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- laudyms, on 10/12/2007, -8/+85Critical thinking and learning how-to-learn are not valued by school systems They do their best to take the joy out of curiosity and to make domestic animals out of thinking beings. A society in confusion justifies the police, the lack of organized resistance leaves the elite free to siphon off vast profits without the costs of heavy handed repression. Go watch American Idol and forget about it.
- aukxsona, on 10/12/2007, -5/+67Wanna know the scary thing, they are thinking about making school last until 4pm and 5pm in some parts. When do the kids play? Do kids play anymore? I have heard of "Nature deficiency disorder" , how odd is that?
Personally as a homeschooling mom, my kids do ok. They study on their own and teach themselves for the most part. They play with dirt, sticks, twigs, and about anything you can find. My eldest daughter doesn't ask for new clothes until her old ones have holes. They have collected eggs for dinner, killed and cleaned dinner, and cooked dinner...not to mention done the dishes after dinner. They have shopped for and grown their own dinner. My eldest has sewn her younger siblings T-shirts before. They have raised money for poor kids to have live stock, been members of 4-H, have done ballet and gymnastics. But they have also had lazy after noon days to decipher the clouds and what they really look like. They have been able to stay up until 4 am to help me with my home business, and slept until noon on a rainy day with out needing to worry about a note.
My kids understand being self employed is the only way to ensure you stay employed and that being an employee may guarantee a pay regular from week to week...but it also leaves you at the mercy of others for your family life. They know that my business is the reason they can go to special events in town, because if I worked a "regular" job I couldn't just schedule around our special time. They focus on the basics, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Anything beyond that is just pleasure, which by the way my eldest is a history nut, my second eldest love Life Science, My third loves dance, music, and art, my youngest daughter loves to do what ever her big sister is doing.
They do indeed LOVE to spy on mom and dad's plans. Yule is a nightmare, they know all the good hiding spots! Ostra is great...the egg hunt lasts maybe 5 minutes on 10 acres. It's like a foot race with prizes for the fastest, and most adapted runner.
I feel sorry for kids today, shuffled around from place to place, with no sense of history or future. No ideas of what a life outside the concrete Jail For Kids. I do feel sorry for them so much. Life is so much more than that and educating a youth is simple since they thirst for knowledge. If elders know how to do it...they will ask to learn. A parent need only be patient enough to teach and the child will develop mental skills far more superb to their peers.Did Galileo or Newton attend such contorted versions of jail called "elementary school"? Did it even resemble the nightmare we have to day? Yet all our best thinkers occurred BEFORE such a torturous system. If you love your kids, keep them out of school. they will learn more by living life. - ace2cloud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28Individuality and creativity suppressed, conformity and obedience preached.
Welcome to America. - hoppdawg, on 10/12/2007, -12/+37
The US needs a voucher system. $7500 on the head of every kid and the parents choose where to send them. Entrepreneurs will open up new schools that parents want to send their kids too and the public schools will start changing their ways so every child doesn't leave them and the unionized teachers are out of a job.
Just like when the US post office said it was impossible for overnight delivery, then Fedex, UPS, et al, proved those bureaucrats wrong. - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto covers the compulsory schooling problem extremely well.
- aukxsona, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21No, home school curriculum in MY state didn't have to meet any standards. I was tested periodically, and always scored in the 90th percentiles, but they never gave my mom books, or prescribed courses of study. Nor did my mother use "systems" sold to the vast majority of home schoolers now. I grew up wild dude. However, I had a lot of interaction with other children after their school days of course, on the local play ground where I went alone, at the store where I also went and shopped alone at 5, and at church where I also went alone via the "church bus".
College is interesting. Most of the kids can't read and pronounce their words properly, a lot are rude and immature, and some I am not sure HOW they got their or continue to pass. I get along fine with all people, and have a few friends. I actually make friends fast...ya kinda have to in my situation. I'm very out going, when I need to be, but I am just as happy to sit at the back of the room and "blend". - fireball74, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20@aukxsona:
I admire you. I wish my parents didn't send me to what was my 12 year boredom hell on earth. I really only learned that the teachers taught to the mediocre and not to the highest denominator. That being said, they only expect maybe 1% of the class to do anything useful to society, the rest are drones.
