Child Labour vs school vs.....?

[Rynalee]

So... On June 12th it's "World Day Against Child Labour" and the emphasis this year is on children in hazardous work. I coordinate a group of home ed families with a focus on social justice and I wanted to raise this issue with them. But I'd like to think through one particular issue before discussing it with the kids. Basically, the problem seems to involve 2 main issues: the kids are working instead of going to school, and they're doing dangerous work.

 

Now there's no disputing the fact that they should not be involved in hazardous work situations and something must be done.

 

Child labour in general, though, is, I think, sometimes over-simplified by we westerners, who do not understand the way their societies work at all. For many families, involving children in the work on their family farm is necessary for them to be able to have food on the table, and when westerners go in trail blazing and simply stop the child labour without regard to the underlying issues of poverty, more problems can be created than are solved. (Children being sent out to work on other farms, or in industry etc, is a different thing.) I guess I'm just saying that the problem is more complex than is sometimes presented, and the solutions are also often very complex.

 

My biggest question that I'm trying to nut out though is this:  Is the alternative solution traditional schooling for these kids, and if so, how does the philosophy of unschooling fit in with that? Is unschooling a universal possibility? Or is it only relevant to white, middle class families, so to speak?

 

Personally, I'd love to think it's a relevant option for all people everywhere, but I'm not so sure this is true. If the parents themselves cannot read or write and have no "education", how could they help their children learn without the intervention of some kind of school system?

 

But then I see things like the TED Talk about the computer in the hole in the wall in the Indian slum and I think there are options to traditional school that will still provide these children with a better future than either forced labour or compulsory schooling will provide.

 

I was reading on a website http://www.ilo.org/ipecinfo/product/viewProduct.do?productId=16624 that one of the key strategies for eradicating child labour is "providing access to free, COMPULSORY and quality education for all children until the minimum age for employment". Now to most people that would be the perfect solution, but the word COMPULSORY jumps out at me and I'm not so sure......

 

Compulsory schooling is so damaging in our society. I guess it'd be different in theirs. At least initially. But would it also have the negative effect of removing all children from their family environment & disconnecting them from that reality, transporting them into a westernised form of schooling which may well have major repercussions on the future of the whole society. If all the children are in compulsory schooling, they may well not have enough people to grow the food they need to eat etc.....

 

Sorry I've raved on so long lol!! Keen for other people's thoughts on this issue.

 

Thanks,

Karen

[Meredith]

Wow, how did I miss this? It's such an interesting topic.

 

My biggest question that I'm trying to nut out though is this: Is the alternative solution traditional schooling for these kids, and if so, how does the philosophy of unschooling fit in with that? Is unschooling a universal possibility? Or is it only relevant to white, middle class families, so to speak?

[Angelica English]

I too am captivated by your questions:

 

"Is the alternative solution traditional schooling for these kids, and if so, how does the philosophy of unschooling fit in with that? Is unschooling a universal possibility? Or is it only relevant to white, middle class families, so to speak?

 

Personally, I'd love to think it's a relevant option for all people everywhere, but I'm not so sure this is true. If the parents themselves cannot read or write and have no "education", how could they help their children learn without the intervention of some kind of school system?"

 

I have these questions often, but not always relating to some far off impoverished country, but in our own socially unjust country. As a marginalized member of society, in a marginalized family, unschooling does not come as simply as most accounts I have encountered made it seem. I am multiracial, in an interracial marriage, young, impoverished, formerly homeless, survivor of violence and crime, a student, etc. My husband has a non-violent criminal record despite being an incredibly intelligent, articulate, well-mannered, and from a middle class background because he was in the south and is a young black man with white friends. We unschool because we truly believe that child-led learning is the best philosophy for learning and life. We are not a typical unschooling family. Why is that? Are poor people too "uneducated" to facilitate in their children's learning? Is unschooling an option only white, middle class, traditional families can entertain?

