I Have a Dream, by Je’anna Clements
Here is one vision of what a truly decolonised universal state-funded community-owned no-fee education system capable of being rolled out (and in fact, first of all grown up from the bottom) in many different contexts, might look like.
This vision has grown in me over the course of my fifty three years of life, fed by my own childhood experiences, my participation in South African anti-apartheid empowerment and transformation structures, my extensive experiences with different personal-growth and conceptual technology practitioners, my work with children around their participation in environmental rights-based municipal and other local planning for Save The Children, my toy librarian training, my experiences as a mother in a WEIRD setting, my literary and conversational investigations of a wide variety of educational approaches, and my seventeen years of both theoretically and immersively exploring Self-Directed Education [SDE] in multiple contexts, including my interaction online during and after the Pandemic, including with various platforms such as WINDS, Diverse Interests and other Discord servers.
Starting Privately
We already have multiple micro-projects all over the world ranging from flying squads and pods to Sudbury schools etc.
We also have multiple online businesses such as Clonlara and Galileo which demonstrate that there is a ‘market’,
BUT
- which so far are not ‘deep’ SDE;
- and which many families who might like to benefit can’t afford.
We also have multiple families that ‘cannot afford’ to unschool, and many under-resourced unschooling families squeaking by on tiny incomes, and many founders’ groups without funding to action their startups, and existing schools ‘endangered’ by severe financial challenges (such as RsV).
I would like to network ALL these in one well-structured online international home which is supremely searchable and cross-referenceable such that it is easy for all ages to find others with the same interests regardless of geography, as well as others with proximate geography regardless of interest profile, as well as to easily search events and durations of various virtual and RL resources (with a community review system of various resources to help guide searchers.)
There should also be easy virtual spaces for direct interaction such as in a Discord server, VR chat world etc, so that in the same place one finds out about a group or event, one can seamlessly and spontaneously join it. This would enable true community building as well as virtual learning interactions that are deep SDE rather than the ‘lesson-ey’ ‘offering-ey’ stuff that is the current staple available for ‘alternative’ ‘online learning’.
There should also be space for groups to share their experiences in perpetuity (such as recordings of discussions or projects etc) for those who search later on the same topics. There should also be structures for simple curation and space for safe storage of ‘activity portfolios’ for those families who may need to legally defend themselves. Also resources to guide families and facilities in best-practice, mentorship structures, support structures. Also formal ‘registration’ and ‘certification’(based on self-assessments such as the RsV diploma) such that where necessary families can legally defend that they are signed up to an international school rather than illegally homeschooling.
If this was joinable on a sliding scale subscription basis, income would flow into the system. If each subscriber had ‘points’ to allocate to other people and services each month, then, after basic costs for hosting and administration are covered, the rest could be allocated back into the system of participants based on the value that community members feel they have received.
This could support people who otherwise could not offer local unschooling childcare, transport, in-person/real life(RL) SDE spaces, mentoring and support or other resources RL and online, which would in turn make more such people and resources ‘available’ within the network.
There could be a realistic location-relative ‘cap’ on how much money can go to any one recipient so that all who add value can benefit but none disproportionately profit. ‘Excess’ income could be allocated for young people to vote on how to use – for example to buy group access to certain platforms or online tools, for physical travel opportunities and RL gatherings, etc.
I believe that there are enough of us to get this off the ground already as a vibrant SDE community.
Privately funded.
Over time this could network and co-support other initiatives such as the Granny Cloud, DEFY Nook project, etc…
However, my dream goes further than this.
If, and, maybe even where and when possible…these beginnings could also help to seed…
Local physical public education networks
Who, What…
Community volunteers who enjoy working with children could be screened and then trained at state expense. Some of the core training threads could be playworker training, toy librarian training, book club facilitation, conflict resolution and basic communication training, dialogic facilitation for critical thinking, basic literacy acquisition facilitation, basic numeracy acquisition facilitation, basic digital literacy acquisition facilitation, community networking, participation/democratic facilitation and a simple level of social work training to support identification and referral of children at risk.
Some of the additional specialised training threads they could choose from according to their aptitude, interest and community membership could be traditional skills of their community especially sustainable micro-agriculture suited to local crops and conditions, vocational skills generally considered useful in their community, music, art, drama, story telling, crafts, coding, film making, business and entrepreneurial skills, early child development training, addiction rehabilitation training, sex education training, lactation consultancy, primary healthcare, diversity awareness and social justice facilitation, accommodation of neurodivergence and disability, etc.
One of the keys would be that all trainees would not only be trained to perform their roles, but also to be ready to welcome young people into exploration and mentoring of those skills and roles as well. Interested teens could transition smoothly into becoming trainees working in such an educational system themselves, first as volunteers and later as employees.
Where
Instead of pulling children out of homes and out of community immersion into ‘warehouse’ type schools they are not free to leave, safe home bases could be established at local intervals that could make it easy for almost every child to walk to several different options, according to their affinity, preference, needs, fit, and evolving friendships. These bases could be equipped as simple micro child-care spaces for babies and younger children to be safely cared for in a contained way while parents are busy, while simultaneously being places that older children and teens could freerange to and from at will. Parents who are able to stay home with babies and toddlers full or part time could congregate or drop in at these spaces for social connection, guidance and support.
