High school abandons ‘zero tolerance’ policy, sees 85% reduction in suspensions

“It sounds simple,” the principal said about the new approach. “Just by asking kids what’s going on with them, they just started talking. It made a believer out of me right away.”

Who would have thought that talking with people more effectively solves problems than castigating them, that teenagers are people too, that intolerance is not the answer?

Read the article at ACES Too High –>

A Brief Introduction to Unschooling

 What is unschooling?

Unschooling is a philosophy and method of education that encourages and facilitates a child’s natural curiosity, recognizes and adapts to individual interests and learning methods, and abandons the institutional method’s emphasis on standard curricula and grading.

The adult’s role in unschooling is that of facilitator. The adult must closely observe the child, providing materials and experiences that take advantage of the child’s unique learning style. Those unfamiliar with the method may view it as a “hands-off” approach to education, whereas those who practice unschooling know that far more work and involvement go into it than in the standard institutional model.

Why is this important to Utah Liberty Alliance?

When we discussed and decided upon our project’s focus areas, education was the first thing suggested. Our mission is to bring about a free society through education. One insidious aspect of the State is that it manages to convince its victims that they are not victims at all, and it does this in part through its public education system. As political journalist Justin Hayes recently explained in his article “How I Learned to Love the State,” public education may fail our children, but it definitely does not fail the State. It is strikingly effective at producing a subdued citizenry, a lackluster army of mediocrity, perfectly tailored to inconsequential careers in industrial and information age jobs in highly regulated industries that provide the State its steady, predictable stream of tax revenues while discouraging anything radical or free-thinking.

Scientists have found that it takes just 10% of a population to espouse a belief or viewpoint in order for those ideas to be adopted by the majority of that population. Is it any surprise that over 90% of American children are enrolled in public education?

Also, ULA calls for abolishing the state income tax. In a state where the majority of the income tax goes toward keeping its wasteful and corrupt education system afloat, privatizing education would go a long way toward making the abolition of the income tax a reality.

What do we plan to do about it?

In keeping with our use of agorism as half of our two-pronged strategy, we plan to promote unschooling as a superior alternative to public school. We hope that ULA will be a forum and resource for helping parents and mentors be successful with this method. As was mentioned recently in our forum, we have registered u4pe.org (Utahns for Privatized Education) as the future home of our efforts. I encourage anyone concerned about their children’s education to participate in this effort.

“It seems to me that we have two choices. We can continue stumbling along with our coercive system of schooling and continue to fight our children’s instincts, using drugs or whatever other means we must to dampen their cries for freedom.  Or, we can adopt what to most people today seems like a radical, even crazy approach to education, but which to hunter-gatherers seemed like common sense.  This radical approach is to let our children educate themselves, while we provide the conditions that make that possible.” — Peter Gray

Quote of the Day: John Holt on Institutional Education

No one is more truly helpless, more completely a victim, than he who can neither choose nor change nor escape his protectors.

– John Holt, Escape from Childhood (1974)

Our Current Areas of Focus

Our team of (currently) five has been discussing our strategy and focus areas. For our strategy, we have decided to adopt a two-sided approach. Read more >>

H.B. 269 Makes Me Laugh

The house is considering a bill that “establishes reporting requirements for school districts regarding civic and character education taught in schools.” Among the values that “students shall be taught in connection with regular school work” is “the essentials and benefits of the free enterprise system.”

Let me get this straight: the state wants to use its coercive, socialist monopoly on the education industry to force schools to teach children about the benefits of the free enterprise system. Did we all get that?