![]() I‘ve been corresponding with (Mr.) Jan Eggers of the exceptional blog Dirtgrain. Jan is a teacher who writes often of the frustration of dealing with an education system that is dysfunctional, bureaucratic, co-opted by corporatists, shrugged off by parents as a cheap day-care centre, and, nevertheless, full of teachers who give a damn and want to make a difference. He tells it like it is: The Learning Asylum, by Jan Eggers Committed to the learning asylum, If we had more fearless, never-say-die, articulate proponents of education reform like Jan, maybe we could really fix the system. Image above is from Child’s Pay, the award winning video from MoveOn that CBS refused to show. The video depicts American children working to pay off the staggering and obscene Bush debt. It could also be said to depict the jobs that will be left if actions aren’t taken to end offshoring of American jobs, and if improvements to the education system aren’t made, in contrast to the grossly underfunded, misguided and cynical Bush ‘No Child Left Behind’ program. |
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--- My Best 100 Posts --
Preparing for Civilization's End:
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Save the World Reading List
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
Giving Up on Environmentalism
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture:
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
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Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
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Learning from Indigenous Cultures
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I retire from teaching (very much against my will) next year. During my time as a teacher in the UK I’ve watched education emerge gradually & tentatively from the dark ages of pre-war values & approaches, into a brief, heady period of experimentation & enterprise & then back again. The dead hand of schooling lies as heavy on education now as ever it did. ‘Educational reform’ is merely a liberal euphemism for a more subtle & insidious sweetening of the pill. What is needed is what A.S. Neill proposed more than 80 years ago – educational revolution.
Dick: And the British system is what most of the once-good educational systems in the world were modeled on. *sigh* I’ll add Mr. Neill to my ‘to read’ list.
Opposed to Offshoring and Luddites more similarities than differences.
Can’t wait to see you next week Dave – We are now onto our 14th day off school since Christmas – the machine system can’t cope. 42% of our kids never even finish school. Most are bored out of their minds and made helpless by the dependency creating mechanism that is school as we know it
If you are interested in an analysis of the educational establishment which takes the hypothesis that the educational system is actually doing exactly what it is truly designed for, and that all the other claims of actual education is just a smoke-screen, check out John Gatto’s _The Underground History of American Education_ (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/).
The “Fourth Purpose” documentary series is an ambitious project aimed at exposing and challenging the myths of modern schooling. I urge anyone interested in educational revolution, for a positive future for our global community, to offer encouragement and support for this project. Please visit the Odysseus Group – John Taylor Gatto Web site @ http://www.johntaylorgatto.com and add your voice and support to the cause.