Todays schools just don't cut it anymore. I want my future kids to question me and my future wife about life, love, happiness, and everything. Above all else, I want them to be who they are. - jeffiek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18His book "The Underground History of American Education" is free, online at:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
I highly recommend it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17One could go back as far as the 1920's to see where the teachers get the playbook that they operate out of. John Dewey still has an influence in education today. I believe the name of the book is "Democracy and Education."
- apolloandi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18i would read the whole article but the laguna beach marathon is about to start
- HotGore, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17It is sad to see students who have no idea of what the future is, they only think in terms of the now. The majority of students in my school have no idea what they want to do in the future, but they all want to go to university because they have been told to go there. I have always believe schools have been a great waste of money.
- misterjangles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14School is like everything else - you can get a lot out of it if you use the opportunity to utilize their expensive equipment, make great connections, learn from smart people, etc. Even just going there to party can be ok because you might make some great friends that will wind up being business connections.
But you can also easily go through school, get good grades, graduate and not really get anything out of it.
Unfortunately most people (myself included) don't figure this out until we're already out of school! - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16"You are correct. Gene Zimmer is a Scientologist and has been linked to spreading their propoganda in more than one instance."
Just to clarify here. Gene Zimmer runs the site that is hosting this essay. The essay is written by John Taylor Gatto. To make this essay guilty by association is spurious thinking. - TemplarCrosland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13The idea that a Liberal Arts secondary education, as being a waste of money is sad to hear voiced. The Greek fathers of liberal arts education, who are know among the most respected learned men in history would cringe at that thought. I majored in Medieval History and minored in Art History and though do not yet use my degree and may never, I still find it the most defining thing in my life outside of marriage. It molded me into who I am today and influences many of my decisions.
- dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Most of you fail to understand the implications of Gotto's work. It is more nefarious than you think. The idea is not to turn people into drones or cause them to lose all individuality. The idea is to make them loyal to the system and the government. This is what the Prussians did in Germany to homogenize the Germans. They had localized loyalties before the Germans established a national education system. The purpose is to make them faithful to one government rather than having their independent loyalties. In Gotto's research he uncovers our National model for education was done this way on purpose. It was done to homogenize the culture. We are not talking about individual teachers. Teachers are not aware of this...even most administrators are not aware of this. This was done by administrators, corporate industry leaders, and politicians over 100 years ago. They put the structure in place in an attempt to follow the Prussian model and convert the loyalties of all the immigrants into a single American culture. American's in earlier times were more diverse and power was less centralized in DC. The South in particular still had a strong belief in "State's Rights". This was done to harness the power of all Americans into the hands of the few. To make them believe in and support a top down power structure rather than a bottom up power structure. Over the years American's have become less and less involved in local politics and more power has been given up the chain. The state's have become more powerful at the expense of local governance. The US federal government has become more powerful at the expense of the states. This is the trend of the US. Rather than solving problems at the local level American's look for a "Great" political leader to save them from life's ills. Where earlier American's distrusted political power, today's American's embrace political power. The growing poor in the US feel a sense of helplessness because the lack of resources at the local political levels have rendered them incapable of providing much help. Politicians at the State and Federal levels are too far removed from them to address their concerns. The poor have no access to the highest levels of power. This trend will continue. Some education may indeed happen in public schools...but that is not there purpose. That is not how and why they were designed. They are designed to establish conformity of thinking. To churn out loyal subjects who believe in America's political system. The design has been a complete success. The only problem with it is...where did it bring the Germans? They became increasingly militaristic until they got so full of themselves and overstretched their abilities and the whole thing came crashing down on their heads. Over the last 100 years has the US become more militaristic. Anybody who answers no...is clearly a moron. I would recommend to everyone...read Gottos free online book at his website. Read Milton Mayer's book They thought they were free. Homeschool....Homeschool....Homeschool
- ISIfunded911, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Scientologists are mentally ill so they are particularly afraid of psychiatry. But psychiatry has been so corrupted by the drugs industry that some of their criticisms of psychiatry are bound to be right. And John Taylor Gatto has been voted the best teacher in NYC twice, but it is possible that scientologists use his criticism of the school system to justify home schooling by scientologists, and to attract people dissatisfied by school.
