Every year in the fall, I notice how quiet my neighborhood is during the day. The cafés, library, post office and shops are devoid of children’s voices and energy. That we warehouse children all day away from the activity of the everyday world is not only a loss for our communities but a true calamity for children’s education. 

Life learning kids, of course, lead different lives, ones that are immeasurably enriched by their involvement in the life of their communities. But isn’t it odd how one of the main concerns expressed about learning without schooling is how kids will learn to function in the “real world?” Gea D’Marea Bassett addresses this concern in her article “Free School or No School?” by asking the rhetorical question: “If schools are trying to teach children how to live outside of school, why is there school to begin with?” 

Indeed. To protect children, for one thing. These days, most kids wouldn’t be allowed to roam around in downtown New York City as David Albert describes he did when he was a kid discovering the treasures of world-class bookstores. His column-mate Joyce Reid laments the freedom of mind kids have lost because of our fearful world, but I think that’s only part of the problem. And I’m not sure it was all that meaningfully different when she and I and David were kids. 

In fact, our society hasn’t been child-friendly for centuries. School has always been a place where children are sent while we adults are doing our own thing. Because we are impatient and focused on production, efficiency and finishing the job so we can go home and relax, we don’t allow children to participate in the adult world. Oh, we take them to work once a year on Take Your Child to Work Day and put them in a spare office or the lunchroom with some crayons. But then it’s back to the pseudo reality of school where they read and write and listen and play-act about being in the real world, but are really second-class citizens, if citizens at all. And as John Holt once pointed out, “Aside from their parents, most children never have any close contact with any adults except people whose sole business is children.” 

As a society, we’re a long way from recognizing and respecting children’s ability to play a meaningful role in the day-to-day work of our neighborhoods and our businesses – and thereby gaining an education that is far superior to that available in schools. But life learning families are leading the way towards a time when we provide children with enough freedom, trust and support to learn by doing work that matters…in the real world.