The War On Kids

[eileenrose]

The War On Kids - 3 minute video (trailer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlnwm11d6II&feature=player_embedded

And they are right (the people interviewed in this short trailer)...to the extreme (in my personal assessment).

When was the last time you thought about your own past school experiences? I spend quite a bit of time looking back and what I see is a prison. Plain and simple.

Now it looks like it is becoming obvious.

So the darkness is being revealed (at last).

[Ernie Nemeth]

You would not believe my days in school...or maybe you would.

No one could control us even if they tried. My parents applauded my marks on my report card - until they realized those numbers were the number of times I wasn't in class! lol

What has happened to us?

[eileenrose]

Except for a ghetto school, I couldn't have gone to a worse elementary school (myself). I never got beaten up...just threatened. But since it was run by wantabe Mexican gang leaders, (or they tried to), they didn't treat me awfully (because they treat women with a little respect...who knew).

...so I taught myself to read. I taught myself math (since education wasn't why we where there...just control).

We moved when I was 9....back to all white school neighborhoods (my religious parents gave up trying to save the catholics from themselves...reason we were there....it was an area south of Fresno, ca).
...lots of orchards/vines to pick there.

---
ps: which has made my life a living misery, for a time, since my verbal skills were non-existant (my parents hated talking to me...got me why and of course, I never learned spanish...just how to not get into a fight).

[TWINCANS]

Totally agree with the premise that schools are prisons for kids. That's why I homeschool.

If parents do choose to send their kids to school, then they better be prepared to spend a lot of time in the school themselves to protect their children from the insanity. Also ideally find a teacher that will feed them the truth about what goes on when they are not there watching. Start a movement called Taking Back The Schools.

[eileenrose]

Or move their children to a charter school (verses home school....my sister has done it both ways...depends on the child...if they can learn at home-ie. they respect the learning they need to achieve....)...as they have less students and a little more energy (and the bullies that were bothering your child won't be there.....as least that is the reason we moved my nephew 4 years ago).

Anyway...he still hates school...but he stopped coming home crying everyday.
And with a charter school I was able to come in and be an aid for a morning (they like this) and watch him and see how he coped with their structures.

It helped me see all these issues (as I had forgotten my own ....with school).

I will say the children are very angry with us (adults) about their 'supposed' education. Really...truly upset/mystified/and feeling let down. (what I picked up from them....they didn't want me to leave after the few hours I was there...I guess they never had an adult treat them like they were important before.....

....now I feel I am getting upset (all over again)..

...will go cry for a few minutes....just saddened.

[Ernie Nemeth]

I tempered my child's aweful schooling with my own educational lessons. First off, never do any homework unless marks are at stake. Do your very best on projects and assignments that do determine your grade. If you need to strudy for a test, it means you do not know or do not need to know that topic. Determine for yourself which it is. And so on. I know, it sounds crazy but...my daughter is an graduated high school with top grades and finished college (3 year course) as an honor student. She is currently a well paid employee of a large transit company.

I must have done something right - if I can claim any part of her success. She says I had a lot to do with it. I'm not so sure. She's such a determined young lady, a true individual.

Eileen, you seem to be an asset to those kids, they will never forget you. You may not ever know it but some will attribute their success to you for treating them with respect. So chin up, girl.
It's all good, sister.

hugs

[eileenrose]

Hi Ernie,
I only went to his school the one time (for that particular reason), though I have mediated on what happen since. I didn't return. I was so shaken by the experience (I had to teach them California history...and it was lies...fabrications....but I had forgotten...what they get taught). God awful place (school is).

I think we just put it out of our minds completely.

ps: But he sees me almost everyday....sort of like his second care-giver and I stick by him...no matter what he does (so he is happy...around me...or least he was till the hormones hit).

[genevieve]

I attended Catholic schools from grade 1 through 12.
I'm 62.
I never drive by ANY school without giving a prayer of thanks that
I'll never have to go to school again in this lifetime.
It was a prison then, can't imagine what it's like now.

Peace Love Joy & Harmony,
Genevieve

[geofffxdwg]

At least in a prison illiterate inmates can learn to read and write and even get a high school diploma.Where I live the students don't know how to read or write but they have diplomas.Most of the same teachers are still there that we had when I attended.They either don't care because they don't get paid enough or they are connected to the athletic department some how hired as a coach.They get hired because they were a some kind of athletic star in college and the school wants good coaches not teachers.I don't know of anyone my age that graduated from my high school that was illiterate.Most of the students that graduated from continuation were illiterate.

[the_vast_mystery]

I think the problem with our school system comes from the idea that we can't even outline a clear goal or way to measure their success in people's lives. Standardized tests and the rubrics we use now don't really correlate to job placement and until they do we can't even fall back on the excuse that it's school's only purpose to prepare youth for entering the workforce. (Which was certainly the reason public schooling was designed by Rich industrialists and their educational foundations.) So because of that we have a lot of people freaking out about varying statistics that in each case show something they don't want happen, but yet there's been a complete failure to accurately describe what they do want to happen beyond very abstract notions about what a "successful life" for their child would be.

It's quite a problem; how do we measure the usefulness of school in the life of a child? It's hard to say because sometimes subjects that other people think may be meaningless to them can inadvertently have a huge impact on their later lives even if only indirectly. (Algebra could, for example contribute to abstract problem solving when one or more variables start as unknowns, for instance.) I wish there were some way we could figure this out.

[Snowbird]

I could not agree more with the opening posted video.

Here's more insanity for you.

South Carolina Mom Arrested for Cheering at Daughter’s Graduation

By Sarah B. Weir

A Myrtle Beach teen's high school graduation on Saturday was ruined when her excited mom, Shannon Cooper, was arrested for cheering.

