Educating Children

[From SocializingChildren]

Clearly, the educational systems we have today (at least in the West), derived as they were from the Prussian system, are suitable primarily for turning out drones. Smart, obedient, socially conforming drones.

The more they "fix" it (the system), the more it does this, and the less it educates.

It certainly doesn't enlighten, nor prepare a person for enlightenment.

So, okay, it is agreed that the current system pretty much sucks. Having acknowledged this, therefore removing any requirement to use negation of the current system as a defining tool, perhaps it would be more productive to describe the right way, rather than list the reasons that the wrong way is wrong.

: "Then ... let's begin with level flight." -- RichardBach as JonathanLivingstonSeagull

Let us then begin by teaching Communication, Observation, and Comprehension.

(Somewhere in there, a grounding in RightAndWrong? is required. Thin ice here, as these concepts are never free of cultural influence.)

Let us then teach learning. At each step this is reinforced. In fact, the whole instruction methodology has to incorporate this.

Let us then proceed by teaching written language (reading and writing).

Then back to Observation and Comprehension, with Communication, only this time it's called Science.

As we proceed forward, each step is mastered before the next step is taken, otherwise a chronic disorientation occurs. More clearly, you don't allocate six weeks to get through some material and then just "score" a student based on his "performance" on that material. The object is for him to learn it. So, you keep at it until he learns it. Then you move on.

All sounds pretty simple, right? Except that it assumes you possess the technology to teach communication and learning, and that there is some kind of standard for it. And if you don't have this, the rest of your effort will be hobbled by this lack.

Now, cleaning up the adults so they can actually deliver something like this, well that's a different story.

-- GarryHamilton (figured I'd sign for the time being)

This is rather similar to the MontessoriMethod? for teaching preschool-aged children.