- LavaHot, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14Yes, that is exactly what college is like. I've learned to make best friends with my good pal Irony. He doesn't judge me, only giggles in the corner while I contradict myself. You sound like you have a reasonable head on your shoulders, and seem well adjusted. The problem with kids now days is that they can't pry themselves away from their gameboy long enough to care about their schoolwork (regretfully, myself included).
There is something in your post that my good friend Irony pointed out to me, you used the wrong "their." It should be, "how they got there." Now, it may just be me, but I've been able to make the distinction between them for a very, very long time, but I run into people everyday at school who don't know the difference. - DrivingVertigo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13You are correct. Gene Zimmer is a Scientologist and has been linked to spreading their propoganda in more than one instance. Take the information in caution. It is true that schools are designed to maintain complacency in children to adulthood and they need change. Take the editorial with a grain of slat.
- CoryTrevor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Everyone I know who has become a teacher has genuinely wanted to teach kids to be better people. Especially my younger cousin. He was disgusted with the what he was seeing and decided to get involved. He tries to be a role model for the dumb asses and encourage the creative ones. I hope he succeeds.
- mattxb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Most children will always think in terms of the now, or the immediate reward, and unfortunately for a lot of lowerclass children, the rewards for academic excellence are outweighed by the fact that by trying hard in school, they end up ostracized from their peers. What children are really learning in schools is how to act around each other, and creativity and free thinking will be more hindered by an environment of kids hostile to intellectualism than by any curriculum.
Personally, I think Americas focus on money and consumerism is the real root of our lack of creativity and ingenuity. I don't know where it started, but everyone has the idea that you should be either making money or spending it. We are taught that if you can't make money as an artist, don't waste your time drawing. If you can't get a record label, don't play guitar, go buy a "professional" musicians CD. You're not Einstein, don't think about the universe, leave it to the pros. If your ideas aren't making you famous, whats the point of having them? So most people I know who are artists and free thinkers at a young age wrap their creativity with dreams of commercial success and recognition, and if those dreams don't come to fruition then they abandon their former creative life.
We forget that taking interest in our own ideas is not an ends to a means, but a crucial (and much overlooked) aspect of freedom. - dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The US is on increasingly Shaky ground. The US has followed the same trend line as alll imperial powers before it. US power reached it's peak in the 90s. The good thing about being an imperial power is the increased economic benefits from controlling the world's economy. The bad thing about being an imperial power is the misallocation of resources as arrogance and hubris takes over. When the fall comes...it comes hard and fast. American's are not a self sufficient breed anymore. The beginning of the fall is becoming apparant in the markets. Commodity prices are flucuated wildly. Gold is going up...up...up. India and China are fastly becoming the world's great industrial nations. Nations don't always increase their power...things don't always get better. It seems that way being an American but History is a cruel teacher and America's days are numbered. We took the mantle of world leader from the British after WW1 and WW2. How will India and China take the mantle from the American's? I suspect it will be from a long drawn out war in the middle east.
- BNoelstein, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10It would be nice if people didn't blame the school system for their inadequacies.
Moving on, however, let's talk about what kind of system we as a society subscribe to. Bitching about how bad the schools are isn't going to get us anywhere, because there are always people out there that are going to challenge the notion that the schools are the problem, and say, "Hmmph, I did fine, how am I any different from everyone else?" And that's just the point. Are we socialists? Do we really believe that a society can sustain wealth across all classes? I'm not talking about every citizen in America living the relatively comfortable, bourgeois life (though that would still be a stretch with the state our economy is in). We have this notion that we're all brought up to believe, that anyone and everyone can achieve the American dream, that America is a meritocracy, that everyone is born equal. Well open your eyes people, this is NOT the case. Public schools are merely a reflection of the social inequalities present today. They are NOT the cause.