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/south-carolina-mom-arrested-cheering-too-loudly-daughter-172100466.html

[eileenrose]

I think the problem with our school system comes from the idea that we can't even outline a clear goal or way to measure their success in people's lives. Standardized tests and the rubrics we use now don't really correlate to job placement and until they do we can't even fall back on the excuse that it's school's only purpose to prepare youth for entering the workforce. (Which was certainly the reason public schooling was designed by Rich industrialists and their educational foundations.) So because of that we have a lot of people freaking out about varying statistics that in each case show something they don't want happen, but yet there's been a complete failure to accurately describe what they do want to happen beyond very abstract notions about what a "successful life" for their child would be.

It's quite a problem; how do we measure the usefulness of school in the life of a child? It's hard to say because sometimes subjects that other people think may be meaningless to them can inadvertently have a huge impact on their later lives even if only indirectly. (Algebra could, for example contribute to abstract problem solving when one or more variables start as unknowns, for instance.) I wish there were some way we could figure this out.

I don't think it would take that long to figure out. My mother and father were both teachers, for a living and my mother, now retired helps run a couple of various teacher organizations (for retirees). Anyway, she was just saying how upset (I believe....have to verify I heard her correctly....now) the teachers are over the way they have to run their classes....they have to follow, now, guidelines that tell them what to teach everyday and arn't allowed to come up with any creativity or originality. It isn't teaching. It is telling (shouting) someone what to do.

Not education. Just propaganda.

Real education is so simple it is ridiculously easy. Find out what the child wants to learn and provide it. Guess what? They want to learn. We are the ones that have problems (because, in one way, it is already too late for us to un-do the damage done to us...ie. we arn't imaginative....not as we can be).

...my thoughts...any how. Love to hear more (from anyone, teachers, people who like to teach).

[TWINCANS]

Real education is so simple it is ridiculously easy. Find out what the child wants to learn and provide it. Guess what? They want to learn. We are the ones that have problems (because, in one way, it is already too late for us to un-do the damage done to us...ie. we arn't imaginative....not as we can be).

...my thoughts...any how. Love to hear more (from anyon, teachers, people who like to teach).

That's it in a nutshell, imo too. It's not so much what to teach kids, it's how best to facilitate their own inner drive to learn. That's called child-centred learning. Even the most uninterested learner is in the process of developing. All it takes is heart to connect and find out where the child is trying to go. Not a 'teaching diploma'.

Now as to subject matter, so much of it should be tossed in the trash heap it's hard to know where to start. With all the new discoveries and re-evaluations going on, none of them seem to make their way into the curriculum.

One example is the speed of light being broken at CERN. Out goes whole science courses. Newtons Laws have been more or less destroyed.

History - where to start. Columbus took a map with him, and not one church official to sancitify his new discovery. Unheard of in that day. Where did the map come from and what was his real purpose in fleeing the day after the final seizure of the Knights Templar organization, with ships full of money changers? In Canada, why did Jacques Cartier write in his journal about seeing well laid out European -style farms already lining the St Lawrence River if he was the first discoverer? etc etc.

Plus somewhere around 1985, they took analysis out of the schools. Then they introduced a debacle called The Five Paragraph Essay. Good thing Debating Societies are out of style - Wikipedia is the only point of view on a given subject these days anyways.

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Mostly i agree that "normal" schools barely "teach" and subdue children to give away their own power and ability to learn to "the teachers"... As eileenrose stated in her post (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?p=501824#post501824), the core of the real education is to allow children to choose what they want to learn. And it can be done in a holistic way by mixing together "different" divisions of our knowledge base accumulated so far by humankind. Contrary to the analytical and compartmentalizing way of "normal" schools. It is possible. For example most schools in Sweden (state run!) are organized around that holistic and children centered concept. This fact is not something new. It was developed into "off-the-shelf" educational system by Maria Montessori (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori) in the beginning of the 20th century (it is 100 years old now!)... Well some could compare that quantum-leap in education to the feats of Nicola Tesla in the field of Free Energy. While Tesla's works has been suppressed, the good news is this holistic style of education is open to everybody... There is at least one Montessori kindergarten/school in every big city in so called "western world"...

Unfortunately it is not ideal, has its shortcomings and may appear somewhat "cold"... One of the shortcomings, IMHO, is accustoming children to the abundance of scarcity :( Montessori method is based on the specially designed set of teaching aids. And there is only one piece of every kind of teaching aid deliberately put into the "classrooms". While it may seem cruel it allows children to practice patience (child has cope to wait for her turn) and sharing with others. But it also gives an occasion to practice manipulation of other children or even aggression. But this vices children bring along from home :( There is spiritual aspect of Montessori education also :) While i applaud it greatly, regrettably it covers mainly Christian color of it :( I don't know how it looks in Oriental or Asian cultures... My two daughters attend Montessori kindergarten and school...

But it is mutch better than state run school we would be forced by law to send our children to. The principal of that school warned parents not to provide children with trolley style school backpacks. Reason? Trolleys make too big noise with their tiny plastcic wheels for teachers to cope with... Children in Poland have only one set of school books they need to carry from home to school and back. You ask me why? There are no school lockers! And kids have to haul approx. 3kg (6.6lb) of "luggage" every day. Elementary education is mandatory in Poland. But parents can choose different "styles" of that elementary education including home schooling...

Education is just a one frontline... Other frontlines are "toys", "children" movies and merchandise around them... All for profit... and more darkness peddling down our throats. Thankfully there is always choice... But parents have to have "guts" to make it. And if parents are dis empowered in "normal" schools, they barely have any "guts" left. Allowing for that vicious cycle to continue... Fortunately more of us realizes how insane this is and tries to create way out of it...