Houses with gardens would be ideal for these bases where possible (although this model can easily still work by assigning one or more flats in an apartment block, or in an otherwise totally outdoor/rural setting just with some kind of toilet facilities), and small parks within walking distance should be prioritised as much as possible by urban planners. Outdoor spaces should be for real use by children – who should be able to dig, plant, pick flowers and climb trees – rather than being protected as decorative. Ideally they should include many different edible herbs and berry bushes and fruit trees which young people should also be supported in planting and cultivating according to interest.
Trained facilitators could be paid to anchor these home bases and small park spaces full time. Other trainees could be paid or simply have expenses refunded to travel the circuit of home bases to offer their specialities. Other trainees could be paid part or full time to explore and network within the community, identifying useful resources and community connections as well as bringing in new volunteers for training. Some trainees could be subsidised to run their own microbusinesses within the community on an open-house basis for young people who want to explore different options or undertake work-shadowing or apprenticing experiences. Some trainees could specialise in escorting young people who want to free range but need to navigate unsafe environments, who have social anxiety or physical challenges, or who simply have a high desire for companionship.
Instead of a big school building, each neighbourhood cluster could have a large local hub with attached basic clinic, a library with digital and other specialized equipment not feasible to provide at the home bases, and significant outdoor space with natural elements, junk yard playground, food garden and maker spaces, as well as a few key specialists such as heritage knowledge specialists, specific second-language teachers, remedial therapists, counselors etc.
This hub could act as a gathering place for community meetings where facilitators could anchor participatory structures for all ages to engage with shaping their environments, resolving larger-scale conflicts, and coming up with solutions for local needs and challenges, as well as facilitating true communal ownership and governance of the local educational network. This hub could also act as a venue for events such as parties and small conferences and festivals in order to fundraise to complement what state budget has been able to provide – with young people able to learn hospitality, event management and other skills through these events.
Such hubs would allow for adult basic and further education to easily take place too, with no need for a distinct system for adults and young people. Anyone could learn anything, anytime, in the way that works best for them.
Mobile toy and book libraries and clinic buses could travel from this neighbourhood hub out to the home bases, and also transport children safely from the home bases to hop-on-hop-off specialised locations as well as back to the main local hub, as well as transporting specialists out to the home bases for circuit tours as needed.
Every larger region or province could have an even more resourced larger hub that could include staffed dormitory facilities for teens who want to spend some time on projects that require such access. Highly niche facilitators could be primarily located at these centres, while taking occasional tours to the local hubs to ‘strew’ what they do. For example an astronomer who has a large telescope at the main provincial hub could take a smaller telescope on circuit once a year to all of the hubs in that province for a community star-gazing event. A teen who discovers an interest in astronomy in this way can then travel to the provincial hub and sleep there for as many nights as they wish in order to interact further with the astronomer.
A transport network could link regional hubs allowing a nation-wide flow as needed. International exchange opportunities could also be facilitated both for young people and for adult skills specialists.
Existing colleges, vocational training spaces and universities could adapt and link themselves into such a network quite easily. Employers could also find ways to interface in mutually beneficial ways.
How
The key is that young people would be able to stay just at their chosen home base, should they prefer to do so, or travel into the network to use additional resources as much or as little as they chose. They would be 100% in charge of their own time and effort, with full support in terms of resources and facilitation according to their desires, while learning to appreciate and actively help to sustain their community well-being on which they would be aware that they depend.
Being free to ‘vote with their feet’ as well as having direct voice within participatory structures, the young people within such an education system would themselves quickly indicate which trainees should be paid full time, which part-time, which not at all, and which should be taken out of contact with young people completely, as well as highlighting and helping to direct where more or less budget should be funneled.
It is hard to imagine a young person in such an education system failing to find well-being, develop a sense of their ‘telos’ and experience ‘eudaimonia’.
Such an education system ultimately offers much more than supporting individual young people in ‘finding themselves’. It could become a vitalising force to enrich and create coherence and sustainable development on a vast scale, anchored in the fact that ‘small is beautiful.’
When
We can start now. There are already children who would rather self-educate with support, stepping out of the post-colonial systems. There are already houses on the brink of readiness to welcome other families. There are already alternative schools that could open their spaces and resources after hours for different uses. There are already training materials ready for adults to use to deschool and train themselves. There are already adults willing to learn, to co-create, and to network. There are already libraries and community centres that can be adapted. There are already advocates and lobbyists ready to collate information about these beginnings and petition for state funding to expand them.
We can already gather together virtually and physically to dream and collaborate and figure out the first step, and then the next.
A very first step might be to share this article, and host a group to discuss it.
About the Author
Je’anna Clements is a mother, writer, and passionate advocate for children’s rights. She co-founded and facilitated at Riverstone Village, a Self-Directed Education (SDE) community in South Africa. With an Honours degree in Psychology, Je’anna went on to pursue self-education in SDE, becoming a specialist in the field. She offers international training and support for SDE facilitators and unschooling parents, focusing on empowering young people, including those with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA).
Je’anna is also the co-founder of the Rights-Centric Education Network, which is a conscious collaboration of people and organisations aiming to pull education into alignment with human rights. If you have not already done so, please sign the Declaration of Child Rights-Centric Education.