Joseph Moore (joseph@ivorycc.com)
Fri, 4 Feb 2000 08:52:32 -0800
My other hero, John Gatto, said something like the greatest success of
compulsory schooling is that few people today can even imagine doing it any
other way. So, even something so trivial as shortening the servitude by a
couple years could be a very good thing, because it reveals that there's
nothing sacred about 'traditional' K-12 education. The structure is so
rotten, that maybe even a little push like this could help bring it down.
But I don't disagree that it's got to come down.
(Aside: My late father-in-law, a public grade-school teacher for a couple
decades, used to say that 7th and 8th grade were a waste of time, kids
should just go straight to high school and graduate at 16. This kind of
thinking, along with assuming kids could learn just about anything (he
regularly taught 5th grader Aristotelian philosophy, among other things)
eventually got him fired.)
Regarding the good intentions of the people charged with maintaining the
compulsory school machines - I used to think there were usually few, if any,
people of bad will involved, that it was just a bunch of well-meaning foot
soldiers caught up in a bad war. Now, I'm not sure. A good many (but by no
means all!) teachers seem to have been bought off - they implement policies
they know to be bad, because doing otherwise would hurt their careers. And
look how many move into admin jobs, even though they all have first hand
experience of the damage all that "supervision" wrecks, on the students and
the teachers.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dannyasher@aol.com [mailto:Dannyasher@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 8:08 PM
To: discuss-sudbury-model@sudval.org
Subject: Re: DSM: High School Harm
In a message dated 2/2/2000 6:32:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mvtyson@hotmail.com writes:
<< Yes, but you also have to wake people up and find a way to drag them out
of
their chaos fearing, sugar-coated, pseudo-world. Maybe one year at a time
is a good way to wean them. Maybe enlightening them to the simple fact
that
their system the way it is doesn't work for everyone, is the way to go.
Maybe those who advocate alternatives should admit that options mean
options
and realize that SOME people, SOME children included, actually favor
regimented systems and draw comfort from the fact that there is going to be
someone to tell them what to do and where to do it.
Perhaps when someone is willing to offer a plan that varies current
structure we should keep an open mind as we ask others to keep their minds
open instead of simply dismissing their ideas out of hand. >>
I couldn't agree more. That's exactly how I feel about Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation. Too radical. He just refused to face the fact
that SOME African Americans were happy to be in the tender care of
well-meaning owners. It would have been so much better to open people's
minds by just emancipating slaves a couple of years at a time -- say, all
slaves over 60, then all slaves over 58 a few years later, when people were
somewhat weaned from their view of slavery as the perfect condition for ALL
African-Americans, and accepted the proposition that slavery may not be the
best condition for each and every one of them.
In a more serious vein: it is one thing to say that there is no single,
"true" alternative to the present traditional educational system, and that
many different models deserve to be offered. But it is quite a different
thing to defend the present system of virtual imprisonment for children
between the ages of six and eighteen, and their subjection to mental
coercion, abuse, humiliation, indoctrination, and forced medication for
those
who are not willing to submit. This system is EVIL at the core, and the
fact
that some children have become so broken, so early in their lives, that they
actually prefer their condition of servitude to being free is a national
tragedy.
Dan Greenberg, Sudbury Valley School
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