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Thread: A note to my daughter's teachers

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    Canada Avalon Member TWINCANS's Avatar
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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    I think this bit of levity shows that Creativity and Compulsory Education are no match - at least not Happily Ever After:

    What Einstein, Twain, and Forty Eight Other Creative People Had to Say About Schooling
    "I was at the foot of my class." -Thomas Edison

    Published on July 26, 2011 by Peter Gray in Freedom to Learn

    Throughout history, from Plato on, creative people have spoken out against the stultifying effects of compulsory education. Here are quotations from fifty such people, which I have culled partly from my own reading but mostly from various other websites.

    Albert Einstein - It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

    One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.

    Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.

    Plato - Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

    Chuang Tzu - Reward and punishment is the lowest form of education.

    Mark Twain - I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
    Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.
    Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.
    In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.

    Oscar Wilde - The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence.
    Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
    Everyone who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

    Winston Churchill - How I hated schools, and what a life of anxiety I lived there. I counted the hours to the end of every term, when I should return home.
    I always like to learn, but I don't always like to be taught.

    Woody Allen - I loathed every day and regret every moment I spent in a school.

    Dolly Parton - I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it's just depressing to me. The poor little kids.

    George Bernard Shaw - There is nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school.
    What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.

    Finley Peter Dunne - It don't make much difference what you study, so long as you don't like it.

    Thomas Edison - I remember that I was never able to get along at school. I was at the foot of the class.

    Henry David Thoreau - What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.
    How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

    Bertrand Russell - Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
    Education is one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

    Benjamin Franklin - He was so learned that he could name a horse in nine languages; so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.

    H. L. Mencken - The average schoolmaster is and always must be essentially an ass, for how can one imagine an intelligent man engaging in so puerile an avocation.

    George Saville, Marquis of Hallifax - The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.

    Joseph Stalin (Hmmm, a supporter of compulsory schooling.) - Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

    Norman Douglas - Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.

    Paul Karl Feyerabend - The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.

    Theodore Roosevelt - A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

    H. H. Munro - But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.

    Robert Frost - Education is hanging around until you've caught on.

    Gilbert K. Chesterton - Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.

    Ralph Waldo Emerson - I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the schoolboys who educate my son.

    Alice James - I wonder whether if I had an education I should have been more or less a fool than I am.

    Helen Beatrix Potter - Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.

    Margaret Mead - My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.

    William Hazlitt - Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

    Laurence J. Peter - Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

    Anne Sullivan (I bow to her.) - I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.

    Alice Duer Miller - It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its natural functions by artificial means. Thus we suppress the child's curiosity and then when he lacks a natural interest in learning he is offered special coaching for his scholastic difficulties.

    Florence King - Showing up at school already able to read is like showing up at the undertaker's already embalmed: people start worrying about being put out of their jobs.

    Emma Goldman - Since every effort in our educational life seems to be directed toward making of the child a being foreign to itself, it must of necessity produce individuals foreign to one another, and in everlasting antagonism with each other.

    Edward M. Forster - Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.

    William John Bennett - If [our schools] are still bad maybe we should declare educational bankruptcy, give the people their money and let them educate themselves and start their own schools.

    John Updike - School is where you go between when your parents can't take you, and industry can't take you.

    Robert Buzzell - The mark of a true MBA is that he is often wrong but seldom in doubt.

    Robert M. Hutchins - The three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.
    The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.

    Elbert Hubbard - You can lead a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.

    Max Leon Forman - Education seems to be in America the only commodity of which the customer tries to get as little as he can for his money.

    Phillip K. Dick - The trouble with being educated is that it takes a long time; it uses up the better part of your life and when you are finished what you know is that you would have benefited more by going into banking.

    David P. Gardner - Much that passes for education is not education at all but ritual. The fact is that we are being educated when we know it least.

    Ivan Illich - The public school has become the established church of secular society.
    Together we have come to realize that the right to learn is curtailed by the obligation to attend school.

    Marshall McLuhan - The school system ... is the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.