[geofffxdwg]

Yes I agree with you about many of your points but I think the college and even university level school still do exactly what your describing.Algebra can be very useful in computer program or software development.The mindset is the same for both.On the other hand why do we have history? We are all told at an early age that without history we would be condemned to repeat the same mistakes of the past.The way I see it thats all we do and we document it which makes our mistakes worse the next time around.I was born in Berkeley California where my father was a PHD there.He would teach English,logic and philosophy.My father earned his degrees from both Stanford and Berkeley.He was a very intelligent person.Many of his friends he went to school with went into some very interesting fields of work. Some were private defense contractors among other things.He had a mean temper when it came to education and state measures that were passed each election that chopped away at our ability to earn a good education.I was fortunate to a degree because when I was 7 years old I used to correct his students papers.Not because I could but because he made me correct them he was very lazy.The day they made the California lottery a fact of life was a day I will never forget.I don't like to sound to political but we virtually had opportunities to receive a free college education until Ronald Reagan was elected Gov. of the state.Everything went south very fast.The lottery was the last nail in educational coffin.In reality the best education in my state right now is home schooling.I believe starting with children and education is the base or core of solving many problems.Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.I am very new here and I have never belong to something like this before.:cool:

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

By mixing different "divisions" i ment teaching geography simultaneusly with biology music or grammar. Not coincidentally but on purpose. Montessori lessons are just like that :)

[Fundy Gemini]

I fear school has evolved into a social-conditioning camp more tgan a learning institution. With the internet now and SO MANY public school problems, the sensible course of action would be to encourage home schooling, when instead those ideas are discouraged and considered reason to put parents on 'watch lists' :(

[Sidney]

Totally agree with the premise that schools are prisons for kids. That's why I homeschool.

If parents do choose to send their kids to school, then they better be prepared to spend a lot of time in the school themselves to protect their children from the insanity. Also ideally find a teacher that will feed them the truth about what goes on when they are not there watching. Start a movement called Taking Back The Schools.

I agree, school = prison. There was a teacher at my kids school that talked quite a bit about shadow governments and some other controversial stuff. They did not renew his contract for next year. Was it related to the "talking", we will never know.

[the_vast_mystery]

I don't think it would take that long to figure out. My mother and father were both teachers, for a living and my mother, now retired helps run a couple of various teacher organizations (for retirees). Anyway, she was just saying how upset (I believe....have to verify I heard her correctly....now) the teachers are over the way they have to run their classes....they have to follow, now, guidelines that tell them what to teach everyday and arn't allowed to come up with any creativity or originality. It isn't teaching. It is telling (shouting) someone what to do.

Not education. Just propaganda.

Real education is so simple it is ridiculously easy. Find out what the child wants to learn and provide it. Guess what? They want to learn. We are the ones that have problems (because, in one way, it is already too late for us to un-do the damage done to us...ie. we arn't imaginative....not as we can be).

...my thoughts...any how. Love to hear more (from anyon, teachers, people who like to teach).

Your approach, while intellectually correct ignores social realities. There are a vast number of parents who having assimilated authoritarian tendencies from society have a very specific image of what they want their child to become. These people don't want their child to learn what it wants, they want their child to learn what they want, assimilate their culture, their traditions, etc. A great resistance right now to various forms of educational material such as evolution and (any brutally honest rendition of) American History comes from the demand of some parents to ensure their child grows up and loves "their culture." This creates problems when their culture finds its pride (say in patriotism) in lies or gross distortions of what our government has been doing. Similarly any science that tends to make enforcing culture harder (such as evolution challenging biblical innerency) is also fought tooth and nail.

Whether or not any one culture's views can be considered correct these parents are scared to death of the idea of their culture or their beliefs being seen as irrelevant by their children and they will in some cases literally do anything to sequester their child from the world enough to guarantee the perpetuation of their "way of life." So this puts a lot of strain on the idea of standard public educational curriculum as in a vast majority of cases facts get in the way of people who want to perpetuate their culture or their beliefs. So the question becomes, how do we reform schooling to accommodate for these sorts of parents while still doing our best to give every child every advantage? It'd be nice if we didn't have to deal with these problems, but we do, and it'd just end horribly if we tried to create an "official public school" system, with vouchers for those wishing to abstain. Because then that'd just ghettoize all of those cultures and that in turn would feed their persecution complexes and just turn into another powder keg waiting to blow up.

I can't yet see a proper answer myself. How do you include people who really don't want to be included, and if excluded will just grow bitter and blow up in your face several generations later?

[778 neighbour of some guy]

I attended Catholic schools from grade 1 through 12.
I'm 62.
I never drive by ANY school without giving a prayer of thanks that
I'll never have to go to school again in this lifetime.
It was a prison then, can't imagine what it's like now.

Peace Love Joy & Harmony,
Genevieve

Hi,

my mother went to a catholic school as well, since then she does not want to have anything to do with it, she got beaten the crap out off with knitting needles, rulers, open hand slaps in the face, just for having sweaty hands out of fear wich stained her embroidery.

Them nuns sure are experts in scaring the hell into people instead of loving it out of them, it sends chills down my spine when she talks about things said above.

regards

665

[mosquito]

Interesting discussion, and TVM, I agree with you, there really is no easy solution, unfortunately.

I've been teaching English as a foreign language for 6 years now, the last 4 years in China, all with young learners. Since 2010 I've been working in a public high school, with 1 day per week in a local primary school. I never set out to be a teacher, the flow of life brought me here, and I'm learning an enormous amount about life, other people and of course myself.

