Malala’s Nobel Prize and the Question of Children’s Rights

I love Malala, but the Nobel Committee’s phrasing undermines children’s rights.
Posted Nov 17, 2014
Peter Gray, Ph.D., is a research professor at Boston College and author of the newly
published book Free to Learn (Basic Books) and Psychology.
http://alternativestoschool.com/

A little over a month ago, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced their award of the
Nobel Peace Prize, for 2014, to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay. The announcement
(link is external) stated that the prize is “for the right of all children to education,” and then it
went on to say, “Children must go to school and not be financially exploited.” (The Italics here
are mine.) Since the date of that announcement, I’ve received several emails asking for my
thoughts about this award and the Nobel Committee’s wording. Here goes.

First, like millions of others throughout the world, I love Malala. She’s a model, to all of us, of
the intelligence and courage that can be found in young people. She first started speaking out
about the rights of girls to an education in 2009, when she was 11 or 12 years old, and described
her own struggle to attend school in Pakistan under Taliban occupation. She continued to speak
out, even after Taliban threats to kill her.

In October, 2012, after she boarded a school bus in the Pakistani district of Swat, a
gunman boarded the bus, asked for her by name, and shot her. One of the shots went through the
side of her face and left her unconscious, in critical condition. But her condition improved, and
she was then sent to a hospital in Birmingham, England, for rehabilitation. She is now a high-
school student in Birmingham and the youngest person ever to be awarded a Nobel Prize. The
co-recipient of the award, Kailash Satyarthi, is likewise well deserving. He is a tireless and
courageous, highly effective, long-time protestor against child labor and the exploitation of
children for financial gain.

My only objection concerning this award—and it is a big one—lies in the Nobel

Committee’s statement, “Children must go to school.” This statement—embedded in a
declaration supposedly honoring the rights of children—unintentionally reveals the
Committee’s, and the world’s, lack of respect for children's rights. Sadly, we see statements like
this regularly.

One of the most offensive examples is in the wording of the United Nations Declaration
of the Rights of a Child, where Principle 7 includes the words “every child is entitled to receive
an education, which shall be free and compulsory.” (Again, the Italics are mine.) In other words,
according to the United Nations, every child has the right to an education that he or she cannot
refuse! Such Orwellian doublespeak—the child’s right to be forced to spend day after day, for
years, in a place that may seem to the child like prison—exemplifies perfectly our world’s lack
of respect for children.

Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world that declared that every child has the right to
educational choice? Every child should have the right to refuse the education that the state
offers. Millions of children throughout the world are suffering in schools. Some—an increasing
number actually—are committing suicide because of what is being done to them in school. But
they have no choice. School is compulsory. In many countries, home schooling is illegal.
Likewise, in many countries it is illegal for families to enroll their children in schools that
operate on different educational principles—principles that truly respect children’s abilities and
dignity—from those of the state-run schools.
 Yes, every child should have the right to an education. But every child should also have
the right to the kind of education that he or she craves, in which he or she will truly learn, where
he or she is happy! The state should not have the right to dictate education. The state should not
have that kind of control over families and children. Why do we allow it? Why don’t we rise up
and stop it, for the sake of our children? Yes, it’s wonderful to protect children from child labor,
but if we then send them off to schools that are constructed as indoor forced workplaces and
detention centers, are we doing them, after all, a favor?

What do you think? This blog is a forum for discussion, and your stories, comments, and
questions are valued and treated with respect by me and other readers. As always, I prefer if you
post your thoughts and questions here rather than send them to me by private email. By putting
them here, you share with other readers, not just with me. I read all comments and try to respond
to all serious questions, if I feel I have something useful to say. Of course, if you have something
to say that truly applies only to you and me, then send me an email.

-----------

Addendum, Nov. 24: For another view on Malala's prize and on "schooling the world," see this
speech by Manish Jain, Coordinator of Shikshantar, The People’s Institute for Rethinking
Education and Development.

For more about young people’s need for freedom and capacity for sel-determined education, see
my book, Free to Learn.

For more about routes to self-determined education for children see AlternativesToSchool.com
The Human Rights Struggle in Europe: Educational Choice

European families are being fined, and worse, for pursuing educational freedom.

