Tipping Sacred Cows

by Laureen

As you know, if you read my first post here, birth is a big thing for me. I'm actively involved in several birth advocacy groups, and I talk pretty much incessantly about how birth is messed up in this culture, and how women need to be empowered to make better choices outside a system that's inherently flawed.

The other day, on an email discussion list, a person who is a luminary in the birth community, someone who is known internationally for her wisdom and clarity, made a statement that I found to be completely at odds with both my experience, and with the ideal. I thought about it, I stewed on it, and then, politely and with much respect, I called her on it.

She responded gleefully, and a good conversation ensued. But she also commented that she was trying to provoke discussion, and was surprised by the lack of commentary. And then the floodgates opened, with women saying "oh, I'm glad someone else spoke up, because I disagreed too...."

So why am I writing about this on this blog? This blog is about school, or not-school, right? Well, yes and no. This blog is about life and how we live it. That elist has nothing to do with school, it's only about birth, and it's full of women who self-identify as seekers after truth, women for whom their intersection with mainstream birthing was unsatisfactory, and they're asking questions. And yet this group of women, when confronted with a strong but inaccurate statement by an acknowledged authority, were unwilling to indulge in a little tipping of the sacred cow.

I could cry, and maybe sometime later, I will. But for me, that was absolutely tied into the culture of our educational system.

One of the most chilling concepts in the writings of John Taylor Gatto is the idea that compulsory public education is designed not necessarily to educate, but to train compliance. We don't question authority, or we are penalized. We don't even get to go to the bathroom without consulting someone who has the power to tell us whether or not we are allowed to eliminate when we choose. Twelve long years (at a minimum) of moving to a designated place when the bell rings, sitting in rows, regurgitating information that may or may not be germane or in any way relevant to the requirements and demands of life outside the classroom. It's a wonder to me that any questioning, revolutionary spirit could endure such training.

If you read much in the news these days about Web 2.0, you'll see that one of the themes of this progression into online communities and away from point-source learning is that it creates a more vox populi idea of information. It eliminates sacred cows. And if you're at all familiar with the concepts of classical logic and the identification of logical fallacy, you're having a field day with the products of mainstream media, who are not informing the US people with anything resembling intellectual rigor. We're expected, in every way, to do what we're told, to not argue too much, and to accept the party line without discourse.

One of the reasons this country was even created, is because a group of extremely determined people had not only a questioning spirit, and a solid belief in the validity of their own thinking, but a certain glee in the tipping of sacred cows. The Founders of our nation were never in public school, and I'm quite sure, never had to raise their hands to ask to go to the bathroom. I like to think that by sparing my children a course in compliance, I am helping to raise the sorts of people who will grow up to carry that revolutionary torch. I like to think that the constant questioning we receive as their parents will translate into a constant questioning of those who would call themselves "leaders", and that if those "leaders" fail my children, that they'll get the same sort of pushback that we their parents get when we make a boneheaded call on something.

But in the meantime, while they're little, let's see what kinds of tipping leading I can do by example.

Laureen is a writer, a professional editor, a scuba instructor, a beginning sailor, a traveler, and an obsessive researcher who's chiefly focused on, and delighted with, her husband Jason, her sons Rowan and Kestrel, and her daughter Aurora. She's a lifelong Californian, which lends a very distinctive spin to both her ideas and her politics, and she's discovered, in her peregrinations, that the world is far smaller yet far more fascinating than anyone gives it credit for being. She holds forth her opinions on that in her blog, The ElementalMom.

Comments

[Penny]

Nice post. I've always said that homeschooling is about more than math and language arts.

[Crimson Wife]

It always annoys me when I hear people claim that democracy in the U.S. depends on government-run schools. What's so democratic about the typical government-run school? Not much in my view...

[Jessica]

Great post. I agree with you completely on this. With birth too. It is one thing I have a hard time with. Very few people agree with me on my views of homeschooling and even fewer agree with my views on the "birth system" in this country. Many people are too afraid to tip as you call it the sacred cow of the "experts" of education and too many are afraid of the almighty OB cow. It is why our C-section rate is so high, along with fetal and maternal death rates. It is also a giant lack of education- in both worlds of public education and birth.

[Shanon]

As I always tell people, nursing is a lot like teaching. You need the job, you (at some point) thought you were helping those in need and you are forced into ridiculous protocols that mean you are never allowed to see your patients/children as the unique individuals they are, so the whole system is screwed by what YOU don't know about them and their situation and how YOU treat them like everyone else.
That said, I also tell everyone that's why I refuse to public school from K-3rd grade. THose years are the ones they use to break the children into the "raise your hand, sit and don't speak" mindset and frankly, if you need any better indicator...we manage to convince whole generations to ignore their need for food, water and basic hygiene on the basis of protecting "crowd control" efforts without ever considering the far reaching effects on obesity, basic exercise, urinary and kidney tract or women's disorders. It's ridiculous.
::off the soapbox, back on the couch::

[Sara]

You said: "I could cry, and maybe sometime later, I will. But for me, that was absolutely tied into the culture of our educational system."

I don't think it is tied to our educational system - i think you can take a step back and just tie it into our culture, period. It is enforced and engrained by our educational system, sure. Truly, though, the "sit down, shut up and do as your told" really begins at home in our culture. The majority of us here don't follow that parenting model; however, a good portion of parents in the US DO follow that model. Otherwise, the Super Nanny wouldn't be such a popular show.

I immediately thought of two authors as I read this post: Alfie Kohn and Derrick Jensen. If you haven't read anything by them, I would suggest Alfie Kohn "Unconditional Parenting" and "A Language Older than Words" by Derrick Jensen. Really puts things into a new perspective....

[Laureen]

Hey Sara!

I think we're in a chicken-and-egg discussion. Where do parents *learn* that sit down and shut up was a good idea? School. So then they bring it to the home, where it informs their parenting, then the kids are sent to school... and around and around.

I haven't blogged about it, because there's just no way to say it well, but part of our decision to homeschool was a form of breaking the cycle. Hm. Maybe I will blog about that after all. Stay tuned...

P.S. I have read Alfie, haven't read Jensen, but my mother has been pushing me to do so for some time.

[Robin]

The "mother" of all of this is Alice Miller. JMHO.
http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php