Overview
If there was ever a perfect union it is between Touch the Future and the annual Rethinking Everything (RE) Conference, held every September in Dallas, Texas, USA. As of January 2008, Touch the Future is serving as the nonprofit sponsor for this unique and powerful event.
2010 marks RE's 14th year of producing an international conference for families and others who unschool their children and teens, those wishing to do so, and those simply in search of fresh ideas on education and parenting.
At the heart of Rethinking Everything is the awareness that children are supremely capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structure in education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are counterproductive. With freedom, respect and nurturing support, children have a powerful drive to self-direct their own learning; the result being children who direct their own education... indeed, their own futures.
Education viewed this way becomes a mutual endeavor, a life-long process of questioning and discovery ... a true exploration of self, society and the larger world.
Unschooling is a term used to describe a broad-based approach to education that focuses on student-centered learning, i.e., recognizing each learner as a highly unique, diverse being with continually developing interests, readiness and abilities.
The RE conference aims to educate, nurture and support each family member in the skills of communication, self-assessment and resourcing to meet each individual's needs. For ongoing conference details and registration information, please visit their website: www.rethinkingeverything.net
Background
Founded 17 years ago as the Rethinking Education conference and officially morphing in 2009 to Rethinking Everything, we're setting bright new standards for progressive families. From birth to death, we're living life with maximum freedomon our own terms.
RE is founded and produced by Barb Lundgren, an entrepreneurial unschooling parent with decades of experience questioning everything. At the heart of Rethinking Everything is the awareness that the most important way we can effect positive, enlightened change in the world is by entirely rethinking the nature of childhood and the environments we create to support the THRIVING of children and their families. RE supports the belief that children are supremely and fundamentally capable of absorbing and using knowledge from our complex world. There is no need for arbitrary structure in parenting or education; the use of coercion, rewards or other behavior modification techniques as motivation are always counterproductive. With freedom, respect and nurturing support, children have a powerful drive to self-direct their own learning; the result being children who direct their own education... indeed, their own futures.
Education, and indeed all of life, viewed in this way, becomes a mutual endeavor, a life-long process of questioning and discovery - a true exploration of self, society and the larger world. Proponents are widespread and include John Taylor Gatto, A.S. Neill, Brent Cameron, John Holt, Scott Noelle, Alice Miller, Ivan Illich, Dayna Martin, Jan Fortune-Wood, Jan Hunt, Pam Leo, Bruno Bettleheim, Daniel Greenberg, Jonathan Kozol, Michael Mendizza, Joseph Chilton Pearce and many others.
I can sum in five to seven words
what I eventually learned as a teacher.
The seven-word version is:
Learning is not the product of teaching.
The five-word version is:
Teaching does not make learning.
Organized education operates on the assumption that children learn only
when and only what and only
because we teach them.
This is not true.
It is very close to
one hundred percent false.
John Holt
At the Rethinking Education conference, each person will be extended maximum freedom to have fun, choose their own awake-and-sleep hours, choose activities and new friends, mealtimes and meals. Be free, be wild if that's your thing, be true to whoever you are or whoever you want to be. PLEASE... be sure your actions are YOURS, and will not intrude upon someone else's space or freedom to do or be what THEY want for themselves.
Example: YOU want to stay up all night, having fun with your new friends. (By popular request, we will be planning and hosting activities that go into the wee hours this year.) You are FREE to do this! You are NOT FREE to make noise or otherwise keep others awake who prefer to be sleeping. Remember at all times that your choice of action should always be that which affects you alone, and not anyone else. If someone else chooses to participate in your activity, they will let you know.
FREEDOM, as it applies to individual rights and freedoms, will be dissected and addressed at length during our weekend event. For a liberating and radical insight into freedom, read A.S. Neill' "Summerhill" and other works by this author.