Posted Aug 20, 2013

Peter Gray, Ph.D., is a research professor at Boston College and author of the newly
published book Free to Learn (Basic Books) and Psychology.

Two and a half weeks ago I was honored to attend and speak at the 2013 conference of
EUDEC (European Democratic Education Community). I met many brave individuals and
families who are making personal sacrifices in their struggle to bring educational choice to
Europe.

We in the United States are comparatively lucky. We come from a tradition of

pioneers and adventurers, of people who rebelled against religious and state restrictions in the
countries from which they originated; and we retain at least some respect for people who choose
routes less traveled. In most of Europe, in contrast, there is a greater sense that the minority
must submit to the majority. If the majority feel that children should be educated in a certain
way, then that way must be right for everyone; so that way becomes enshrined in law, and people
who follow their own conscience and beliefs are outlaws.

In Belgium, for example, which many regard as educationally the freest of the continental
European countries, Muslim parents have been faced with a decree severely limiting their ability
to homeschool their children. In any given year they must declare their intention to homeschool
during the first three days of September and agree that their children will take the government
exams at specified times. If the intent is not filed on the specified days, or if the exams aren’t
passed, the students have to return to a state school. [Note added 8/21/2013--To clarify, these
restrictions on homeschooling apply to all homeschoolers in Belgium; they just made the news
because of their effects on Muslims homeschooling for religious reasons.]

Other countries are as bad or worse. For example, a few months ago a Christian family
from Germany applied to the United States for asylum, on the grounds of religious freedom,
because the German government had arrested and convicted them, fined them heavily, and
threatened to take their children away, because they were educating their children at home in
ways consistent with their beliefs rather than ways consistent with state mandates.

Families who hold to the philosophy of self-directed education—the philosophy that I

have long been writing about on this blog—face particular problems in Europe. The basic
premise of this philosophy is that children learn and develop best when they are in charge of
their own education; that is, when they are allowed to learn what they wish, when they wish, and
how they wish. According to this philosophy, the obligation of adults is to provide educational
opportunity for children, not educational coercion.

Some who follow this philosophy choose home-based self-directed learning, often
called unschooling, where parents play a major role in providing educational opportunities for
their children and connecting them with community resources that enable them to pursue their
chosen educational paths. Others have formed democratic schools, many of which are modeled
after the Sudbury Valley School. These are settings for self-directed education where children
can play and learn in an age-mixed environment, where there are many knowledgeable people
from whom to learn and the tools of learning are available to everyone.
 State-mandated exams subvert self-directed education, because they dictate the content
and timing of learning and undermine children’s sense that educational assessment is their own
responsibility and pertains to their own personal, unique goals and values.

At the EUDEC conference I met many people who have founded or are in the process of
founding democratic schools modeled after Sudbury Valley. I discovered that there are basically
three approaches one can take in trying to found or operate such a school in Europe:

1) You can do it quietly, subverting the law, and hope that government authorities don’t come
around and inspect what you are doing. This approach seems to work best in big cities, where
there are many schools and inspectors would just as soon ignore you in order to reduce their
workload. If you take this approach, however, you know that inspection might occur at any
time, which could lead to the school’s closing.

2) You can compromise with the law by giving the state tests at the mandated times and showing
that the students pass them, but then you are subverting, or at least partly subverting, the
philosophy of self-directed education.

3) You can challenge the law and ultimately try to change it or its interpretation, by openly
publicizing the school’s philosophy and methods, not compromising, and fighting the
government in court.

The third approach, fighting in court, is the approach that my friends Peter and
Christel Hartkamp and their brave colleagues in the Netherlands are currently taking. Six years
ago, along with several other families, the Hartkamps founded the De Kampanje school, in
Amersfoort. The school attracted quite a number of students and was succeeding beautifully
until the state inspections began. The inspectors saw that the children were happy and were
learning, but they also saw that they were not studying the state curriculum or being tested on it,
nor were they following any other imposed curriculum, so they declared that De Kampanje is
not, in the eyes of the state, a school.

Soon after that the arrests began, and many parents--facing heavy fines, threats of
imprisonment, and the ultimate threat of having their children removed from them--withdrew
their children and sent them to state-sanctioned schools. The Hartkamps and some of the other
families, however, persisted. They refused to be intimidated. They are taking every legal means
to fight the convictions. They have been fighting the government in two types of courts that exist
in the Netherlands—criminal and administrative.

