Chapter 10: The School Script & The Big 'No'

From classroom teacher to unschooling mama: Why I chose humanity over the "student" label before the first bell ever rang.

Photo by Alex Cooper on Unsplash

Recorded during Roar; Shared today during Nesting.

VOICE NOTE

THE BREW & THE BOUNDARY

• The Brew: Irish breakfast tea.

• The Boundary: My daughter is a human being to be understood, not a student to be managed.

BOOK NOTE (Transcript)

Unlearning Insight: I realized my daughter didn't need to be prepared for the ‘real world’ factory. She needed a mother who was brave enough to say 'No' to the system before it ever had a chance to label her.

Welcome to the Mama Bear (Un)School. I’m Stephanie McDowell.

I am sitting in our garage sanctuary, and it’s very early. I have my Irish breakfast tea.

I spent years on the other side of the desk. I was the one standing at the front of the room implementing the 24-hour clock for 30 children at a time. (As a teacher, we always had more than that).

I was taught that my success as a teacher was measured by their compliance as students, by how quiet the room was, and by how well they followed the script. These were invisible rules of the school and the classroom.

Looking back now, it breaks my heart. I see that I was trained to manage humans like data points. I was part of a system that didn’t know how to handle individuality, so they tried to make everyone exactly the same—little ant industrial workers.

I taught Geometry. In the state of Texas, it is required to graduate. So I was teaching things to 14, 15, 16 year olds that I didn’t learn until my mid-20s in college. These children were expected to learn it in the timeframe I provided them. I couldn’t even comprehend it when I learned it at 25 years old.

My deschooling journey didn’t start with my daughter. It started with an apology to every student I tried to fix when the system was what was broken.

I am so sorry. I hope one day I’m able to tell each and every one of my students how sorry I am.

When my daughter was two and a half, I found unschooling. By the time she was 3, I was already at the deep end of deschooling my own mind.

People ask why I didn’t even give school a chance, because I was a teacher. But the truth is I didn’t need to see her in a desk to know that it would break her.

I had seen this school script play out a thousand times. I knew that the minute she became a student, her humanity would become secondary to her performance. As humans, we have to listen to our bodies—when we need to use the restroom, drink water, eat food, move while listening to absorb things. None of these are allowed in school.

For the chunk of time I was in school, college, and teaching (I’ve been out of the classroom for 5 years now), my body is still holding on, and bracing. I’m still learning interoception, and when I actually need to pee. I was pregnant while teaching, and so my bladder is still learning how to not brace.

That’s sad.

I said the Big ‘No’ to school before she ever had a chance to wear a backpack because I refused to let her spend her adulthood unlearning a system that I had the power to keep out of our Sanctuary.

As parents, we do have that power.

In our home, there are no students, there are only humans. We have been conditioned to think that if a child isn’t learning on a given schedule—linear, measurable, 9 to 5—then they are falling behind.

But behind what?

When we drop that school script, we stop looking for grades, and we start looking for sovereignty. I don’t care that she can sit still for 8 hours. I care if she knows how to listen to her own nervous system, and then be able to tell someone else what her boundaries are.

I’m not raising a future employee. I’m raising a Zebra who knows exactly how to navigate the wild. The Big ‘No’ isn’t just about school. It’s about every system that demands our children, and ourselves, to mask our neurotype for the comfort of the collective.

It’s saying ‘No’ to the social pressure of milestones and standardized behavior. As a former teacher, I am telling you, the real world they warned us about in the teacher’s lounge—the one they always warned us about, and we scared our students with—it doesn’t exist.

We create the world, and I am creating a world for her, where her Pervasive Drive for Autonomy isn’t a “behavior issue”–it’s her greatest strength.

I channel the energy of every woman who had to keep her head down in a classroom, every girl who was shamed for her daydreaming or her fidgeting. We are the ones who are standing at the door now, and we aren’t asking for permission to close it on the systems that broke us.

Your quest for today: Look at your child, not as a student who needs to achieve, but as a human being who needs to be understood. Where is the school script still whispering in your ear telling you that you aren’t doing enough and that they aren’t doing enough. I want you to find that thought, and give it the Big ‘No.’

I’d love to hear what they were.

Sanctuary Quest

Look at your child today—not as a 'student' who needs to achieve, but as a human who needs to be understood. Where is the school script still whispering in your ear, telling you they (and you) aren't doing enough? I want you to find that thought and give it the Big NO.