{"id":45937,"date":"2013-06-28T04:50:37","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T03:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/that-which-is-learned-vs-that-which-is-not\/45937\/"},"modified":"2013-06-28T04:50:37","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T03:50:37","slug":"that-which-is-learned-vs-that-which-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/that-which-is-learned-vs-that-which-is-not\/","title":{"rendered":"That Which Is Learned vs. That Which Is Not"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n <\/span>by
\n Chantal K. Saucier<\/a><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Recently
\n by Chantal K. Saucier: What\u2019s
\n Your ONE Thing?<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n \"\"<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n

Human beings
\n learn constantly and they do so from the time they are born until
\n the time they die. I have yet to meet anyone who did not believe
\n this to be true. Yet, the vast majority of people also seem to believe
\n that human beings between the ages of 5 and 18 will not learn what
\n they need to know in our society if we don\u2019t “teach” them.
\n What would children learn if they weren\u2019t required to absorb a pre-determined
\n curriculum is a question hardly anyone is asking.<\/span><\/p>\n

People forget,
\n it seems, that this school business is a very recent invention in
\n terms of humanity. Truth is, if our ancestors could not have learned
\n without schools what they needed to know in order to survive and
\n prosper, none of us would be here. By not trusting children to learn
\n what they need to know on their own, we are essentially breaking
\n the shopkeeper\u2019s window on purpose, over and over again, because
\n we do not trust that he will spend his money wisely if he doesn\u2019t
\n have to use it to fix the window. <\/span><\/p>\n

Many of you
\n are likely familiar with Frederic Bastiat\u2019s broken
\n window fallacy<\/a>. A young boy breaks a shopkeeper\u2019s window that
\n now needs to be repaired. At first, everyone is upset at the broken
\n window but after a while, some start believing that the misfortune
\n has its bright side because the broken window will provide work
\n for the window glazier, who will then have money to spend with other
\n merchants, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bastiat offered
\n another view. He said that this theory is confined to that which
\n is seen, without taking into account that which is not seen. Had
\n the window not been broken, we do not know what the shopkeeper would
\n have done with the money he gave the glazier. He might have bought
\n a pair of shoes and he would have then owned a pair of shoes and
\n a window. Now, he only has a window. Bastiat\u2019s conclusion was that
\n “society loses the value of things which are uselessly destroyed.”<\/span><\/p>\n

When we put
\n children in classrooms and we mandate what they learn, we do not
\n know what the child might have learned on his own had we not decided
\n for him. We also do not know what activities the child would have
\n engaged in, that might have lead to an extraordinary discovery,
\n if we had not decided for him what he was going to do. <\/span><\/p>\n

In schools,
\n we can see that which is learned, but we will never see that which
\n is not learned or discovered. Therefore, couldn\u2019t we also say that
\n because of schools, society loses the value of the knowledge that
\n is uselessly smothered?<\/span><\/p>\n

The unfair
\n advantage of human nature<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s now look
\n at another famous narrative by Bastiat. In his “Candle
\n Makers\u2019 Petition,”<\/a> which is a satire against protectionism,
\n Bastiat suggests to the French government that they pass a law mandating
\n that everyone cover all sources of natural light in their homes
\n and businesses in order to help the domestic candle making industry.
\n As a free source of light, Bastiat wrote, the sun has an unfair
\n competitive advantage over candle makers. By mandating that residents
\n block all sources of natural light, the government would encourage
\n industry and thereby increase employment. <\/span><\/p>\n

If human beings
\n possess a natural instinct to learn, and children can learn on their
\n own all they need to know to function in the culture in which they
\n are born, as Peter Gray defends in Free
\n to Learn<\/a><\/i>, couldn\u2019t we also argue that human nature has an
\n unfair competitive advantage over educators?<\/span><\/p>\n

And if, as
\n Gray contends, “there is no need for forced lessons, lectures,
\n assignments, tests, grades, segregation by age into classrooms,
\n or any of the other trappings of our standard, compulsory system
\n of schooling,” aren\u2019t schools merely in place to stimulate
\n an industry and create employment for a slew of educators, administrators
\n and bureaucrats? <\/span><\/p>\n

The obvious
\n difference here is that educators and bureaucrats have won their
\n petition against human nature decades ago and they have our children.
\n As a society, we have come to believe that this is the way it has
\n to be because it\u2019s the way it has been for generations. Our windows
\n have been closed shut for so long that most, it seems, have forgotten
\n what the sun looks like or that it\u2019s even there.<\/span><\/p>\n

All is not
\n lost, however, and your child need not be lost. As Peter Gray points
\n out, “The time for revolution is here. It will be a peaceful
\n one, conducted by people brave enough to walk away from our coercive
\n schools, smart enough to resist the propaganda saying that such
\n schooling is essential to success in our culture, and independent
\n enough to thumb their noses at the education-industrial complex
\n that pushes coercive schooling and makes it ever more burdensome.”
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

There is no
\n need to break the window just so we can fix it; there is nothing
\n wrong with our children. And we do not need to fight the candle
\n makers either. All we need to do is open the shutters, uncover our
\n windows, and simply trust that the sun is still there.<\/span><\/p>\n

June
\n 28, 2013<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Chantal
\n K. Saucier, Ph.D., [send
\n her mail<\/a>] <\/span><\/i><\/span> is a founder of Lafayette Sudbury
\n School scheduled to open this fall in the Lafayette, LA, area. For
\n more information, visit their page, LafayetteSudbury, on Facebook.
\n She is also a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty Acadiana. See
\n her blog @ LafayetteRealEstateNews.com<\/a><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright
\n \u00a9 2013 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in
\n part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.<\/span>
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

Republished with permission from:: Lew Rockwell<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chantal K. Saucier Recently by Chantal K. Saucier: What\u2019s Your ONE Thing? Human beings learn constantly and they do so from the time they are born until the time they die. I have yet to meet anyone who did not believe this to be true. Yet, the vast majority of people also seem to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}