Primary schools in China (at least the ones I've experienced) are beautiful places to work, the children are loved and also very loving. Yes, they work hard, but I've yet to witness a stressed out or chronically unhappy child.

The highs schools are, unfortunately, geared toward pushing the students through the university entrance exam (taking place today and tomorrow as it happens), for which there is a lot of pressure. Lots of students are visibly distressed and unable to sleep. It has to be said that most of the pressure comes from their parents. As TVM said earlier, parents have clear expectations of what they want their children to do and to acoomplish. I think the situation is worse here because:

1) Most couples only have the one child, and
2) China is overpopulated, especially in terms of the number of jobs available.

So Chinese parents tend to be ferociously competitive, and expect their children to excel. I'm sure the situation is made worse by the Chinese notion of "losing face", children are made to feel that if they don't meet their parents' expectations, their parents will feel socially humiliated. Maybe one of our Chinese members could comment on that, if there are any reading here. So often when I ask someone what they want to do in the future, they answer "my mother wants me to be .....". Very sad. But ...... that's the way it is, and it isn't about to change overnight.

The good news is that I'm given more or less free rein, which suits me just fine, and which I'm not about to jeapodize by breaking the only 2 rules I have to observe - no talking about sex, and no criticizing the government. If anyone's tempted to think that's inhibiting my "freedom" or is in anyway indicative of something bad about China, just ask whether foreign teachers in your country are allowed to criticize the government. I very much doubt it. (Last year, a student told me in a very bemused manner that he'd found some information on the internet which was in direct contradiction to what he'd been led to believe. (and I don't know what the subject was) He asked me if I thought the government was lying, so I told him simply that ALL governments lie).

My aim is to encourage students to learn for themselves, to interact with me in class, and to appreciate that learning a foreign language helps them to think differently and also opens windows on a wider world. Getting the high school students to speak up is always a challenge, as they're accustomed to sitting quietly and being talked at. I also have some lesson plans where I teach biology, history and geography, but in English, not so much learning "facts" but learning the vocabulary they can use to find their way around in these topics.

The 7 year olds are a different matter !!!! They are full of life and vitality, so it's a question of harnessing that energy and getting them physically involved in learning. First and foremost, I want them to have fun.

I wish there were an easy solution to the education problem, but I certainly can't think of one ! We have to strike a balance between child-centred learning (which on the whole I endorse) and educating them to live in the world as it is, in the condition it's in.

Nice to read so many people's views, keep them coming !!

Philip

[Deborah (ahamkara)]

Please, please take the time to check out this website:http://www.johntaylorgatto.com

John Taylor Gatto is an ex public schoolteacher from New York City (who was subsequently driven from the profession as a result of his research). He does a fantastic job laying out the true agenda of public education in the United States, thoroughly tracing it back to the "founding fathers" of modern educationThe Business of Schooling.. her is a quote from the website:

"Since bored people are the best consumers, school had to be a boring place, and since childish people are the easiest customers to convince, the manufacture of childishness, extended into adulthood, had to be the first priority of factory schools. Naturally, teachers and administrators weren't let in on this plan; they didn't need to be. If they didn't conform to instructions passed down from increasingly centralized school offices, they didn't last long.

In the new system, schools were gradually re-formed to meet the pressing need of big businesses to have standardized customers and employees, standardized because such people are predictable in certain crucial ways by mathematical formulae. Business (and government) can only be efficient if human beings are redesigned to meet simplified specifications. As the century wore on, school spaces themselves were opened bit by bit to commercialization.

These processes didn't advance evenly. Some localities resisted more than others, some decades were more propitious for the plan than others. Especially during and just after national emergencies like WWI, the Depression, WWII, and the Sputnik crisis, the scheme rocketed forward; in quieter moments it was becalmed or even forced to give up some ground.

But even in moments of greatest resistance, the institutions controlling the fourth purpose—great corporations, great universities, government bureaus with vast powers to reward or punish, and corporate journalism—increasingly centralized in fewer and fewer hands throughout the twentieth century, kept a steady hand on the tiller. They had ample resources to wear down and outwait the competition.

The prize was of inestimable value--control of the minds of the young."

Thank you for keeping alert to what is happening to our society as a result of what is happening in our schools.

[eileenrose]

Note: I am reading people's posting and monitoring this thread. I don't have a lot to add. There have already been a number of threads on this topic. I was looking for more contributions from people....to keep the topic fresh on people's minds.

don't give up.

Carry on.

thanks

¤=[Post Update]=¤

And I realize many people think their education was good for them.

I am not doubting people's individual experiences.
I am looking instead at the over all system and trying to get ahead of the many issues that are increasing plaguing it.

make sense?

I hope so.

ps: And I don't expect anyone (many) people to agree with me that we need to toss it and start fresh. Lots of people like it because, for example, they are like a relative of mine and use it as a way to keep their children safe during the day while they work and hope it helps them.
I prefer we go beyond that attitude here.

[CdnSirian]

The crux of the matter is, in North America anyway, most families cannot have a mom at home. I learned that home schooling is so much easier than one may think. Most areas have huge communities of home schoolers. They have sports teams, the moms rotate driving kids to field trips, parents run group science labs - nothing is lesser or inferior.

Computer programs have been written for home schooling families integrating math, music and astronomy, for all ages. I certainly wished I could have been a stay at home mom and given my child this advantage. He has done well in spite of his public education, not because of it.

I do not blame the teachers - they have no idea.

I have read John Taylor Gatto. I gave a copy to my ex -- my child found it and read it. That let the cat out of the bag.