We often wonder how long we will be able to continue our lifestyle because it is unfortunately unrealistic to keep up without outside help. To survive in society without the housing help that we have been receiving for the past few years, which we will have to do fairly soon, we both need to work full-time, which means our kids go to school/daycare, or we become homeless by choice, that is unless we get to the top of a section 8 waitlist somewhere or we find high paying jobs (which we don't yet qualify for without our degrees).

In a society like this, and like impoverished countries all over the world, it seems that unschooling is realistically only an option for middle class families who went about things the "right" way of finishing all their higher education and situating themselves before having children. Yes there are many opportunities in this country, but the obstacles are far greater for the marginalized people in society. I am studying Social Justice and Philosophy in college and work part time at a community youth collaborative, and my husband is studying Philosophy and has been feverishly looking for work that is not temporary side work for 2 years. I once believed that I had just as good a chance as anyone else in society to get what I want in life, which is very simple and non-materialistic, but the more experiences I encounter where I am very clearly at a disadvantage, the more I see the system (society's mentality) is built with them in place.

 

This seems like a pretty long rant now so I'll stop. This was just what popped into my mind when I read your post, as it applies to my life and studies.

[Meredith]

Wow, almost my whole original post disappeared! Computers are just amazing sometimes.

 

Unschooling requires resources - which resources, in particular vary a surprising amount from family to family and aren't always financial. There are middle class and even affluent families which aren't able to make unschooling work because they don't have the personal resources, or social resources - while other families with very minimal material resources unschool very successfully because the moms are blessed with extra creativity and spunk. To some extent, I suspect that's true anywhere, although there are some very significant factors which can prevent young women, in particular, from ever developing the personal resources needed to challenge the status quo, and those factors are more prevalent in cultures where oppression is part of the status quo. Families which are oppressed are more likely to extend that oppression to their girls and women.  

 

A family which depends on children for its economic well-being is one sort of situation which can get in the way of unschooling - even in wealthy, nations. It's a topic which comes up now and again in unschooling discussion groups - a variation on "how do I get my kids to do chores willingly" is "how do I get my kids to be happy with their position as a vital member of the family economics?" In either case, the trouble is a lack of options. Children can't grow into learning to make choices naturally without options. School, in those kinds of situations, can provide another set of options. In terms of the original question, that's worth considering, although mandatory schooling isn't "the solution" as it replaces one set of non-choices with another. Mandatory education may be a partial solution so long as laws are written to allow something like home or unschooling to exist as an "alternative" to formal education. 

[Meredith]

If the parents themselves cannot read or write and have no "education", how could they help their children learn without the intervention of some kind of school system?"

 

 It depends on the prevalence of other resources - but children learn languages their parents don't speak, even pick up skills like reading and mathematics "on the streets" when those skills are pertinent to their lives. They're much more likely to do so in a place where mandatory schooling isn't the norm, though. One of the drawbacks of mandatory schooling is that people come to equate learning basic skills with school and are less likely to learn them outside of schools or formal tutoring.  But resources are the key! So people in isolated areas - small towns and rural areas - won't have access to the "street" resources of people in busy metropolises. 

 

Is unschooling an option only white, middle class, traditional families can entertain?

 

I don't think anyone has ever done a demographic survey of radical unschoolers, but it's pretty diverse. My own experience is that the majority of unschoolers are more often "working class" than traditional middle class - although the definition of middle class has recently shifted to include the working class. The majority of unschoolers live on one income - sometimes two half-incomes to make that one. There are single moms unschooling. There are gay unschooling parents. There are unschooling families where the parent(s) is/are unemployed and are living with relatives, and/or receiving some form of welfare (although now that more states are going welfare-to-work that's not always an option) or at least food stamps. 

 

Cultural minorities Are at a greater disadvantage when it comes to unschooling because they often get a Lot more negative pressure from friends and family to put children in school - so they don't have the social resources they may need to continue unschooling. That's a complaint common to Black and Indian families (in the US) as well as immigrant families and religious minorities... and to some extent Deaf parents face the same kind of pressure, although the reasons are a bit different.