The Self-Organizing Revolution explores the transition from the modern institution of mass schooling to a postmodern network of diverse learning options available to all young people. Miller wrestles with the philosophical, moral, and political questions that arise with the radical proposition that public schooling as we know it has become obsolete. He cautions against simplistic models of privatization and lays out an egalitarian, democratic, socially responsible program of decentralized education.

I’m hoping there is synergy here with the sluggish economy and likely continuing cuts in public education spending. As the Soviet Union learned, a huge hierarchical bureaucracy featuring top-down control and little “ownership” by the people at the bottom is debilitatingly expensive to maintain. I think our state public school systems are comparable pyramids of ineffective spending above the level of students, teachers and parents in the school “trenches”. As the control model begins to unravel due to lack of funding, I’m hoping we will see more insurrections from parents, teachers, and even students, to tear down “the wall” between bureaucratic practice and real learning.

Fourth (and last for this piece) is the playing out of the “Tea Party rebellion” in our political process. I think the election of these populist fiscally-conservative contrarians is just act one of a perhaps five-act play, the catalyst for more to come in the 2012 election, when the stakes will be ratcheted very high on all sides. Between now and that election, the growing American dichotomy between governance and gaining political advantage will be highlighted in stark relief.

The compelling political drama may well be how the Republicans try to find a Presidential candidate with sufficient gravitas from perhaps a weak field of Fox News commentators, little-known governors, and junior senators. All this while the person with the most buzz and eyeballs, Sarah Palin, may well just comment and grant favor lucratively from the sidelines. Obama vs Rubio in 2012 anybody? A former junior senator vs a current one?

Will the energized Tea Party constituency (the conservative side of the “part of the problem or part of the solution” baby-boomers) drag the GOP back to a focus on fiscal conservatism from their thirty-year romance with religious, racial and social conservatives? Has the ideological realignment of American political parties, set in motion by Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally played itself out?

But in the context of all that classic American political theater, how will major issues of governance, including implementation of health care reform, move forward? Will we have government agencies charged with implementing the new policy while the funding to do so is blocked by reform opponents? At the state level, will we have a patchwork quilt of efforts toward universal coverage moving forward in “blue” states while languishing in “red” ones? And when the Supreme Court ruling comes down on the mandate to purchase health insurance, how will that impact the mix?

Certainly a lot for a “news junkie” to look forward to in the year ahead. But beyond that spectator sport, a hope that there will emerge some new possibilities for all of us to take more control of our own lives and our institutions (including education) in an effort to “right size” things toward more simplicity, efficacy and sustainability.

Me today post staples and haircut

My scar

Cooper Zale… aka Leftyparent

Me in my home office

Hey fellow travelers… whether you are involved with raising your own progeny, someone else’s, or are just playing a role as an adult in some kid’s life, I want to share that experience with you, because there is nothing more profound than helping people (young or otherwise, and even including yourself) come into their own in this world and move forward on their evolutionary path.

Having spent over half a century in this incarnation on earth, and almost half of that as a parent, you can bet that I would have some thoughts, posing perhaps as wisdom, about this very fundamental role in human society, and I wager that you do as well. You cannot go through the experience of helping kids on their journey to agency and adulthood without feeling at times inadequate, moved to tears, longing to have another chance, blessed, relieved and many other gut-checking emotions. It is hard work, and as many have noted, you are more likely to feel guilt and get blame for failure than feel pride and get kudos for success.

For me, the job got easier when I took a deep breath, went back to lessons I learned from my parents and my own youth, and chose to go with my gut. I was raised by two people, my biological mom and dad, who made a decision even before I was born in 1955 to raise me outside the conventional parenting “best practices” of the 1950s. They were no experts on parenting, but their instincts told them that they should do everything their parents did not do, and ignore much of the conventional wisdom of the time, from Dr. Spock and others. So they created an enriched environment with love and liberty in which I managed to grow and flourish. Not that there weren’t rough times. Their own relationship was problematic, and ended in their divorce in 1965 when I was 10. But they both continued their focus on trying to be the best parents they could be for me and my younger brother.

My mom used to say that “kids will tell you what they need”, a philosophy in no way permissive, but was an honoring of the personhood of a younger person, who in the end must chart their own course. My youth was a rich mixture of adventure, imagination, respect given, freedom exercised leading to responsibility learned.

Later as an adult I became a parent myself, wrestling with the conventional parenting wisdom of the 1980s, with its tough love and directed “helicopter” parenting, versus my own instincts in a different direction. In the end, my partner Sally and I agreed to throw away the rule book for parenting and and try to come to grips with the following…

1. As Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, and is the beginning of just about everything

2. Life, at its best, is an adventure – not always successful, not always happy, but a compelling narrative worth living and sharing with others

3. Understanding the context that surrounds the situations we find ourselves in is always critical to effectively navigating them

4. There is both creative tension and synergy between looking inside yourself for guidance and being connected to something transcendent and larger than yourself, whether civic, magical, religious, spiritual, universal and/or biochemical

5. We all ultimately have responsibility for our own actions, adult or youth, and given that, are best when we have the liberty to rise to that challenge

6. It is most effective to treat people with respect, whether adult or youth, including offering but not insisting on giving guidance and other help, unless that guidance or help is asked for

7. The education that stays with you are the things you learn on your own initiative, the other stuff tends to be forgotten

So why “lefty parent”? It reflects that creative tension between the politically liberal, left-leaning family and community I grew up in and my own left-handed tendency to think outside or not quite fit in the box of a right-handed world, even the left-leaning part of it.

Unlike some blogs I have posted on – where I never get a response from the blogger to my posts, and the opportunity to have a real forum for ideas is squandered – I commit to reading your comments on my posts, replying with my further thoughts, and fostering the dialog towards our evolution as individuals and as members of our shared society.