In criminal court, these brave families, who have been convicted of violating the
compulsory education law, are now appealing those convictions to the next highest level in the
court system. The date set for that hearing is November 7 of this year. I wish them well.

In administrative court, which deals with cases involving the way the government
administers its laws and regulations, the Hartkamps and others have been contesting the school
inspectors’ decision that De Kampanje and another Sudbury model school in the Netherlands, De
Koers, are not legitimate schools. This fight continued for at least two years and has already
gone to the highest administrative court in the Netherlands. The government won. So now the
Hartkamps and their colleagues are appealing the case to the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR).

Nothing is going to happen quickly through the ECHR. It may take a year before the
court decides whether or not to hear the case, and then, if they decide to hear it, it may take
another four years before the hearing occurs. Meanwhile, the appeal has no bearing on the
ability of the Dutch government to arrest, fine, imprison, and in other ways harass the parents
who are firmly holding to their convictions.

I was asked by the Hartkamps and their colleagues to prepare a statement, for the ECHR,
concerning the philosophy of Sudbury education and the evidence that the philosophy works,
which I was glad to do. As part of my preparation, I read a 63-page statement, entitled “Motives
of Parents and Students for Their Choice for Sudbury Schools in the Netherlands,” which these
families had written as part of their petition.

In the Motives statement, the parents and children of eighteen different families (if I
counted correctly) describe, in their own words, why they chose the De Kampanje or De Koers
school. All of the stories moved me emotionally. The parents described how little their children
were learning and how much they were suffering in the standard school, and how all that was
turned around when they went to De Kampanje or De Koers. The children described how happy
they are at the democratic school and unhappy and repressed they were in the conventional
school. Some of the children had been regularly bullied and traumatized in the conventional
school. Some had suffered from severe physical symptoms of stress—headaches, abdominal
aches, vomiting every day before school. At least one 8-year-old declared she would rather be
dead than return to the conventional school. One boy, whose growth had been stunted, grew 30
centimeters in one year after entering the democratic school.

These parents are not fighting to shut off the option of conventional schools for those
who want them. They are fighting for their own and everyone’s right to choose. And, most of
all, they are fighting to preserve and promote the healthy physical, social, emotional, and
intellectual development of their own children. The state is treating them as if they are
neglectful and abusive parents for not sending their children to the state school, but, in fact, they
are fighting this battle precisely because they are among the most loving, caring, and
responsible parents that can be found anywhere.

This is a human rights struggle on a par with other human rights struggles throughout the
ages. We have seen the struggles for religious freedom and for equality before the law
regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation, which are still continuing in many places. Now,
in Europe, we are witnessing the struggle for freedom in education. Let’s keep a close eye on
this and support these brave families in whatever ways we can. Let’s see if European countries
can live up to their claims to be democracies that respect human rights.

Note added Sept 27, 2013: The families carring on these court fights have depleated their
personal bank accounts and need donations to continue this struggle.

Welcome to the World of Self-Directed Education

You have just entered into a remarkable world of ideas about education — ideas that
make enormous sense, are much supported by research, and are influencing the educational
thought and practice of an ever-growing number of families throughout the world. I am Peter
Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College. This website includes some of my
own research findings, as well as conclusions from many other sources, about how children best
learn and about alternatives to conventional schooling that have proven successful for many
thousands of young people. I, and the whole team that created this site, welcome you and hope
you will explore the site to discover more about home-based, self-directed learning, community
resource centers, and democratic schools.
THE MAIN IDEAS DEVELOPED ON THIS SITE ARE:

Children are beautifully designed, by nature, to direct their own education. For most of
human history, children educated themselves through observing, exploring, questioning, playing
and participating. These educative instincts still work beautifully for children who are provided
with conditions that allow them to flourish.

Coercive schooling is not good for children. Schooling that children are forced to endure—in
which the subject matter is imposed by others and the “learning” is motivated by extrinsic
rewards and punishments rather than by the children’s true interests—turns learning from a
joyful activity into a chore, to be avoided whenever possible. Coercive schooling, which
tragically is the norm in our society, suppresses curiosity and overrides children’s natural ways
of learning. It also promotes anxiety, depression and feelings of helplessness that all too often
reach pathological levels.