Where we lived, the law is that in High School, the home room teacher MUST INFORM the class at the beginning of Gr 10, that students who want to may test out of HS in the spring semester of Gr 10. I have never heard of a teacher revealing this information.

If a student does test out, they may enroll in a home school and then attend 2 years of a community college for FREE as a home-schooling high schooler. This information does not get divulged.

So wherever you are, parents, scout around for the info!

[genevieve]

665--

My negative Catholic school experiences weren't physical, as were your mother's (blessings to your mom).
Mine were all about mental and emotional abuse.

It took me a long time to be able to think for myself generally, but what got me started was my 7th grade nun-teacher's response of "Yes" to my question: "Are
you saying my non-Catholic mother won't go to heaven?"

I KNEW she was wrong. My mother was wonderful in every way (I never changed
my opinion) and it started me thinking: If the Church can be wrong about that,
what else might they be wrong about?

One thing led to another and here I am on PA.

Peace Love Joy & Harmony,
Genevieve

[eileenrose]

So, let's break it down a bit....to easily digest this information...if we/you can (I already have).

I substituted for my favorite science teacher. I recall having a good experience in his class, so around 1978. He was teaching in 2000, so I got my substitute teaching license and did a one day with him, to see if I wanted to do it professionally (was looking at teaching for a living back then....).

It was terrible. And I realize that it doesn't sound terrible. But looking back, the entire day was a mess.
He had stopped teaching and had just let the idea go. He followed a prescribed detailed list of 'to dos' given to him....so instead of science, they had to write a report...and spend half the year on it (this is 7th/8th grade). So no experiments, he left the class completely and left me there babysitting (he didn't care about them at all....), I had to teach my favorite topic-nutrition....and it was fabrications (that stupid food chart....which totally ignores ...well everything wrong with the current food supply). I had to teach a science lesson ...it was way out of date information (according to my research...I have a degree in science). I was told what to do, how to do it and the poor students just ignored the whole thing and did what they wanted.

And this was the best school in the district and coming from an outstanding science teacher.

I might as well been back in my all Spanish speaking schools...at least they had an excuse why they didn't teach me anything...they were too busy making the Mexican kids conform.
---

So why would the best school with a fabulous expert just throw all that out and just do what they were told and why were they told to do this?

That is the real question and we all know the answer. Though for some reason people feel the need to defend it. Why? Why defend something that is coming from the Elite? Why bother defending them?

We arn't the people who don't know ...FYI.

[betweener]

in my experience, most anything having to do with education with regard to the federal government, derives from either rote practices, or elements deriving from the prison system, right on down to features in the architecture, such as narrow-paneled windows (even if the whole of the window is wide), or hallways built in sections that can be locked and denied access to, to even just the general drab architecture, such as heavy doors, white flecked white tile, florescent lights, and brick everywhere.

I attended public governmental school, as a special ed student since about 3rd grade, and ended high school in the year 2004 with a fancy paper. Im hesitant to call it a diploma, even though it is labeled as such, because it doesn't really help, aside from the fact that its theoretically better than a GED.

from 4th grade to 12th, i would have to say that the only thing i learned, was how to read (and how !, i was already reading Heinlein and Asimov in 6th grade, when other kids were tumbling through Dick and Jane or other sorts of much simpler books. ) The rest of it, however, was rote in absolute propensity; study for Fridays test, only to pass it and then proceed to mind-dump it on Saturday, and repeat the process on Monday. Repeat, repeat, repeat, week in, week out, for pretty much the equivalent of ..... 9 years ?

1 - the need for documentation.

The more i intellectually mature (cause i didn't mature at all in the mind when in school, but ill get to that later.) the more i start to see this sort of.... incessant need, perhaps dare i say.... lust (?) for the need for documentation, mostly approved and/or 3rd party documentation.

To example this, i will have to start by saying that i recently attended 3 months of re-training at Woodrow Wilson rehab facility/campus in Fishersville. There i met several people who were more than qualified for their field of interest/career, but had to retrain in order to get certification that today's employers might accept, considering that some companies are very hesitant to accept WWRC graduates.

im not sure that this cultural need for documentation is going to bode well, as it may divide the competent but undocumented, away from the incompetent but documented, and leave a legitimate workforce largely empty, or be completely denied by employers who may be looking for more than just another manager/supervisor.

2 - the intentional failure to educate.

Another problem i see, is this completely insane 'no child left behind' policy. Such asinine doctrines only serve to further dilute education and drop the student into a pit of otherwise inescapable ignorance. I consider myself very lucky that i at-least managed to latch onto reading skills and vocabulary. There are a great many others, even from my school years, and even from my same schools, who aren't as lucky.

The EVERY CHILD LEFT BEHIND policy serves not only to leave children floundering for any useful skills, but also passes them (and the buck) on, in order to clear a seat in preparation for cultivating the next crop of manufactured idiots.

im also concerned that as much as today's youth crave actual learning, that they are going to be intellectually suppressed and shut-down. I myself only started to intellectually grow out of what i suspect was seen as more overt 'special' behaviors and intellectual stunted-ness (what most politically non-correct people would label as 'retarded'.) when i exited the school system.

im glad to tell you, that since i exited the school system, i am now very much improved, and even quite sociable, if abit weird at times.

Now that even kindergarten is being academic (academized?), i quite literally shudder to imagine what today's children are going to be like when they hit 12th grade, manage to 'graduate', and are then promptly dumped out of the school system, (...... if not fed right back into some other system, such as being conned into military service, or the like.)

3 - the solution as i see it (?)

The first practical step i see, (obsessive and already authoritarian parents and their lustful need for culture-transmission not withstanding), is to completely abandon (if at all possible) the Federal school system, and home-school children in essentially 2 stages;

stage one is basic general schooling; (say it with me now !) Reading, writing and arthritic, and if you feel it is warranted, history, grammar, and a foreign language. In my opinion, i would suggest several non-english languages, perhaps including sign language, as well as (about age 8 to 10?) firearms safety and gun etiquette, but the details of why is for another forum and another thread.

If also warranted (or in lieu of having to deal with scary evil GUNS) .... (yes, it is technically a 4-letter word :pound: ), you can try teaching the child about technology; circuitry, electronic pathways, how electronics works, electrical/ device components and parts, maybe even some computer programming and/or coding, like HTML, COBOL, BASIC, and the like.

stage two is career cultivation and preparation; find out what your child is most interested in, and help them cultivate and use their interests in a career field, even if it is technically outdated and/or has morphed into another career field ('blacksmith' used to be considered a very essential machinist and metalworker career, but has since declined and become more of an artisan career field.)

If the child wants a very high-end job, such as medical doctor, architect, engineer, or anything involving I.T. then it would be good to help him to the furthest point that you can, and then if needed, send them to someone/somewhere who knows more than you do.

Also, as rampantly (seasonal? temporary?) as the arts are, i wouldn't shy away from things like music or musical instruments, especially when Federal schools are dropping educational interest for music and other Fine Arts like already dead flies.

[Arrowwind]

My kids went to the magnet schools of Dallas Texas. You didnt get to go there unless the parents pushed the kids in. Applications required and projects completed for entry... that separated some of the wheat from the chaff... if parents didnt care then the kids didn't get to go.. Many parents in the low econonmic neighborhoods simply didnt care.

First they went to the Magnet school for the Arts.. then to the Magnet Montessori school. I thought they did a pretty good job. My son took 3 years of piano at montessori.. they had a whole classroom full of pianos.. and they got him through his learning glitch though special ed assessments and tutoring. He ended up getting A's in college even with a rocky highschool experience.. I think they both learned a lot in the Dallas magnet schools., but I did see some prejudice against by eldest son who was extremely good looking and a class leader personality wise... and he got to rest on his laurels for that... pretty pathethic eh? I felt that they did not demand enough of him. they did not push his edges. .. they did treat him like the token white boy that he was. On the other hand my boys, having gone to predominately black race schools, with black teachers, they haven't a racist iota of anything within them... but I felt I saw reverse racism towards them. They were coddled by the teachers and school

When we moved from there to a white neighborhood in Utah they got into snowboarding... and that may end up being their demise...they are still into it.. it is the focus of their life, at now ate 24 and 27, even with Universtiy degree... I dont know if they will ever do anything but have a good time... .. hmm. kinda what I did when I was their age.

The problem I saw was not the schools we selected but the social context of children that was there... the ghetto and gang mentality... learning was uncool.... pot at the neighborhood basketball courts... no passion for much of anything except brignt white new niki sneakers. Then the mental attitude of the snowboarders was not too much better. No drive but to fly through the air.

When I was in school they determined in highschool that I should be in business, not fine arts, nor academic. They really missed the boat on me. Art is what I am good at and when I figured that out on my own I got into one of the best art schools in NYS. I should have had advanced art tutoring all through High school but no one cared. The counselors were dimwitts and only went by test scores. Acedemically? Well I think I have excelled at that too, but not by conventional standards.

They failed to look at me and my children to see their potential and head us in that direction.

I did not attend my highschool graduation... seeing then the pharse that it wall was at the time.

[Maia Gabrial]

I would have given anything to home school my kids, but I was raising 2 kids on my own.
Some of the best reasons are that the kids would get to learn more than public schools are willing to teach, their knowledge not rated and are unlimited as to what they can learn outside of the system.
But the biggie in my mind is that they don't have to be exposed to the mandatory vaccinations! Or the system trying to violate and override parents' rights..

[eileenrose]

My kids went to the magnet schools of Dallas Texas. You didnt get to go there unless the parents pushed the kids in. Applications required and projects completed for entry... that separated some of the wheat from the chaff... if parents didnt care then the kids didn't get to go.. Many parents in the low econonmic neighborhoods simply didnt care.

First they went to the Magnet school for the Arts.. then to the Magnet Montessori school. I thought they did a pretty good job. My son took 3 years of piano at montessori.. they had a whole classroom full of pianos.. and they got him through his learning glitch though special ed assessments and tutoring. He ended up getting A's in college even with a rocky highschool experience.. I think they both learned a lot in the Dallas magnet schools., but I did see some prejudice against by eldest son who was extremely good looking and a class leader personality wise... and he got to rest on his laurels for that... pretty pathethic eh? I felt that they did not demand enough of him. they did not push his edges. .. they did treat him like the token white boy that he was. On the other hand my boys, having gone to predominately black race schools, with black teachers, they haven't a racist iota of anything within them... but I felt I saw reverse racism towards them. They were coddled by the teachers and school

When we moved from there to a white neighborhood in Utah they got into snowboarding... and that may end up being their demise...they are still into it.. it is the focus of their life, at now ate 24 and 27, even with Universtiy degree... I dont know if they will ever do anything but have a good time... .. hmm. kinda what I did when I was their age.

The problem I saw was not the schools we selected but the social context of children that was there... the ghetto and gang mentality... learning was uncool.... pot at the neighborhood basketball courts... no passion for much of anything except brignt white new niki sneakers. Then the mental attitude of the snowboarders was not too much better. No drive but to fly through the air.

