We are creating free, downloadable, editable parent/carer resources to help students and families advocate for themselves. These sheets include open license letters and resources people can download and edit/personalize. We call these “Why Sheets“.
Table of Contents
Our Why Sheets
Our why sheets concisely explain why some education and parenting practices are good and others bad. They explain using formats like selected quotes, bulleted lists, and one idea per line,
- Neuroqueer Learning Spaces
- Hoodie
- Behaviorism
- Positive Greetings at the Door
- Queer and Neurodivergent Liberation are Entwined
- Alternatives to ABA
- Cavendish Space
Our Why Sheets are also available in GitHub as Markdown documents.
What Are Why Sheets?
Chomsky uses the term concision to discuss the way mainstream media outlets respond to power. Having concision means that ideas which align with forces of power in our society need no explanation and those that do not align with those forces of power need significant explanation. This allows the narrative of the “state religion” to be told across the media, because it’s quick and easy since it needs no explanation. However, opposing viewpoints which need explanation take too long for a standard news segment or, in the current era, TikTok, and therefore do not get heard.
Think Traditional Education “Works”? Prove it
Now, the kinds of things that I would say on Nightline, you can’t say in one sentence, because they depart from standard religion. If you want to repeat the religion you can get away with it between two commercials. If you wanna say something that questions the religion, you’re expected to give evidence, and that you can’t do between two commercials, so therefore you lack concision so therefore you can’t talk. I think that’s a terrific technique of propaganda. To impose concision is a way of virtually guaranteeing that the party line gets repeated over and over again and that nothing else is heard.
Noam Chomsky, Noam Chomsky – Conversations with History – YouTube
“Concision” puts advocates at a disadvantage. We have to define all our terms. Thinking differently often requires speaking differently, so we end up sounding like we’re “from Neptune” (to reference Chomsky’s anecdote). That’s one reason we have the Stimpunks glossary. Each entry starts with a concise definition but then piles on the context.
For our Neuroqueering Learning Spaces project, we started creating Why Sheets as suggested by Alfie Kohn.
I imagined a set of handouts, each consisting of a single (double-sided) sheet that responded to a common question. The idea was to lay out the case briskly, making liberal use of bullet points and offering a short bibliography at the end for anyone who wanted more information.
One of these “Why Sheets,” for example, might explain a teacher’s decision to create a curriculum based on kids’ questions. Or for setting aside time each day for a class meeting. It might defend helping students to understand mathematical principles rather than just memorizing facts and algorithms. Or it might lay out the case for avoiding worksheets, or tests, or homework, or traditional bribe-and-threat classroom management strategies.
The Why Axis – Alfie Kohn
In short, any practice that’s constructive yet still controversial would be fair game for one of these punchy handouts.
The Why Axis – Alfie Kohn
More about Why Sheets.
Some years ago, therefore, I hatched the idea of supporting such educators by convening a brain trust of leading theorists, researchers, and practitioners to create – and then disseminate – concise defenses of various features of progressive education. I imagined a set of handouts, each consisting of a single (double-sided) sheet that responded to a common question. The idea was to lay out the case briskly, making liberal use of bullet points and offering a short bibliography at the end for anyone who wanted more information.
One of these “Why Sheets,” for example, might explain a teacher’s decision to create a curriculum based on kids’ questions. Or for setting aside time each day for a class meeting. It might defend helping students to understand mathematical principles rather than just memorizing facts and algorithms. Or it might lay out the case for avoiding worksheets, or tests, or homework, or traditional bribe-and-threat classroom management strategies.
Eventually I started thinking about creating additional Why Sheets to help administrators defend enlightened schoolwide policies: why we don’t track students; why we push back against standardized testing and never brag about high scores; why we have multiage classrooms; why we’ve replaced report cards with student-led parent conferences; why we use a problem-solving approach to discipline in place of suspensions and detentions; why our commitment to building community has led us to avoid awards assemblies, spelling bees, and other rituals that pit kids against one another.
In short, any practice that’s constructive yet still controversial would be fair game for one of these punchy handouts. The idea was to help educators explain why they do what they do – and, equally important, why they deliberately avoid doing some things. The sheets would be made available free of charge, uncopyrighted, and accompanied by an invitation to distribute them promiscuously.
The Why Axis – Alfie Kohn
Why Sheets feel like a good balance of concision and explanation.
Students and families battling behaviorism and school induced-anxiety and systemic exclusion need whatever resources we can give them.
To that end, we started a repository for Why Sheets.
Contributions welcome. These are licensed under Creative Commons CC0 so students and families can do what they want with the sheets.
Sign a Why Sheet
If you think this is valuable, please add your signature as parent / carer or professional to the Why Sheets to help endorse these documents and give even more weighting to them.
To be a signatory on a why sheet, visit the “Sign Why Sheet” form.
Why Sheet Ideas
Here are ideas for why sheets we want to create.
- Movement breaks – WHY your child may need movement breaks in the day
- Parent, mother blame
- Homework – WHY homework may not be the the most valuable way for your child to spend their time after a day in school when they need to regulate and recharge