Real alternatives already exist and have been proven to work. These options include
democratic schools, in which children direct their own activities and participate in running the
school; self-directed homeschooling, where children pursue their own interests with the support
of parents and others in the community; and resource centers that offer community and support
for self-directed learners. These self-directed approaches have been used successfully by young
people representing the whole normal range of personalities and diverse socioeconomic
backgrounds. These approaches nurture traits such as initiative, creativity, playfulness, and love
of learning — traits that promote life satisfaction and are increasingly essential for economic
success in our rapidly changing world. As an added bonus, the financial cost of such approaches
has proven to be far less than that of coercive schooling.

THIS SITE IS FOR YOU IF YOU ARE:

a parent who is concerned about how schooling is affecting your child, or who seeks to preserve
your child’s wonder and excitement of learning;

a student who feels trapped by schooling;

a researcher or scholar who wants to know the evidence concerning the harm of coercive
schooling, the success of self-directed education, and the conditions in which self-directed
education works best;

a journalist or event organizer, interested in featuring an authority who can discuss better
approaches to education and children’s needs for freedom and play; or

a concerned citizen, looking for ways to improve education for all.

See also:
The Alliance for Self-Directed Education
Deschooling Our Lives. www.eric.ed.gov
Hern, Matt, Ed.
This book challenges common assumptions about the nature of education and the need for
formal schooling and provides an overview of promising alternatives to compulsory education.
Following a foreword by Ivan Illich, four sections cover the philosophical roots of opposition to
compulsory public education, current analyses of the public school environment and the ways it
discourages thought and intellectual development, perspectives on homeschooling, and descriptions of
alternative schools. Chapters are: (1) "Kids, Community, and Self-Design: An Introduction" (Matt Hern);
(2) "On Education" (Leo Tolstoy); (3) "The Intimate and the Ultimate" (Vinoba Bhave); (4) "Deschooling
Society" (Ivan Illich); (5) "Instead of Education" (John Holt); (6) "Sweet Land of Liberty" (Grace
Llewellyn); (7) "The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix a System Designed To Destroy Individual
Thought?" (John Taylor Gatto); (8) "Challenging the Popular Wisdom: What Can Families Do?"
(Geraldine Lyn-Piluso, Gus Lyn-Piluso, Duncan Clarke); (9) "Losing an Eye: Some Thoughts on Real
Safety" (Matt Hern); (10) "Learning? Yes, of Course. Education? No, Thanks" (Aaron Falbel); (11)
"Dinosaur Homeschool" (Donna Nichols-White); (12) "Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes
Sense" (David Guterson); (13) "Doing Something Very Different: Growing without Schooling" (Susannah
Sheffer); (14) "Thinking about Play, Practice, and the Deschooling of Music" (Mark Douglas); (15)
"Homeschooling As a Single Parent" (Heather Knox); (16) "Learning As a Lifestyle" (Heidi Priesnitz); (17)
"Deschooling and Parent Involvement in Education: AllPIE--A Learning Network" (Seth Rockmuller,
Katharine Houk); (18) "Summerhill School" (Zoe Readhead); (19) "A History of the Albany Free School
and Community" (Chris Mercogliano); (20) "A School for Today" (Sudbury Valley School, Massachusetts)
(Mimsy Sadofsky); (21) "A Wonder Story Told by a Young Tree" (Wondertree, British Columbia) (ilana
cameron); (22) "Windsor House" (British Columbia) (Meghan Hughes, Jim Carrico); and (23) "Liberating
Education" (the Small School, England) (Satish Kumar). A resource section lists 65 books, 6 readings on
deschooling in music, 14 periodicals, and 23 networks and associations. (SV)
Descriptors: Educational Philosophy, Educational Principles, Elementary Secondary Education,
Experiential Learning, Foreign Countries, Free Schools, Freedom, Home Schooling, Independent Study,
Nontraditional Education, Parent Student Relationship, Small Schools
New Society Publishers, 4527 Springfield Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19143 (hard cover: ISBN-0-86571-341-3,
$39.95; paper: ISBN-0-86571-342-1, $14.95; plus $3 handling and shipping for the first copy and $1 for
each additional copy).
http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/

https://sudburyvalley.org/