Scholé news, March 2022 | Education initiatives

Following on from the February news, I would like to report once more on free education initiatives.

I regard them as the most important contribution to world peace. Why? Because children who have not been trained from an early age for competition and rivalry will no longer fall for the principle that has applied for thousands of years: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” By nature, all children strive for harmony. If you leave them in peace, they learn to live in peace. They can then recognise the creed of the performance fetishists and warmongers for what it is: an absurdity with cruel consequences for people and nature. Three cheers for the pioneers who see through the system in which they themselves grew up as a perfidious power game and have decided to spare their children such indoctrination! Many courageous dropouts are currently gathering in small and larger groups, from Burgenland to Vorarlberg. Depending on local conditions and the composition of the group, their approaches differ quite a lot. What unites them is their commitment to personal responsibility and the general spirit of a new beginning, from which they draw strength when it comes to overcoming official and organisational hurdles together. Anyone who would like to contact them will find a few links with a short description at the end of this post. In mid-March I took part online in a networking event of the WIRKGEMEINSCHAFT REIFEGRAD-REFLEKTION. It emerged from the INITIATIVE BILDUNG UND LEBEN, with which it remains connected. It is also part of the newly founded association PANDORA-UNION, which wants to bring the various initiatives together under the project Conscious Self-Education and represent them externally: only associations can join. Individual families have the option of taking part via the INSTITUT BEWEGUNG2020. All of them receive regular information and legal advice from PANDORA-UNION, but each association remains responsible for its own form of organisation and its programme. From the text modules that PANDORA lawyers make available to members, anyone can, if necessary, write their own tailor-made notification to the authorities. Present that evening in mid-March were the representatives of several working groups that have formed around topics such as law, organisation, work with parents or networking. The main topic of our meeting was the state-prescribed external exams, which are based on the objectives of the school curricula. Logically, they are unsuitable for evaluating other forms of living and learning. All those present agreed on that. The question of possible alternatives was discussed. The suggestions ranged from a maturity model long and successfully tested in business, to presenting portfolios and workbooks, to freely designing a graduation celebration. A more detailed description of these alternative options can be found on the website of Bewegung 2020. As from a rich buffet, every group or home-schooling family should be able to put together the menu that suits them.

Alternative options (German)

Even if they are not yet legalised, I consider such approaches to be more than justifiable from a legal point of view: the required equivalence between school lessons and home schooling is, pragmatically speaking, given in any case as long as a free-learning child does not do WORSE than the WORST of all pupils of the same age who have received a valid school report would do (under the same exam conditions!). That cannot be so difficult, because according to the national education report – an official publication of the Ministry of Education! – even before corona 42% (!) of pupils at the end of compulsory schooling had such serious deficits that they could not even meet the minimum requirements for an apprenticeship or further education! A survey by the Chamber of Commerce turned out even more disastrous: according to it, 66%, a full two thirds, failed to meet these minimum requirements… It will come as a surprise to the education authorities when home-schooling parents no longer stand before them individually like supplicants, but, with the support of PANDORA-UNION, confidently present the examination boards with their own solutions for their children’s end-of-year assessments. I can well imagine that the officials will in truth be relieved, although they will probably not be allowed to show it openly. This year more children have been registered for home schooling than ever before. How is the authority supposed to conjure up the staff for the many external exams out of a hat? The teachers’ union has already declined, since the many problems within the school system have, as is well known, become extremely acute because of the corona crisis. The latest regulation of the education directorates (this can change again at any time) now lists a small number of district schools to which candidates are assigned according to where they live. External candidates have to appear there on a specific date and are examined according to a precisely prescribed, strict grid – the exact opposite of what parents of sensitive free-learning children would wish for…

The time for the next big step towards free and self-determined education could therefore hardly be more favourable. Such a step is long overdue anyway, I would say, because more than a quarter of a century has passed since the last substantial innovation – the approval of their own statutes and curricula for free schools!

Those who don’t want to will find reasons. Those who want to will find ways.

Work with parents is decisive in these challenging times:

• We need conscious parents who are prepared to leave the conventional educational paths for the good of their children and courageously break new ground.
• Parents who have worked through their own traumas so as not to pass them on to the next generation.
• Parents who give children the chance to be guided by their own interests, because they know that everything a person needs for a fulfilled life is already within them.
• Parents who have understood how counterproductive it is to pull on a blade of grass to make it grow faster.

Living and learning in groups needs a new WE.

The old we, the we of the competitive society, means that people largely shed their humanity and personal responsibility at work. They take on a certain role and have to fit into the hierarchical order of an institution in order to meet a certain target. They are paid for that. Employees who burned out long ago are sometimes carried along for years and decades. The new WE, the WE of the human family, invites self-discovery, self-knowledge, self-love and personal responsibility. It is based on love and friendship, cultivates communication on an equal footing and can only unfold in freedom outside institutions. There is no fixed target for the new WE either, because joint projects develop in step with the people involved in them. Their dreams, talents and needs show the direction, and so things remain in flow. Farewells and new beginnings are part of it too.

The WIRKGEMEINSCHAFT REIFEGRAD-REFLEKTION, BEWEGUNG2020, MITANANDA LERNEN, WINGS and others (see the website of Bewegung 2020), with the help of committed coaches, support individual parents or whole groups in growing into the new WE, because a community is only ever as strong as its weakest link! Regular meetings strengthen cohesion. Through exchanging information, people keep discovering new possibilities and connections. In this way, the spirit of a new beginning that started in the INITIATIVE BILDUNG UND LEBEN has grown in recent months into an enthusiastic cooperation across association boundaries. Please let yourselves be infected by this enthusiasm and spread the information summarised here, because there are more parents and children than ever who urgently need encouragement right now!

More information (German)

Revised: “Lernen ist wie Atmen” (Learning is like breathing) as an eBook

Together with two free-learning mothers, Gudrun Totschnig and Sigrid Haubenberger, we self-published it and in 2020 also made it available as an eBook.

We feel that, especially in this time of distance learning, experience from free learning can help people find their bearings.

Let the reading sample inspire you, or buy the eBook as a PDF on the GAIA marketplace. GAIA members get a 10% discount when ordering.

Download eBook (German)

Scholé (German)