But back to socialism. Think about this. Are we not a capitalist society? Do we not promote competition, and a punishment/reward system? If this is the case, then how on earth can every man, woman, and child in America hold the same value to society? For those bitching about illegal immigrants - hey people, we NEED a labor class. For those bitching about outsourcing to third world countries - hey people WE NEED A LABOR CLASS. Where would you get your digg from, if there was no labor class to produce it? Would you go through all of the trouble yourself? From mining the silicon, to exposing yourself to dangerous chemicals to manufacture the IC, to soldering every single component on the motherboard, to manufacturing the plastic casing, etc. I think not.
The point is that we should not be viewing the public education system as an evil entity that is causing social strife. I know, I know, kids are sorted in school, with the cream rising to the top, the average students chugging along, and the slow ones just getting further and further behind. But there are other reasons, much more substantiated reasons, for poor school performance than just "an education system that is dumbing us down." Just drive to a neighborhood where the residents really are living paycheck to paycheck, with nary a dime to spare at the end of the month. Take a look at the ethnic/racial diversity in these neighborhoods. Then tell me that this situation is a product of the public education system. Tell me that these people are the instruments of scientific management.
Schools are not the problem; rich white people, corporations, and politicians are the problem. By the way, I am white, so don't come down on me with any racist, against the man bull crap.
Oh and by the way, if you're a yuppie from the suburbs, don't forget to lock your door when you go through the scary neighborhoods. The rumors are true - they WILL pop a cap in yo ass. - LavaHot, on 10/12/2007, -29/+38OH please! Growing up, I was praised by my teachers for having great critical thinking skills, and always encouraged to use them. This coming from a school district where you'd be lucky to survive middle school, let alone go unraped in high school. Then I moved to Reno. I noticed a greater difference between good teachers and bad teachers, along with what I can only describe as "fatigue." Sure, I wasn't gonna get my head blown off, but I wasn't being blown away either (or blown for that matter). It's all in who teaches.
For instance, I had a great music teacher in my junior year of high school. He was an elderly southern gentleman from the Great State of Georgia that just took an immense pride in his work. That's not to say that I didn't notice his "fatigue," but it was all worth it to him. When he died in the first few weeks of my senior year, it destroyed me. Along with several other select students, I performed at his funeral. Months later, I had to console a classmate who started crying out of the blue about how much she missed "Doc." I miss him too. I still do.
The point is, we are all a product of the US education system. Are you honestly telling me that you are not an individual? Did no teacher inspire you to do something that made you feel like you accomplished something? If this is true, and you're just the leavings of a cookie cutter system, then do something about it. Write your congressman, run for the school board, do something to make your opinions matter and change the system for the better. Don't complain that the system is keeping you down when you have the power as an individual to effect change to the system itself. - aukxsona, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12@LavaHot
Sorry I'm not a product of the system. I was home taught for most of my primary years, and then self taught for the latter part. I never received a High School Diploma until age 23, but it came with a scholarship to college. All I had to do was take a test. - torvalds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You've had an interesting experience no doubt, but I don't see any evidence for your claim to being a "free thinker" anywhere in your life story. You stress very much your money-making-capability, a very main-stream ideal, which you seem to be very proud of. And this you have applied in a typical pioneering field, so fresh that the schools themselves wouldn't presume to be able to provide the special knowledge needed to succeed.
It seems rather that you have had the luck to live in a time and a place where your special abilities and interests could be exploited with financial rewards as the result.
This raises another point however. The speech was held in 1990, when the full force of the dot-com-economy hadn't yet set in, and the Internet was still in its infancy. I guess the speech would have to be rewritten to take into account the impact of the Internet and cheap consumer technology. Now that we are all "persons of the year", the image of teenagers slumping in front of the TV-set with glazed eyes would have to be revised. The dot-com economy has highlighted further short-comings of the school system. The gap between what kind of competence the businesses demand and what the schools have to offer has become more obvious. - aukxsona, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10LOL...I haven't slept for 36 hours...can you allow room for errors due to this fact?
- jgamboa, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10according to the Whois, it is from Clearwater, Florida.
International Home of Scientology. - meson537, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9hey man its late, give us a break
- r©ain, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Now more than ever the education system is a regimen of brainwashing and behavior enforcement than a system to instill knowledge. Our educational system has never been about knowledge, don't believe me? Read some Mark Twain, he made numerous comments on what he thought of our educational system.