When I was in school they determined in highschool that I should be in business, not fine arts, nor academic. They really missed the boat on me. Art is what I am good at and when I figured that out on my own I got into one of the best art schools in NYS. I should have had advanced art tutoring all through High school but no one cared. The counselors were dimwitts and only went by test scores. Acedemically? Well I think I have excelled at that too, but not by conventional standards.

They failed to look at me and my children to see their potential and head us in that direction.

I did not attend my highschool graduation... seeing then the pharse that it wall was at the time.

There are several interesting points you bring up. The one that interest me the most is that your generally received an education, for your sons, that you felt fitted them and yet it never did (my words).

Perhaps the word education is the real issue. Perhaps we don't have anything they want. Which would mean we need to find out what they need and provide it. A more heart centered approach.

It isn't what the industrialist wants. But who cares (about them).

[Arrowwind]

[
Perhaps the word education is the real issue. Perhaps we don't have anything they want. Which would mean we need to find out what they need and provide it. A more heart centered approach.

It isn't what the industrialist wants. But who cares (about them).

Well, yes, finding out what a person wants when they are a child is the key but how to do that? I did not know that I was to be greatly interested in alternative medicine until I was much older and out of highschool . I only showed a moderate interest in biology at the time.

Sometimes I think that giving the children the basics is about the best you can do... reading, writing and math and to stimulate their creative functions.... and I think through the arts is crucial for many, which is severely lagging behind these days... Find those kids who do have an interest, any interest and work at developing it. Teach the others not what to explore but HOW to explore... learning how to find your way through life is just as important as developing what you may have already found.

[eileenrose]

Well....I do research in the ether. I don't have a description that fits as well as that (for this moment). And I found myself last evening wondering why (I was very deep under), about mathematics. Just an open ended question (why did we have to learn it).

What I got was they needed people like themselves, who could build buildings. Buildings can hold their slaves, their prisoners, their confiscated wealth. They taught math to prepare us to serve them. No matter what.

It is just a pre-text that it is for our own good (the higher math).

Now I realize you might think this came from my mind. It did not.

I was 'downloaded' this information. Do with as you will.

---
And if I sound down about it, it is because I fell for this myself (and wasted many long hours memorizing long equations for them....just I feel wounded...but so wounded I am traumatized by it...and hence, numb).

[TWINCANS]

I agree. There definitely is something about Math that feels sooooo wrong to me. (vs Arithmetic which I see as counting therefore necessary for being just a normal, capable person) Anything above Grade 8 is foolishness math imho. Takes the mind and twists it into a pretzel - for what end. Nothing useful.

But I love sacred geometry, ie the building blocks of creation energy. How petals on a flower form in spirals, How water cascades in waveforms. So the real Pythagorean geometry I find appealing to introduce. The power of each number. The geometric progression through the numbers 1-10. I think it is a shame we have lost so much of that understanding. He studied for 27 years as a priest in the traditional Egyption Mystery Schools before he left and began to teach. No wonder he was destroyed by the ptb of his time. Dangerous stuff - creation math.

[eileenrose]

Interesting article on Native Tribes in America....still more facts to be learnt (I feel, sometimes, we know nothing of our heritage...or anyone's else's for that matter....lost to time and fabrications/outright lies).

We can start each other and our children by supporting the truth...to the best of our knowledge and just tell those supposed history teachers, when they complain, that they are just plain wrong. And that is that.

From What Really Happened today:

6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About The Founding of America

http://www.cracked.com/article_19864_6-ridiculous-lies-you-believe-about-founding-america.html

snip

The Truth:

There's a pretty important detail our movies and textbooks left out of the handoff from Native Americans to white European settlers: It begins in the immediate aftermath of a full-blown apocalypse. In the decades between Columbus' discovery of America and the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, the most devastating plague in human history raced up the East Coast of America. Just two years before the pilgrims started the tape recorder on New England's written history, the plague wiped out about 96 percent of the Indians in Massachusetts.

In the years before the plague turned America into The Stand, a sailor named Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed up the East Coast and described it as "densely populated" and so "smoky with Indian bonfires" that you could smell them burning hundreds of miles out at sea. Using your history books to understand what America was like in the 100 years after Columbus landed there is like trying to understand what modern day Manhattan is like based on the post-apocalyptic scenes from I Am Legend.

end snip

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

Math is just the tool to build a model of the world known to mankind. As every tool it can be missused. You can calculate how many plants you need to grow to feed your family and friends or you can calculate how to set price on that plants to sneakily enslave farmers in debt. You can also teach math in a way completly detached from the real world. Making it a painfor children to learn and handicaping them for life. Fortunately it is possible to live happy life without math :)

[eileenrose]

New Article out today on Rense

Title: "Let the Children Play: Societal Constraints Reduce Freedom and Produce Suppressed Automotons"

Link: http://occupycorporatism.com/let-the-children-play-societal-constraints-reduce-freedom-and-produce-suppressed-automotons/ (http://occupycorporatism.com/let-the-children-play-societal-constraints-reduce-freedom-and-produce-suppressed-automotons/)

Snip

Earlier this month a mother in Houston, Texas was arrested Tammy Cooper for “child endangerment” when local police accused her of abandoning her children who were riding scooters in the street at the end of a cul de sac. Cooper explained in her complaint that she “often allows her 6- and 9-year-old children to ride their scooters on the street while she watches from a chair in the driveway or through the large windows on the front of her house.”

A neighbor reported Cooper to the La Porte Police Department, claiming Cooper had “abandoned” her children to play in the street. Cooper, whose husband was stationed out of town due to military service, was arrested in front of her children who were mortified by the experience.

After Cooper was arrested, her children were interrogated by Child Protective Services (CPS) who found no cause for the arrest and had the charges dropped.

