Headline, July20, 2013

'''OVER THROWING A -POLITICAL

 DYNASTY- IN CENTRAL PARK'''

''I had a standing contract with the kids. I said, If there's something that you want to know how to do, you can pick my brains privately, and I will help you see the best way to do it, even if I don't approve.

At one school on Manhattan's Upper West Side, seven girls came to me indignant that a local planning board had voted down Yoko Ono's request to have a John Lennon memorial in Central Park. I agreed with the board. Parks are for trees. But I told the girls that if they wanted to take on the commission to overturn the decision, that could be their project.

I warned them that the odds were 10,000 to 1 against them. But they were intent. They researched the commissioners, targeted the ones whose votes they could get, and drummed up the press. You know what? They did it. The memorial is called ''Strawberry Fields'' and it's in Central Park.

At every school where I taught, I told the kids that as long as they would do 90% of the work, and as long as the idea was there, and as long as they'd sit still for my lectures about the nuances of the idea, then I was willing to be their assistant. The major access road to self-development is raw experience, but schools often deny that to their students. Memorizing notes off the board is not real work. Over throwing a political dynasty that doesn't want a horrible monument to the horrible Lennon in Central Park is real work.

Why don't schools adopt this ethic, Sir?  What's standing in the way, Sir?

It's a managerial mania, a managerial pathology that shows no sign of having reached a conclusion. For reasons that are both fair and foul   -but mostly for fair reasons-   we have come under the domain of scientific management system whose ambitions are endless.

They want to manage every second of our lives, every expenditure that we make. And the schools are the training ground to create a population that's easy to manage.

In a society that's going to be scientifically managed, what are the things that interfere with the smooth administration of that form of management?   Well, for one thing, it's the manager's subordinates saying, ''I don't think we should do it that way.'' 

A Managed Life extends your childhood from birth to death. You're never really responsible for your decisions, and you can never really take credit for your successes either.

So what are the lessons for practical life?

Look at the Silicon Valley. Everybody there is working much harder than you could legally require them to work. Why? Because they are working for themselves. It's exciting! The work itself is exciting. To teach people that we work to get money to buy stuff is insane. We work because work is thrilling.

What would turn the country on its head is a commitment by schools to make room for independent livelihoods of all sorts. I mean, that, by-and-large, you set the terms of your own employment, you decide the relative value of the goals that you're after, you stick your neck out, and you take all of the reward or your neck gets chopped off. 

That would be a dazzling society. It would be like some of my classes were..........Just Dazzling!

With respectful dedications to all Teachers in the world!

WANTED : GUARDIAN ANGELS THE WORLD OVER : Every single student in the world, please, apply to : World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless.

See Ya all on !WOW! 

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless