I won't learn from
you and other thoughts on creative maladjustment by Herbert
Kohl
"Modem psychology has a
word that is probably used more than any other word. It is the word
"maladjusted." Now we all should seek to live a welladjusted life
in order to avoid neurotic and schizophrenic personalities. But
there are some things within our social order to which I am proud
to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I
never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I
never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust
myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence
and to tragic militarism. I call upon you to be maladjusted to such
things." (Dr Martin Luther King Jr. 1958)
Herbert Kohl describes how he came across this quote from Martin
Luther King and began to apply the term coined there to refer to
how he tried to adjust his own approach to teaching to get around
the often dysfunctional nature of the school system he worked
within. He goes on to give his own definition of creative
maladjustment:
"Creative maladjustment
consists of breaking social patterns that are morally
reprehensible, taking conscious control of one's place in the
environment, and readjusting the world one lives in based on
personal integrity and honesty—that is, it consists of learning to
survive with minimal moral and personal compromise in a thoroughly
compromised world and of not being afraid of planned and willed
conflict, if necessary."
In the first essay, 'I won't learn from you', he talks about the
notion of 'not-learning'. This is an active process of refusing to
learn something that you are being forced to learn.
WORK IN PROGRESS SORRY.