    Michel De Montaigne - We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

    Peter Drucker - When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

    C. C. Colton - Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

    Paul Simon - When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.

    John Dewey - It is our American habit, if we find the foundations of our educational structure unsatisfactory, to add another story or a wing.

    Anonymous (My favorite of all historical figures.) - If nobody dropped out of eighth grade, who would hire the college graduates?
    Public school is a place of detention for children placed in the care of teachers who are afraid of the principal, principals who are afraid of the school board, school boards who are afraid of the parents, parents who are afraid of the children, and children who are afraid of nobody.
    The creative person is usually rebellious. He or she is the survivor of a trauma called education.
    You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can't tell him much.
    ------
    Friends, yes, I know, this is a biased sampling of quotations! I have deliberately selected quotations that complain about the compulsory, standard system of schooling. But, I challenge you. Develop a list this long of quotations supporting compulsory schooling and see if the authors you quote rank close to these authors in creativity.

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    Avalon Member mosquito's Avatar
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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    I could mount my soapbox here as well ! Here's an experiential anecdote for now :

    A number of years back my elder stepdaughter (13 years old) just couldn't get up for school in the morning, in fact during the entire term she'd only managed to attend on 4 days.
    Eventually she told her mother that school just wasn't working for her. So we decided to take her out of the system and provide her with whatever education she wanted at home. We were both self-employed at the time, so it was quite easy, and fortunately the establishment didn't put any obstacles in our way.
    So for the next 2 years we allowed her to grow up in her own way, which meant getting out of bed anytime after 3 pm, blobbing for a fair amount of time, and doing whatever she wanted.
    When she was 15, she decided she wanted to go to art school, so with a bit of persuasion we managed to get her into the local 6th form college, despite being 3 years too young. And here's the best bit - at the end of the year she won the prize for being the best student, and she was roundly praised by the staff for being far more mature than her 18 year old classmates !
    Proud of her ? You bet.
    Needless to say, she developed into one of the most wonderful women I've ever had the privelege to know.

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Quote Posted by mariposafe (here)
    I could mount my soapbox here as well ! Here's an experiential anecdote for now :

    A number of years back my elder stepdaughter (13 years old) just couldn't get up for school in the morning, in fact during the entire term she'd only managed to attend on 4 days.
    Eventually she told her mother that school just wasn't working for her. So we decided to take her out of the system and provide her with whatever education she wanted at home. We were both self-employed at the time, so it was quite easy, and fortunately the establishment didn't put any obstacles in our way.
    So for the next 2 years we allowed her to grow up in her own way, which meant getting out of bed anytime after 3 pm, blobbing for a fair amount of time, and doing whatever she wanted.
    When she was 15, she decided she wanted to go to art school, so with a bit of persuasion we managed to get her into the local 6th form college, despite being 3 years too young. And here's the best bit - at the end of the year she won the prize for being the best student, and she was roundly praised by the staff for being far more mature than her 18 year old classmates !
    Proud of her ? You bet.
    Needless to say, she developed into one of the most wonderful women I've ever had the privelege to know.
    And happy to boot, I'm betting. Who could ask for more?

    My dd has just published her first novel on Amazon.com (chest swelling in pride). This year she started high school online and loves it.

    Any other 'educational pioneers' out there?

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    If, after this wonderful letter, you still have any resistance from the teachers or the school management, give them this report:

    Quote Several Lessons to Be Learned from the Finnish School System
    by Thomas

    The Internet has been abuzz since the release of “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?” by Ellen Gamerman of the Wall Street Journal. In essence, Finland teens are able to deliver the goods on international tests and now American educators have begun researching the Finnish system to see what tidbits they can glean.