A Virginia mother was interrogated multiple times by local police for allowing her children to play in their own yard unsupervised. Again, a neighbor decided to report the mother; which caused unnecessary trauma to the children and mother.

A mother in Portland allowed her child to play in a mud puddle in front of her home and was shocked to see her child surrounded by 3 local policemen who were interrogating the child as to where his parents were and why he was playing outside in the rain. When the mother confronted the police, they advised her not to allow her child to play in a puddle because it could be dangerous. Mortified, the mother questioned why the police was surrounding her small child. The police threatened to arrest her if they caught the child outside playing in the rain again.

Parents who allow their children to play outside, walk to school or the local grocery store are being accused by the Stasi-neighbors who report those parents as being neglectful or abusive. CPS then intervenes in these families’ lives and cause problems that need not occur.

end snip

[eileenrose]

The second part of this article talks about reduced creativity results when children are controlled in this manner.

These are US citizens reporting on their neighbors (the third part of this article....perhaps the most terrifying part).

So soooo slowly we don't notice, we lose rights. Wonder what happens when the sleeping giant (the US population) awakes from it's self induced sleep (as I feel we are choosing to be victims.....now....as the internet is here now and people can see what is really happening....if they choose too). Probably won't be pretty....whatever happens next (as it seems to go only one direction....down, down, and further down....the spiral down into fascism). Looks more and more like 'Brave New World' really was about us.

[Robert J. Niewiadomski]

OMG! :faint:

Where is your ACLU? Wonder if it is possible to trace the ratter and then have some polite (i really mean it. Polite :) ) talk...

Maybe it is possible to obtain a statement from the physician that it is OK for particular kid to play outside. Or put a fancy pin button on kids cloths saying: I am not abandoned. My parents are nearby and my doctor says it is OK to play outside.
Or something like that with similar meaning.

WDYT?

[Zelig]

When my daughter was 4 years old, she had the option of attending junior kindergarten. I was unemployed at the time and caring for her while her mother worked but her mother wanted her enrolled so that I could find work. I didn't want to, but agreed to try it out for a day to see if she was going to like it. I sat in on the class as they did their thing and one of their tasks was to draw and colour a picture. The teacher walked about the room critiquing each kid's work and stopped abruptly at my daughter. In a condescending tone, she advised my smiling, proud daughter that the sky is not purple and that she needs to correct her mistake. I took her home and waited until the following September to surrender her to that machine. She is now 16 years old and has been thoroughly brainwashed, recently expressing a desire to get a job so that she can get an iphone. When I asked what on earth she needs an iphone for, she replied that there is a reallly cool game that you can only play on it.

I only realized in recent years what is going on with the world and regret not knowing before allowing my kids to be indoctrinated.

[eileenrose]

I wouldn't worry about how indoctrinated your children are (anyone, Zelig).

You know now. We didn't know then. Now we do. Now we just need to keep educating one another to not go asleep again and lose this information. Let's see if we can save the rest (of the children) first. Worry ...later. No time now.

No rest for the wicked (as it seems we all have been deluded into thinking we were helping children and not just generating more little video playing robots....how it feels sometimes).

[Maia Gabrial]

"Hunger Games" comes to mind.... kids killing kids for food.

[eileenrose]

Article I found today on Rense

Title: "Government Sponsored Mind Control In America: The Teen Screen Scam"

Link: http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2012/10/06/government-sponsored-mind-control-in-america-the-teen-screen-scam/

snip


Through the former President, George Bush, and the current President, Barack Obama, the government has unleashed a modern day version of the mind control police in America by attacking the psychological well-being of America’s school children and veterans by forcibly incarcerating veterans who are not drinking from the globalists’ Kool-Aid.

On the surface, screening the mental health of children for suicidal tendencies is a noble idea worth pursuing. Yet, when the screening is mandated by the President of the United States and is done without the knowledge and consent of the parents of the children being tested, an eyebrow should be raised. When children, under this program can only be medicated with the most expensive psychiatric drugs which contain 2 to 20 times higher suicide rates and are contraindicated for use by children, all of America should begin to dismantle this unholy marriage of the Police State and the pharmaceutical fraudsters that first, former President Bush, and now President Obama, is trying to force down the throats of America’s children and its latest set of victims, American veterans!

There is an ongoing battle for the psychological health and welfare of America’s children and eventually all Americans, under the New Freedoms Commission (NFC), as it is the eventual intent to screen and treat, with mind numbing drug, all Americans for mental illness by using criteria designed to elicit false positives.

end snip

[eileenrose]

A Full length feature just got put out (got this off What REally happened.com today)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujuDvwSOFto

The War on Kids (1 hr 36 minutes)

Riveting! (i'll have more to say tomorrow...still watching this full length feature ...vs. the short trailer I posted initially)

[eileenrose]

ARticle out today

Title: "Slaves"

Dr. Eugene Narrett, Ph.D
November 3, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

snip


More and more things are compulsory: the term “mandate” defines the modern State. It ‘educates’ (bores, disables, indoctrinates, conditions and manages) our children. It takes our children from us and makes us pay for this kidnapping and ruin of our seed. We pay for this atrocity with property taxes for who ‘cares’ more for our children that school ‘teachers’? Heaven spare us from the multiplying cadres of ‘care givers.’ Kidnapping under color of law, in divorce, public schools, in crippling taxes and regulations that make you dance for the ‘gift’ of a few constitutional rights, that is the nature of the ‘freedoms’ that “our brave men and women in uniform,” that lethal phrase the tools of the power matrix beat into our minds, are ‘protecting.’

end snip

link: http://www.newswithviews.com/Narrett/eugene182.htm