I am just glad I ignored what everyone told me, I never allowed myself to become conditioned to the thinking they wanted me to accept. I was always told I would be a failure, wind up in jail, a bum, a degenerate and countless other "scary stories" to try to make me believe them. Why? Because I never bought into the system and saw it for the joke it was.
Instead, I gave the stiff middle finger and left, never even graduating highschool.
What did I get in exchange? I got to party and live life to the fullest while everyone else was putting themselves into debt with student loans getting degrees in fields they weren't even that excited about. And then when they got the degrees, they struggled to get jobs they didn't really care for.
When I was 20, I smoked weed at cafes and got hired by big name game corps based on my sheer talent and laid back approach. Now in my early 30's I do dot com architecture/development and make about a quarter million per year. I've been steadily working on plans to start making 7 figures and really just leave the need for building other peoples stuff behind completely and build my own things and attain real wealth, not just money.
Could I have ever learned this in school?
Hell no.
I'm a free thinker. And it's my experience there are very few of us.
And in the future, there will be even less. Because it's not just the educational system.
It's the entirety of society enforcing a narrow reality tunnel upon young impressionable minds telling them the only way to get by is by following the "rules".
I don't think homeschooling is the answer.
It creates freaky loner children who are not socialized and who do not have the ability to meet as many people in their early years. Playtime is very important, the brainwashed adults these days focused on their 60 hour work weeks for a 46k per year salary have all but forgotten about dreams and playtime and instead focus on turning their little babies into more efficient copies of themselves. This is evidenced by the frequent attempts to eliminate or reduce recess, remove summer vacation, jailing children for rowdy/reckless behavior. It does seem these days that we've forgotten that kids will be kids and we need to hold them to adult standards. We wont listen because we "know" better and we always do the right thing because we're always "thinking of the children". And the more we do this, the more they will lash back at us.
And we all know where that will lead us. A nation of socially ***** up psychopaths.
So expect more Columbines, expect the overall intelligence quotia of the Country to decline and expect to see greater apathy across the board.
Enjoy. - DonCarcharo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm a former college instructor (had a five year run). I quit because I wanted to help the students learn, I wanted to help shape them into better people, but the truth is, above all else, the college just wanted their money. As teachers we were "encouraged" to dumb down our material to accommodate slow learners, to make classes fun instead of progressive and to keep students occupied instead of challenging them.
Now I just taught design at one college so certainly my experience doesn't reflect the entire industry but it was disheartening to see how many teachers bowed down to this. Every other person in the department had students designing movie posters, CD and DVD covers, video game boxes & science fiction collages while I was focused on more concrete projects such as ad, logo and brochure design. I wanted to introduce the students to things they would likely get to work on as a typical designer. But it was just easier for most to keep them entertained.
Hopefully my experience was atypical but I have a feeling it wasn't. And that's a shame. - CardinalBiggles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I have "that" uncle.. And his kids are/were home-schooled.
Back on topic, the following lines in Gatto's speech seem like an accurate depiction of everyone I know in my age group (early 20's):
"1. The children I teach are indifferent to the adult world. This defies the experience of thousands of years. A close study of what big people were up to was always the most exciting occupation of youth, but nobody wants children to grow up these days, least of all the children: and who can blame them? Toys are us.
"2. The children I teach have almost no curiosity, and what little they do have is transitory. They cannot concentrate for very long, even on things they choose to do. Can you see a connection between the bells ringing again and again to change classes and this phenomenon of evanescent attention?
"3. The children I teach have a poor sense of the future, of how tomorrow is inextricably linked to today. As I said before, they live in a continuous present, the exact moment they are in is the boundary of their consciousness.
"4. The children I teach are ahistorical; they have no sense of how the past has predestinated their own present, limiting their choices, shaping their values and lives.
"5. The children I teach are cruel to each other; they lack compassion for misfortune; they laugh at weakness: they have contempt for people whose need for help shows too plainly.
"6. The children I teach are uneasy with intimacy or candor. They cannot deal with genuine intimacy because of a lifelong habit of preserving a secret inner self inside a larger outer personality made up of artificial bits and pieces of behavior borrowed from television or acquired to manipulate teachers. Because they are not who they represent themselves to be, the disguise wears thin in the presence of intimacy; so intimate relationships have to be avoided.
