there was something that the students were missing. One lesson that has, unsurprisingly, not been quite absorbed. It’s a lesson that has taken even me over half a decade to learn and understand fully. It is a difficult lesson, because it is so subtle, and because it challenges the very foundation of education itself. The lesson is this: Freedom is an end, not a means. 

The students all seem to understand that the goal of the E=mc2 program is to give them freedom to explore on their own and do what they want. But that’s the goal. That’s it. I certainly hope that the students will use this freedom to learn a lot and do great things. And, indeed, we have some absolutely stellar students who do. Some projects this year have been staggeringly impressive. However, some other projects have been remarkably disappointing. And you know what? That’s okay. Because we aren’t giving students freedom because it will yield more impressive results than a more structured curriculum. We don’t advocate for open inquiry because it will help kids learn more, faster. The idea behind E=mc2 is not that there is a better method of learning. The real idea behind E=mc2 is that students should be free. And this means that students should be free to not learn, if they so choose. 

The disconnect here, between appreciating freedom in education and understanding it, became apparent to me while working with some students on campaign speeches for the board of education election. In one speech, about the purpose of school, I was suggesting that school should strive to serve students and make sure that they’re happy. One of my students suggested that this might be unwise, because most people think that schools need to train students and that students can’t be trusted to oversee their own educations. She suggested that I explain that students aren’t stupid before I advocate yielding control to them. In another speech, about respecting students (the central pillar of my educational philosophy and school board campaign), I was explaining that we should be celebrating each student’s individuality rather than trying to make them all conform to a central vision. A different student said that individuality isn’t necessarily a good thing. He suggested that I should try to convince people about that before trying to convince them that schools should be fostering it. Both of them seem to be saying (and, of course, I haven’t done the conversations justice here) that I need to justify my ideas by showing how they will lead to better outcomes. 

I do believe that children can be trusted with more control over their own lives. I don’t think they’re as dumb as they are often thought to be. I do think that freedom in education will lead to better outcomes. But that is not why I think that students should be entitled to more respect from their schools. Respect is not a pedagogical device that motivates students to perform better. It's not about getting more out of them. Treating students nicely in order to get them to do what you want is not respect at all. Respect is not some new plan for teaching; it’s just treating students like human beings. I, of course, want students to learn and grow in E=mc2 and in school generally. But I can’t make them learn and grow. All I can do, all anyone should do, is offer support and an environment where kids can gain an education, if they want one. But for them to truly be free to learn, students must be free to not learn. This is what respect and freedom mean. If students are not free to not learn, then they are not free, and they are not respected. 

We tend to treat children like products, like objects in development. The purpose of school, the goal of education, seems to be to mold them into what they should be: productive workers, wise citizens, kind friends. It is widely recognized that there are flaws in this system, and many reform efforts are underway, trying new methods of helping children perform better and succeed at the tasks before them. But none of these reform movements recognize that the real flaw in our education system is that we treat children like products. The real problem is that even in conversations about implementing open inquiry across the curriculum, the implicit reason for doing so is because it will produce better results. No reform with that goal at its base can ever be genuine. The issue in education is not what the central plan looks like, but the fact that there is a central plan.

Of course, freedom and respect and open inquiry do lead to better outcomes. Freedom allows students to embrace and foster their individual talents and interests and thus build themselves into what they want to be. Respect teaches students what it means to be human, and gives them the agency to develop as a human being in all of its creative glory. Open inquiry allows students’ minds to develop naturally and more comprehensively, by teaching them to question and argue and make connections. All of this leads to the development of an individual who is unique and capable of great things. On the other hand, treating children like products denies them all of these things and also has other impacts on their psyche. For example, schools implicitly teach students that there’s one right way to be. And then grade students on their progress towards being that way. And this creates a fear in children, an urgency to be perfect. Fear of failure, when all learning involves some degree of failure (as we revise our previous ideas about the world), is devastating to a person’s ability to learn and grow and change. Students start feeling bad about being different. They feel like failures when they fall short of perfection. They start to see the world in black and white, good or bad, and all based on a standard outside of themselves. It becomes increasingly difficult for them to be their own person, to be an individual, at least openly.

And, as we’ve learned through my project this year, it is human imagination and action which makes this world a better place. This doesn’t mean that we need a bunch of people designed a certain way to produce a certain amount for society to grow. Because that’s not how society grows. Civilization and all of its fruit springs from the spaces between people, from the utilization of their differences and their interactions as equals. Society is a spontaneous order; it was not designed, and it cannot be designed. The future cannot be planned. Neither can children. The sooner we stop trying, the better.

To review, the reason for respecting students and giving them more freedom is not because it will turn them into the type of people we want them to be. Such a notion is horribly confused. It’s like suggesting that we get rid of standardized testing because then there could be more real learning and students would hypothetically do better on such standardized tests. No, the real reason to get rid of testing is because students are not things to be tested. Similarly, the real reason that students should be respected and free to learn is because that is how people should be treated in our society. 

This is a difficult concept to grasp, that respecting students is for them, not for us. But if this particular reform is to really be different, we must relentlessly check our own internal tendency towards social engineering and always keep the focus on the students. Educators, schools, cannot really give students an education. They cannot force children to learn. All they can do is offer an education and give students the freedom to get it. We need to focus on what we can do, not on what we want to do. And we need to focus on doing what is right. E=mc2, and school generally, should not just be a place where students are free to learn. It must also be a place where students are free to not learn.