Life Learners: Unschooling the Prepper Community

by Todd Walker

I have to sit through meeting after boring meeting with fellow teachers, administrators, and highly paid “educational experts” and listen to the same old stuff, just in a different burning brown bag on my doorstep.

We huddle together to discuss…

“How do we get standardized test scores up – barring the Atlanta School System‘s methods?”

“How do we improve discipline?”

“Why aren’t parents doing more to help at home?”

In case you are not yet aware of the truth about government schooling, let me say it as clearly as possible…the system is not broken and doesn’t need reform. Once you come to this realization, the busy work and babysitting, the high-stakes testing, the regime-like control and surveillance, the hyper-allegiance and submission to authority, the path of dumbing-down becomes an open conspiracy. Cheating is not only tolerated, but it keeps the system healthy. This was a life-changing Aha Moment for me. I see clearly now.

The de-zombification process for some people happens first through their eyes. Text travels to the brain – rattles around – and your true nature verifies what you just read. Sometimes your intuition (your knower – “something ain’t right whisperer”) provokes you to further investigation. In my case, it was my knower’s constant nagging - reminiscent of Wife #1.

Do I really think that cheating takes place in every government-run school? YES!

While not every school or system has engaged in erasing bubble sheets behind doors with posted guards, forced institutional schooling cheats every student. The recent Atlanta cheating scandal pales in comparison to the rest of the ice burg hidden below the murky waters of coercive schooling.

Here’s how your child gets cheated by attending school.

• Creativity is squashed
• Lots of boring facts with no real-world application
• Forced “friendship” with people you don’t like
• Critical thing
• Self-discovery is damned. There’s not a moment in the day where they can sit privately and contemplate.
• Academically. We have to teach in the middle to low range to make it fair for everyone in the lesson. This bores kids who need a more challenging lesson. And it’s disheartening to those who learn slower. But there is genius in every student. There’s just no time for them to develop in the classroom.
• All work and no play

If government schooling is so great, why does it have to be forced upon us? Hum….

I’ve addressed the question here, here, and here.

The most overlooked threat in the prepper community is…

Centralized forced schooling. The products of these institutional zombie factories out number self-reliant, preparedness individuals by a very wide margin. Zombie hunters, should the SHTF flag actually be raised, will be overwhelmed.

Solutions? There are no easy ones. Hard choices have to be made by parents wishing to escape the zombified matrix.

My number one option I’ve given to desperate parents seeking asylum and sanctuary from the gulags is to disobey the societal norms andunschool their children. The earlier, the better.

If you’ve got children with a few years of indoctrination and obedience training already, open their cage so they can follow their own self-directed, free-range educational journey. This doesn’t mean your little ones won’t have any direction or guidance from you and other knowledgable adults. It’s just that they now have the freedom to discover, experiment, test, play, and decide what’s worth learning.

Preppers Already Practice Unschooling

Adult preppers are great examples of self-directed learners. We’re not seated in cramped chairs with artificial lighting, forced associations, a set curriculum with an “expert” teaching us what we could care less about. Instead, we pick what we’re passionate about and meaningful learning occurs. We discover, what every school-aged child most desires – but can’t realize because of the school-funk, that learning for the sake of learning is fun.

In school, it’s just the opposite. Just when Johnny connects with a real teacher and sees value in the math lesson, the bell tolls and sends him on to a much less appealing grammar lesson. Does he need to know what an onomatopoeia is? Maybe, but not until he needs to.

Do you remember any rote lessons that didn’t interest you during your tour of duty in school? How about now? Same answer, right?

Useful stuff happens when we’re allowed to pursue our own self-interest.

Yesterday, by chance, Dirt Road Girl and I met a gentleman that works for a local timber frame company. I struck up a conversation and invited ourselves over to see the operation. He seemed genuinely glad to see my interest in his craft. After our new friend gave us the tour, I made a proposal to come and help out (free of charge) on my summer break. I explained my skill level in carpentry and general construction and expressed my desire to learn. There may be an apprenticeship brewing for me.

This is the traditional method to learn anything new. Find an expert in the field that interest you and learn from them.

Many of you are balking at the thought of allowing your child to unschool. The chief objections I’ve heard are:

• That’s illegal in my state. Unschooling falls under homeschooling and is legal in all 50 states.
• My kids need to be socialized to be able to function in the real world. Traditional schools only allow kids to socialize with peers in their same age group and a few adults viewed as authority figures. Is that real-world socialization? Not quite.
• Where will they get their books and materials? Again, welcome to the digital age. The online world is where kids hangout. With a little direction, maybe not any, they can find info on anything they want to learn. The internet has the potential to make government schools obsolete.

Preparedness minded people seek out learning opportunities to further their prepping skills via the Internet, books, seminars, and experts in certain fields of study – without being forced to do so. Why? They’re following their self-interest. As a result, their education adds value to them, their family, community, and society. Personal preparedness and fulfillment also follows self-directed learning.

Do you see life and learning as the same thing?

I’m already working on my Ph.D. in self-sufficiency through interest-led unschooling. What are you studying? Beekeeping, permaculture, bushcrafting, wildcrafting, animal husbandry, aquaponics, bartering, security, blacksmithing, herbal remedies, alternative energy, food preservation? Share your best unschooling sources for preppering. We’d love to hear what you’re interested in and how you learn.

DRG and I want to thank each of you for taking time to visit us. One way we could really use your help is by you sharing this with your friends. If you’re on Twitter, be sure to look me up @SurvivalSherpa.