"7. The children I teach are materialistic, following the lead of schoolteachers who materialistically "grade everything' and television mentors who offer everything in the world for sale.
"8. The children I teach are dependent, passive, and timid in the presence of new challenges. This timidity is frequently masked by surface bravado, or by anger or aggressiveness, but underneath is a vacuum without fortitude." - Ardie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7There is nothing wrong with home schooling--there is, however, something wrong with running a punitive educational system that teaches to the test.
- aukxsona, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7What kind of whacked out motives?
Mine are so my kids can learn from life in general....and because I honestly don't understand how any body learns in school.
I have seen a few "nuts", but that's what makes it flavorful. I mean everyone has "that" uncle.... - AlexApetrei, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9America (or rather the USA), like communism, is based on some very good ideas which are poorly interpreted by those who are supposed to apply them.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Maybe I'm just cynical, but has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe most people really are just sheep, and that it's part of human nature? So many people just don't care about getting an education, and I find it difficult to believe that it's all the schools' fault. I mean, what about the stigma against actually learning anything while in school? Only geeks and nerds actually pay attention and study. As for myself, I went to public schools, and I turned out alright, though I do admit I spent a fair amount of time reading when I should've been paying attention to the lecture.
- williamdyer, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9If you had been homeschooled you would have been taught those things and more, at the fastest pace you could reasonably retain knowledge.
Schools produce American idiots. They should be shut down for that crime. - Snoopsor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I've had a very nontraditional upbringing... A week after I started school at the age of 5, I refused to go anymore. Obviously that made things very difficult with my parents...In the end they decided to try home schooling. It was a very nontraditional form of home schooling, as in, I didn't follow any books or have set times to learn. I spent my time playing with Lego's - making some very cool things in the process, building electronic circuit boards, even though I couldn't read or write at that time, listening to many audio books (I don't listen to these anymore, but upon reflection, maybe I should), doing some math work with my mum (she was amazing and really gave me a lot to work with), and really, the thing I did the most was think. Hours upon hours of thinking, I remember I use to roller blade around the block for hours thinking about this and that, without much care in the world.
I didn't really learn to read or write until I was 11-12. This was fine, as it never stopped me from thinking or doing things which I felt were important to me. I was 13 when I started high school - it was my decision and felt like the right thing to do. The amount of social interaction, and immaturity was really astounding... These teenagers were making insulting one another, trying to hurt the others feelings, lying, cheating...The whole thing came as quite a shock. Many people have the idea that home schooling means very little social interaction with children around the same age, and while I fit into that category, I don't consider it a negative, after comparing both sides. I didn't learn many valuable things at school...Not many things have stuck with me. I leaped ahead in computing classes, and electronics, and ended up leaving school 2 years early to go to a technical college focusing on software engineering.
If there's one important thing school taught me I think it was the harsh reality of how horrible, manipulative, and pity so many people are. It helped build up a shell to not to hurt by others.
The technical college I was at taught me some great principles, and I really value and thank them for it.
Here I am now working in a job developing websites in cold fusion, and writing desktop applications in c#.net (which I got not because of my c# training, but because I made websites as a hobby, since it was something fun and enjoyable). It's taken me a year of solid work to realise that this type of job, leaves me ultimately unfulfilled as a human being. I strive for far greater things, yet feel stuck, not sure how to get to the next stage. I've learned knowing how to write programs is a skill I love, but, that's all it is; a skill, nothing more. It's what you do with that skill which really makes the worlds of differences. Not being happy with writing mundane things, for a corporate entity, where the same product as been made a million times before me, just leaves me with a bitter taste, and a deep desire to break free, and follow my heart. What I want to do more than anything is use the skills I have now, and create the things I dream about. Things which don't really have a commercial market, but can really benefit people in the present and future.
The whole point of this life story is for the purpose of showing the difficulties of someone who isn't a "happy little drone" in a world made for happy little drones. - aukxsona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I disagree with your assessment of home schooled children, however; what then do you propose? You are obviously talented, so instead of telling us what won't work and saying ***** the system like so many do...how about you enlighten us as to the "better" approach? Because some of us are cradling the next generation and would want to go about the best method.
