Time to Cut Class

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8. Information is knowledge, and that to know about something is to know something. This belief is related to . . .
9. Knowledge and intelligence can and should be quantified, or at least evaluated, and thus . . .
10. Constantly evaluating yourself as well as others.
11. To say nothing of measuring performance by external standards . . .
12. Seeking external validation for performance and achievements . . .
13. Wanting to be recognized as smart . . .
14. Wanting to be recognized as right, and simply . . .
15. Wanting to be right.

I remember standing one time at the front of a Penn State classroom when I abruptly saw my entire teaching and writing career as one long attempt to be right, and to prove my rightness to whoever would listen.

Well, no one really cares if you’re right. You don’t get any bonus points from God or anyone else for holding correct opinions your whole life. You maybe can impress people sometimes, but so what? They’ll just walk away impressed.

What creates rich and fruitful relationships is not being right, but providing things to people that are useful to them—in other words, giving. Establishing rightness is really just a subtle form of taking. It took me a long time to figure this out, and I wasted many hours on Internet Listservs taking turns being right with everyone else, as if all the world’s problems would be solved “if only everyone would agree with me.” That mind-set is just another variation of that old school habit of thinking that if you write down the right answer, the problem is solved.

This list represents just a sampling of the habits of schooling I’ve uncovered in my life. No doubt you can think of many more; perhaps you can find in this very essay some that are still unconscious to me. But of course, comparing and critiquing others is yet another pesky habit of school that is rarely useful in the real world. Perhaps instead, we should cease schooling ourselves and one another.

Excerpted from Education Revolution (Winter 2007–08), a magazine published by the Alternative Education Resource Organization. Subscriptions: $18/yr. (4 issues) from 417 Roslyn Rd., Roslyn Heights, NY 11577; www.education revolution.org/aeromagazine.html.

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