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Pedagogy or What Hank Has Taught Me · Mechonomist Podcast

• 0:02
  good morning and happy new year as everybody pretty much knows
• 0:08
  this year I had a
• 0:10
  son his name is Hank Heiden he was born three months premature
• 0:15
  and this video blog
• 0:17
  is about what he's taught me over the past 10 months and one of
• 0:22
  the things that is
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: just amazing is that he just learns I don't have to do anything
• 0:31
  And it's been a huge revelation to me is that human beings
• 0:34
  learn naturally.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's totally,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: totally antagonistic,
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: antagonistic idea to our current pedagogies,
• 0:46
  which argue that children and adults must be forced to learn by
• 0:54
  an authority figure.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hank learns.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: All I have to do is
• 0:59
  prevent him from permanently maiming himself and um encourage
• 1:08
  him to experiment and
• 1:12
  try new things and reach out and take risks and you know reward
• 1:19
  him with praise
• 1:21
  when he does try those things even when he fails you know
• 1:25
  failed experiments are
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: the biggest teachers
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  And you just sort of see that like human nature is to learn and
• 1:32
  to learn by experimentation.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my wife always tells me, well, they're like big sponges.
• 1:41
  But once they get in the third grade,
• 1:43
  they stop they stop absorbing as much.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about that,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: because by the time they're in the third grade,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: they've been in authoritarian pedagogies for three years.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: and the curiosity and wonder has been beat out of them.
• 1:59
  And I just wonder what kind of people that we're making with
• 2:07
  our pedagogies and how
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: we teach in family and in educational institutions,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: because if we simply facilitated a natural process,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: we would come up with way different,
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  SPEAKER_00: more loving,
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  SPEAKER_00: more curious,
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  people who are more full of wonder type of human beings than
• 2:34
  the sort of disciplined,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: angry,
• 2:39
  mean-spirited people that walk this planet or walk the United
• 2:44
  States today.
• 2:45
  I mean,
• 2:47
  I work in a context where we deal with people who are dealing
• 2:52
  with the public and
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  SPEAKER_00: people are grumpy and ornery and demanding.
• 2:59
  And it's just the type of person that we're creating is a type
• 3:03
  of person that's
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: shaped to function under the thumb of an authority figure.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And really, human beings are not meant to be that way.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know,
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  SPEAKER_00: if they're authority figures,
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  SPEAKER_00: the authority figure,
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  it should be on the authority figures to prove that they're
• 3:19
  worthy of being leaders,
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  SPEAKER_00: not that the people who are
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: being led are worthy of the leadership's love.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a strange way to do things when you think about it,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: especially when you look at children and how children just learn.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have gone way awry
• 3:52
  And a lot of it is economic because we need people to work on
• 3:55
  factory floors who
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: can take orders,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: who can do road tasks,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: who don't think.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we beat the thinking out of people.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because we need servants.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And lots of people have talked about this.
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  SPEAKER_00: Foucault has talked about this, especially Borgia has talked about this.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: Borgilia talked about it specifically in the family and how,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 4:24
  family cultures are about preparing people to function in
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  disciplinary societies.
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  And the only way we're gonna get out of this situation that
• 4:39
  we're in is to raise
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  SPEAKER_00: different types of people.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, people who maybe are not well adapted
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  SPEAKER_00: to disciplinary societies, but who can also survive in them.
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  SPEAKER_00: So,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to teach my son everything I know,
• 5:00
  but I want my son to learn it out of curiosity and out of the
• 5:09
  love of learning and
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: out of a sense of wonder.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't want him to do it because daddy told him to.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want that to be the last reason he does anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I hope,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  my hope for the future is that this little boy who is so
• 5:26
  curious and so full of
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  SPEAKER_00: wonder will never lose that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I will do everything in my power to prevent him from losing it,
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  SPEAKER_00: including homeschooling him his entire life if that is necessary.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I would never put my kids, the pedagogies from K through K
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  postgraduate education are just they're terrible they're
• 5:50
  terrible they don't
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  facilitate learning at all they they facilitate obedience and
• 5:59
  obedience is the
• 6:00
  opposite of learning you know I got a basically blackballed in
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  Alabama from
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  teaching in higher education institutions of higher education
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  because I refused to
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  SPEAKER_00: give grades because I believed that
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: learning happens best when students are not stressed and having fun.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as a matter of fact,
• 6:28
  I would take that even further is to say that human beings have
• 6:35
  fun by learning.
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  And we remove that joy and wonder from the learning process in
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  order to create obedient
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  SPEAKER_00: Citizens of capitalist countries.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work and it's not going to work in the future.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, we'll see y'all next time.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Peace, y'all.