It's nice you had the talent and all the right pieces in place to have such an amazing dream-come-true opportunity. Most of us won't have that even if we do abstain from school and have talent swimming out of our ears...as I did in many areas.
So while you are perhaps an exception to the regular Joes, you should entertain the idea that perhaps you are an anomaly to even the "exceptional", or as my friend used to say the Top 2%, of the Top 2%. - UrbanVoyeur, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Let's just start with basics. When the we can effectively teach kids to read, do basic math, write more than their name and understand simple scientific concepts THEN I'll worry about all this freedom of ideas stuff.
Heck, I'll just settle of teaching them to read.
I used to teach at a public high school in NYC. Our kids CANNOT READ. Most of the kids in the 9th grade where i taught were functionally illiterate.
All this elitist talk about freedom of idea and self discovery is meaningless student lack the most basic of skills. - vhold, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Well, I think that it's a major part of the point here that compulsory education has lead to the situation where people don't care about education, which makes sense to me. How can you recognize the benefits of something you have no choice in? Kids just know they are forced to go to school and most know they don't like it.
Without being put out into the real world and being challenged by it, they have no concept of how school could help them. - LGgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5it has become a re-education system. independent thinking is not allowed, only regurgitation of what the teachers think you need to know and more importantly , believe.
- dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I would like to point out that John Tayor Gotto's book is not just opinion. He has detailed research that shows how public education was modeled off the German system approx. 100 years ago. This is the system that is still in place today. There has been a few changes at the edges. Results may vary with different administrators and teachers...but the core of the sytem was not designed for the students interests. It was not designed for the best possible educational experience. It was indeed designed to consolidate power and make the vast majority of American's more maleable for our polical leaders.
- ISIfunded911, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You can also do a search in emule for John Taylor Gatto
You will find lots of great audio interviews, and a fascinating video documentary in which you will see how he teaches. - AKBryant54, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5what? what are you talking about?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8By NUTS he means the ignorant, flat-earth theists training up an army of psychotic, pschopathic christian warriors.
Exactly the same type of NUT i think of when I hear "home school". Im sure, by and large, if your educated and or informed enough to consider the the ills of public education -- and have the faculties to do better yourself -- your financially capable enough to pay for private school. Or live in an area with a quality public school.
Mostly this is not the case. Mostly its flat-earth psychopaths, building intellectual cripples. Undereducated themselves, these NUTS have a single priority: build a god fearing disciple. They dont care about education, they're just waiting for the rapture anyway.
Show me some stats that say Im wrong -- I'd love to see them. - amoirae, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6What is even sadder than this reality is those who would vehemently deny it out a perverse sense of national pride.
- vhold, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Does anything back up this common claim that home schooled children are freaky outcasts? I've never seen anybody back this up, not even with an anecdote. (Which, would be lame by the way, if an anecdote is all they have to make such a strong claim)
It would be quite understandable that they would have a hard time making friends their own age if they tend to have such better educations and have also spent -far- more time interacting in the adult world. Ever seen a smart kid dumb himself down to fit in? It's pretty common, and not exactly very nurturing of intelligence or creativity. - jeffiek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@UrbanVoyeur
"Our kids CANNOT READ."
Try going here: http://www.sudval.org/
Their setup is entirely different from the public schools and they don't have any problem teaching kids to read. Kids WANT to learn to read. They love books, at least when they're three. But then something happens and that inborn curiosity dwindles. I think they call it school. - AlexApetrei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@misterjangles
So true, it is unfortunate that people get caught up in the popularity game or the must get good grades game and forget about the essentials. You are in school to gain knowledge about the means to sustain yourself, be it within the society you are integrated in or an alternative of your own choosing.
It is very sad that sometimes people lack the self awareness to look past a bad report or a stupid teacher and focus on themselves and what they want to do.
I am of the belief that any information is good information , provided that you can interpret it in a manner that is useful to you. - dotorg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4For those not familiar with Montessori schools, do some searching and read up on them.
There are people who have seen this problem for the better part of a century and have been doing something about it. Montessori is probably the best example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori -
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