Wednesday's thought for the day was:

One does not advance the swimming abilities of ducks by throwing the eggs in the water. -Multatuli (pen name of Eduard Douwes Dekker), novelist (1820-1887)

As I did not get he full meaning of this saying coming from one of the few Dutch writers/philosophers of some importance; with the help of some friends I tried to find the source of the quote. We did and I translated this fragment from the context best as I could:


" May no one find a contradiction in my statement that we should leave it to Nature to decide what the thinking capacities of a child can work out.
Exactly because thinking must be learned we should not by producing untimely unwanted impressions (today's information flood?) dull or numb the sensibility for this learning.
One does not advance the swimming abilities of ducks by throwing the eggs in the water. There must have been hatching. This hatching task is taken on by faithfull mother hen Nature.
Maybe this whole prescription [] would not have been needed, if in our schools..... we had not been thrown into the pond like eggs.
Who after all this still does not believe that to our Education system something is lacking, take a try to find a fitting answer. "

One does not advance.-- But I gave it a thought for the weekend.

I took it as meaning that you cannot teach someone who is not developmentally ready to learn that skill
.

Much better than what I thought. I thought:
'Why would ducks who are already big enough to lay eggs have to advance their swimming abilities?'
And why throw their eggs in the water? Good logic thinking.

we should leave it to Nature to decide what the thinking capacities of a child can work out. Does this refer to Walden schools, do you know?

Walden schools is new to me. I do know that Montessori education
basically puts into practice this idea of the the self-directing child, who chooses freely what part of knowledge-ability it is up to. Both my sons had the Montessori elementary school and got their masters well enough.
(Montessori put into practice the musings about education of
Rousseau: Émile ou de l'Éducation. ( Emile or about Education?) Quite a good book to read, quite entertaining.)

Walden?

Montessori

Well, of course I couldn't find a link that really explains Walden schools! From what I've been told (read: this could well be incorrect), the idea behind them is to let kids study what they want to, the theory being that if they're interested in a subject they'll learn it better. I have been told by a parent who investigated one here in town (as a prospect for her child) that they make no attempt to teach children to read until fourth grade or about nine years old. [shaking head in disapproval e]