    According to Gamerman, the differences between Finland and American education are enormous. High-school students rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night in Finland. Furthermore, children don’t start school until they reach seven. There are no classes for the gifted students and no recognition organizations for those who achieve. There is also little in the way of standardized testing. In other words, Finland educates its children with a model that is virtually the anti-thesis of what we do in America. Yet out of the 57 countries tested, Finland’s 15-year-old students earned some of the highest scores in the world.
    Different Schools and Different Kids
    However, though school is different, it should be noted that Finnish youth appear to be very similar to their American counterparts in their teenage behaviors. According to Gamerman, they also “waste hours online, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal.” The difference is that these students are way ahead of their American counterparts in math, science and reading.

    At the same time, it must be noted that Finland as a country is nothing like America. It has its own language yet teachers encounter very few students who do not speak the language. In contrast, in America, one of every twelve American students is learning English. When well taught, foreign students that learn English/French at school, their parents not speaking it, are no more at disadvantage over time than native English/French speakers following studies done in Quebec. In other words, bilingualism does not hamper anything in school by itself. My own token here.

    The people are far more homogeneous in terms of both income and education. Perhaps more importantly, there are no poor and no wealthy schools, each school educates children at the same per pupil rate. Perhaps that is one reason why the gap between Finland’s highest performing and lowest performing schools was amongst the lowest of all 57 countries tested. After examining the Finnish school system, there are at least three items that could be easily applied to American schools despite the cultural and economic differences. Each of these three also address the differing socioeconomic status in our country, providing a helping hand for those with a desire to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

    Quality Pre-School for All
    Kati Tuurala, Microsoft’s education manager in Finland, believes that a great deal of Finland’s educational success can be attributed to major reforms implemented in the 1970s. Those reforms included an emphasis on primary education for every single child in the country.

    “That’s the reason for our present-day success,” Tuurala states.

    In all three Scandinavian countries students begin formal schooling only at age seven, two years after most American children begin school. However, prior to entering school, all children have participated in a high-quality government funded preschool program. As opposed to a focus on getting a jump academically, these early-childhood programs focus on self-reflection and social behavior. It is interesting to note that one of the most notable attributes of Finnish children is their level of personal responsibility. The early focus on self-reflection is seen as a key component for developing that level of responsibility towards learning. For more, read the whole text:
    http://www.openeducation.net/2008/03...school-system/
    Of course, if the target is dumming down American, I do not expect American to know about the success of such schools as in Finland, almost completely opposite to American ways of shooling right now.
    So I hope this will be a good reading for most of us.

    Don't forget, if you have good schools,well funded school with no more than 20 students per class as in Finland and motivated teachers, homeworks are not needed:
    Quote According to Gamerman, the differences between Finland and American education are enormous. High-school students rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night in Finland
    Wikipedia completes the description given above at :
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

    A BBC report:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8601207.stm

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    bravo Dennis!

    ever hear back?

    reminds me: in high school i took the S.A.T. (not sure what the equivalent is in other countries, but it's an end of high school test here in the states to determine how "college ready" you are. it's divided up into a mathematics and critical reading section) and i scored pretty darn well despite my mathematical shortcomings.

    but when i took the SAT 2, which tests you on facts as opposed to natural intelligence - i.e. what dates you memorized for a History class or what happened in this war or who invented the cotton gin or who wrote what classic etc...i scored miserably. it was almost as if i wasn't even present for those 4 years, and truth be told, i really wasn't - mentally anyway. i just refused to burden my brain with useless data and dates and figures and so forth. i'm the same way now, only i rebel consciously.

    education today is just flat. kids need to read (not just the stale classics) and write and act and paint and play music (not just brass instruments either for Christ sakes! Boring for a kid. why not electric guitar or drums or something hip-hop oriented? gotta get kids interested!) i think history will look back and judge this period of time as the artistic equivalent of the medieval ages. it's vacuous and redundant and unoriginal and simply lacking in soul. we need an art renaissance, and i mean that literally. it must start in the schools, with a seismic shift in emphasis, as Dennis said so well, from the facts and figures and data paradigm to a more creative and self-expressive dynamic.
    Last edited by Mike; 17th September 2011 at 04:18.

