Headline, July21, 2013

'''THE FUTURE OF GREAT EDUCATION :

 PARENTS & HOMESCHOOL​ING'''

''Homeschooling returns the most important responsibility Right Back To Where It Belongs : The Parent. But this raises the question: Do all parents do it better than anyone else? Some do, Some don't. But are there any experts whom you can point to who do it better than any homeschooler picked at random?

What we have is a long succession of expert failures everywhere. Now we have homeschoolers, charter schools and ''unschoolers''    -who mostly let their kids direct their own learning     -doing it however they want. It's the classic contradiction of the principle that interventions are the way to improve a kid's life. Home schools have proven that two hours a day is enough for intense academic work.

Because the kid's involvement as a principal player is seen as the most important determinant of his future. In a hoe school, the kid does  -95%-  of the work. But in a school system,  since it's an indoctrination system, a teacher has to do  -95%-  of the work.

But the reality is that most Americans lack the time or the gumption to homeschool their children. What's then the broader remedy for conventional American schools?

There is no simple formula, but fortunately a crude formula will work to get started. If you cut the guaranteed river of revenue that flows into the monopoly, the problem will solve itself   -quicker in some places than in others.

But over time, it will happen. We should break up the Institutional schools, decertify teaching, and let anyone who has a mind to teach bid for customers. Trust the customers to know if they are being cheated, and then give them a way to try something different.

We would have a much better teaching staff if we waived the requirement of having a college degree and opened the jobs to anyone. We'd have a much better teaching staff if we simply didn't allow anyone under the age of 40 to teach. I would also say that we could draw workers from the retired population of the country much more than we today.

And you have to trust children much more. What if we started from the exactly opposite premise of the Viking conquerors who've Now become the Fortune 500?  Suppose we begin the idea that almost everybody has superhuman powers to see into the grain of sand and say:

''Why, I can scratch little lines on this piece of silicon.''  I mean is that an unlikely idea?  Is that counterintuitive?

And the pieces of sand can talk to each other across the world, and we can drive every Telecom company out of business. You'd lock someone up who said that!!   But that's the thinking that changes the world.

We need to start from the cold-blooded premise That Almost Everyone is a Genius...........Not That Almost Everyone is Worthless    

And then on Conspicuousness :

Children are always under surveillance, in the classroom and even beyond. There are no private spaces for children and no private time for them. Changing classes lasts 300 seconds to keep promiscuous fraternization at low levels. 

Teachers assign a kind of extended schooling called homework, too, so that the surveillance travels into private households, where students might otherwise use free time to  learn something unauthorized from a mother or a father or by   -''apprenticing to some wise person in the neighborhood.''

Many thanks Professor Gatto. !WOW! is honored to enlighten the world with your original thinking and concepts. See you on !WOW!

With respectful and loving dedication to Great Heroes : Malala, Rabo, Dee, Saima, Haleema, Zeba, Paras, Sorat, Mahaam, Hussain, Ali, Jehanzeb, Haider, Vishnu,  Rauf Liaquat, Sahibzada, Mudassar Mustafa,

And special dedication to all the great Students and Professors and Teachers from Indonesia.

All Touch-N-Go. But then  Curiosity Triumphs!

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless