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#3532 11/11/01 11:50 PM
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Here's a remarkable link to education that is live, well, and kicking in New York, if you have a bit of time on your hands to read through it:

http://www.essentialschools.org/pubs/exhib_schdes/nyac_web/toc.htm

And here's one from Tibet:

http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/tibet/tibet.htm


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On the subject of different national systems. Here's an article about international comparisons, looks like we should all move to Finland.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/education/newsid_1689000/1689966.stm


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Roibin, I have to say that I understand where you are coming from, but do not totally agree with you. I am a 22 year old graduate student and a substitute teacher who, hopefully one day, will be a "real" teacher. I've learned so much in the past 5 months that I have been a substitute. (1) Teachers who do their job on a regular basis often forget what it is like for those just starting out. I have had teachers who leave no lesson plans and then complain that I didn't follow the lesson plans that they didn't leave. (2) Teachers may deserve the summer off, but so do many other working class people who make a whole lot less than teachers. (3) Society, not only teachers, blame children for their short comings. Well guess what, most of the kids that are labeled "bad" or "unmotivated" or whatever label is given them have had horrible childhoods. They've either been abused or neglected in some way, probably since they were born. How can we as a society expect children to grow up to be "normal," healthy, productive citizens when many of them can't recall a single happy moment from their childhood? Society spends much of its anger and disallusionment about education blaming the kids. They're disrespectful, arrogant, rude, have no motivation, no respect for others, etc. Stop blaming the kids and look at what they come from, who their parents are, who their grandparents are. Somewhere along the line, long before now, parenting dissolved into the job of the public school system which is poorly equipped to deal with such monumental frustrations. I've seen parents who seem to not only expect their children to fail but to want them to do so. For the past week I've been substituting in a special program called TLC, Theraputic Learning Center. Now I have to say that little about the program is theraputic and even less about learning. These kids, and their teachers, are literally put in a corner and forgotten about. They have no money for supplies and very few textbooks. But if you spend any quality time with any one child, you can easily see that they want to be "normal." They will work if you praise them, something they get so rarely, even for participating. Deep down these kids are severely psychologically wounded and maybe learning all the U.S. Presidents and what kind of food rabbits eat is not the most important thing.


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welcome to the board, aphi.

good points and lucidly expressed. I particularly agree with your thesis about the foundations of learning depending on emotional stability.


#3536 01/22/02 09:35 PM
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#3537 01/22/02 10:18 PM
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Declining standards:where does one's own responsibility for one's actions begin? At what point does one's ability to point the finger of causation at someone or something else cease?

Max, would those questions, asked of ourselves, have relevance to the discussion in Jackie's Sadness thread?


#3538 01/22/02 11:12 PM
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#3539 01/23/02 05:14 AM
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Welcome to the madhouse, Aphi.

If it's any consolation at all, teaching in a polytechnic showed me that a lot of people whom the school system failed in one way or another realise their lack of success later in life and will go to considerable effort to catch up. Not all, of course, and perhaps not even a particularly high percentage. But a significant number.



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#3540 01/23/02 12:40 PM
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Max, I entirely agree with you as so often!

It's always tough to draw that line between cause and mere influence - but I would guess we can all recognise the effects of severely disturbed young people bringing their problems into school. This highlights the importance of a degree of emotional stability in inter-generational relationships, as a foundation on which other learning and personal development can take place.

But if you were to say "yeahbut®
take 2 kids with the same emotional problems and see them perform in different ways ~ this is evidence of our own requirement to take ultimate responsibility for our actions", well, I would just have to agree with you again! But spit those words out and make your own for me - il migliore fabro - in honour of the week!


#3541 01/23/02 06:55 PM
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So, Mav and Max (sounds a bit like Dad and Dave, down in Snake Gully ). Which is it? Does ontongeny recapitulate phylogeny in schools? Or is phylogeny an independent variable? Hmmm?



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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