September 16, 2008
homeschooling is so punk rock
So I was doing some web searches tonight, trying to figure out how to have another discussion with my students about the educator Paulo Freire (from Brazil, wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed), and I found this website through a image search or something, I can't even remember now. But it's talking about edupunk (parsible if you're familiar with cyberpunk, steampunk, biopunk, etc.), which is a term coined back in May to talk about a "new" movement in education.
The three main ideas involved here are (according to wikipedia, where the article on edupunk showed up less than a week after the original coining):
- Reaction against commercialization of learning
- Do-it-yourself attitude
- Thinking and learning for yourself
They are also given, from a different source, as:
- non-conformity
- do-it-yourself attitude
- critique of power relationships
The "punk" thing has been explained by Alec Couros as "enabling the non-experts the ability to participate and learn in the process"--since punk rock was about people who weren't really "musicians" learning to play stuff and forming bands.
For me all of this adds up to one idea: homeschooling is so punk rock. I mean, what is homeschooling about? Non-conformity? check. Thinking and learning for yourself? tell me about it. Do-it-yourself attitude? learning everywhere! Critique of power relationships? Look at your local homeschool community, how do they feel about the government? And of course what this really means is, I am so edupunk! Rock on. This is so much more motivation to really do something with my students in this 101 class I'm teaching! And reading Paulo Freire is such a great jumping off point to start talking about all this! I just need to figure out what it all means. Or maybe I can do that along the way.