“I no longer believe that there is teaching,” says pattern finder and technology advisor Jerry Michalski. “There is no teaching; there is just learning.”
In a whirlwind (and “blunt”) talk at the Rebuild21 conference, Jerry covers a range of alternative educational theory and practice — from John Taylor Gatto, to unschooling and deschooling — as well as innovation in the dominant institutions that comprise the “compulsory school system.”
This caught my attention: “What we really want is for kids to have again a sense of agency.” He variously describes agency as: permission; the ability to do something, to act on something; a sense that it’s ok to go out and change your world, to try to make a difference; a responsibility for the task at hand.
Good stuff. I’ve similarly written about the local food movement as a story of embracing a sense of agency over our food choices.
Jerry’s post on the talk, with additional links, is here.