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Thanks Flash - another thing about Finland, according to a Finn I met is this - from the age of 10 ALL their education is in either Swedish, English or German !! Not sure if it's still the case. Imagine that happening in the UK oir USA !

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Hah, hah. Reminds me of when I was in school and decided for myself I was only going to do one hours worth of homework a night. If it couldn't get done in one hour, then, oh well.

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    I am getting so much from this thread! Thanks to all who have contributed - and since education is a critical element of everyone's life, everyone must have some thoughts about this topic (in some sense.) Even those without kids can look from the perspective of their own education, and the education of all the people they will deal with in their lives (including those who would step into leadership roles and elected office.)

    And, if this is too tame or mundane for some Avalonian's taste: This topic also has natural tie-ins to conspiracies (the purposeful dumbing-down), psy-ops and psywars to control our minds, the consequences of the impediments created by standard education on spiritual development, compartmentalization accepted as the norm, lack of critical and creative thinking to apply to humanity-class problems such as "free" energy technology, the movement to suppress uniqueness, experiential methods for acquiring knowledge such as remote viewing and telepathy...

    Keep outpouring! I'm loving this!

    Dennis


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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    I failed high school and wasn't allowed to continue on from year 10.
    I felt like I was in a straight jacket in the classroom and couldn't get away fast enough.
    As for home work, you gotta be jerking my chain?
    I never did it.
    In fact, I was still being asked about an english assignment in year 10 from year 8!
    Last edited by Lord Sidious; 17th September 2011 at 19:25.

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Oh how i loathed school! I used to bunk off in the toilets and zone out. Years later and now I call it meditation. To think I always had the techique down and didnt know it! Great thread x

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Quote Posted by Dennis Leahy (here)
    And, if this is too tame or mundane for some Avalonian's taste: This topic also has natural tie-ins to conspiracies (the purposeful dumbing-down), psy-ops and psywars to control our minds, the consequences of the impediments created by standard education on spiritual development, compartmentalization accepted as the norm, lack of critical and creative thinking to apply to humanity-class problems such as "free" energy technology, the movement to suppress uniqueness, experiential methods for acquiring knowledge such as remote viewing and telepathy...

    Did you mean tie-ins for us Avalonians to discuss? Shoot, I thought you were giving us a list of new courses that should be offered at school for kids to study.

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Dennis- that was a wonderful letter. I would be very interested to hear its response from the teacher/ school.

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Quote Posted by w1ndmill (here)
    Dennis- that was a wonderful letter. I would be very interested to hear its response from the teacher/ school.
    yeah, i second that. i really want to know what the response is. i bet "they" are pondering this letter hard

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    Your daughter is fortunate to have such an articulate, passionate advocate! I teach 5th grade and have been repremanded by parents, fellow teachers, and my principal for failing to give enough homework! I usually ask my students to practice a new math skill for about 2o minutes Monday through Thursday, and then complete about 10minutes of spelling/vocabulary review - about 1/2 hour total. I also break with district policy by setting aside 30 minutes of silent reading time each day - students choice of material- in class. This is a great way to settle in after lunch. We are losing our way as we force our children into nasty molds of our own fear and confusion. Stay strong and all parents, please continue to pressure schools and teachers for what is best for your child! Namaste

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    He who controls education, controls history. This letter should be delivered To The School Chancellors, Globally. Thanks Dennis, Great Job!
    "Although I Live On This World, I Choose Not To Live In It"
    <:~W.F.~:>

    "The answer to every question can be found in nature, if one knows how to look and listen”
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    "Everything on the Earth has a purpose, Every disease a herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence".
    Mourning Dove Salish


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    United States Avalon Member Dennis Leahy's Avatar
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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    "The Cutting Edge School For Independent Children"

    Check this out: Sudbury Valley School

    Watch the video, and check the FAQ page too:


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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    I recently listened to an interview on Red Ice Radio with Jan Irvin on Trivium Education. It is about going back to an education system based on grammar, logic and rhetoric which together with arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy (the Quadrivium) formed the seven liberal arts. As we have been discussing much education today is sadly lacking in even the basics. Irvin demonstrates how if given the skills you can recognise the linguistic tricks for example politicians use such as non sequiturs and fallacies such as the Appeal to Authority or Appeal to Probability which assumes that because something could happen it will happen. He discusses the appeal to ridicule - a logical fallacy often used when discussing conspiracy theories to appeal to the emotions and make your argument look silly and lose credibility. There is much more. If interested check out the interview http://www.redicecreations.com/radio...RIR-110818.php or Irvin's website http://www.triviumeducation.com/

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    We confuse information with knowledge and knowledge with wisdom. Students need a strong base platform in reading, reasoning, mathematics and the arts. From there, they can learn, build, grow and create from their own true center. This is NOT what we have in our educational curriculum today. Instead, students are force fed a series of low level reasoning excercises delivered by teachers reading from scripted curriculum. If I had a child, I would either home school or seek out the best private education I could afford. (I am a public school teacher, and a good one - but most teachers are not very competent. You get what you pay for

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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    I think this is pertinent here.

    When I was 11(?) I decided that because of all the fuss about me not doing homework I would show them just how dedicated a student I was. I did not like the fact they would not teach the things I wanted to know so I decided to do a paper on the planets. It was about ten pages of facts on the planets, the sun and the comets. It had lots of artwork and summaries in my own childish words, translated from encyclopedias, magazines and other books I had read. So, instead of the drivel they wanted me to do, I submitted this paper as my project. My teacher was flabergasted. My parents were called in and I remember there was quite some flak about my refusal to co-operate with the curriculum, etc. I was grounded by my parents, and I got 0 on my report.
    Just goes to show you. Individuals capable of critical thinking are not what the schools want to produce.
    I once asked my parents if they ever were told my IQ score from tests we were given in certain grades. They said yes, that they knew I was in a high percentile. I asked them why, then, they did not allow me to develop on my own as I was obviously capable. They said they felt it was not in my best interest.
    Sheesh, what more can I say?

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    United States Avalon Member Dennis Leahy's Avatar
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    Default Re: A note to my daughter's teachers

    (Comments spurred by Corncrake's comments):
    Yes, of my many tabs currently open in my browser, I have had the TriviumEducation site "open" for weeks. I was stunned to realize I had never even heard the words "trivium" and "quadrivium" (and would have probably thought 'trivium' was a tongue-in-cheek pejorative form of "trivia" if you had mentioned it just a few weeks ago.)

    I was extra surprised, because the research that I did to write the Education Reform section of The Reset Button document meant talking with at least a dozen school teachers about their ideas of what is wrong and how to fix the education system, and searching online for concepts that were already being discussed under the heading of "education reform", no one mentioned and nowhere did I find reference to trivium education. For a 'classical' education, (kinda the opposite of the Sudbury Valley School method) trivium is the key. We have deliberately been kept deficient in critical thinking by eliminating the trivium method from education.

    (There are those that may argue against a method so incredibly loose as the Sudbury Valley method - it's even looser than Montessori - and empowering parents to make educational decisions for their own children may ultimately mean providing both a trivium method format and a Sudbury approach and allowing parents to select or blend both at different times in their children's educational pathway.)

    This makes me think that modern teachers suffer the same malady as the vast majority of modern doctors: doctors are completely ignorant about food as medicine, solid foundations in nutritional concepts, understanding herbs, and vibrational (such as sound) and metaphysical modalities of healing - but can tell you the latest and 'greatest' pharmacological concoction to temporarily ward off some symptoms. Medical schools have unchecked collusion with Big Pharma. Modern teachers must be in the same boat. Modern educators must be being spoon-fed the methodology to create clerks and service workers (worker bees) and, (by omission of basic trivium understanding), are taught to suppress the unique and diverse individuals capable of critical thinking.

    Dennis


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