Play makes children nimble—neurobiologically, mentally, behaviorally—capable of adapting to a rapidly evolving world. That makes it just about the best preparation for life in the 21st century. Psychologists believe that play cajoles people toward their human potential because it preserves all the possibilities nervous systems tend to otherwise prune away...
There's only one graduation requirement and over 95 percent of students meet it. They have to write and present a thesis about how they're prepared to be an adult. It takes time to write, even more time to figure out
...Students have become lute-makers, auto technicians, musicians, equestrian-farmers, dedicated environmentalists. Some have started their own companies at 18. Others take retail or service jobs to get money for travel abroad...They do what they do not by default or by obligation but from a sense of understanding what they're doing and why...
(and) go on to lead deeply satisfying lives. Most are unusually resilient. Almost all feel that they are in control of their destiny.
The alumni study shows that a "spectacularly high number" pursue careers in the arts—music, art, dance, writing, acting. Math, business and education are popular routes, too.
...It may be...that the Sudbury-style schools work so well because they are small...But on a 10-acre estate in Massachusetts, 200 kids are having a hell of a time preparing for the future.
And right in Massachusetts all this time, home of public schooling, compulsory attendance laws and not-very-liberal home education laws -- apparently ever-blue MA only meant to compel a better institution than factories for all the poor's children, but not to preclude truly wonderful, free confidence-building places where privileged kids could be nurtured and supported along their own unique path, without weapons of mass instruction.
Responding both to your conversation with TeacherKen at Daily Kos, whose absolute progressive "prerequisite" is you must first commit to unlimited cash and control for schoolfolk, no questions asked, or else you can't converse about school change in his progressive education diary --
and also to per pupil spending, why it's so high that charters and many privates are undercutting PS, yet somehow it's never enough to actually deliver that mythical free liberal education that leaves no child behind.
In 1960, annual spending on public education nationwide was about $3,000 per student. In the years since, that amount has swollen to over $9,400 per student. Those are inflation-adjusted dollars, so spending on public education in real terms has more than tripled, with dubious results.
Experts believe reading to be the most important educational activity. Yet a Scholastic/Yankelovich study released last month found that reading for fun declines sharply after age 8. The number one reason according to their parents: too much homework...
*Children need to play* (one of the most important tasks of childhood according to child development experts), to eat dinner with their families (one of the biggest predictors of academic success), to talk with family and friends, to develop their passions and to read. These activities, not homework, will ensure that our children are happy and competitive in a highly competitive world.
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"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment...?"
— -- James Madison, "Essay on Monopolies" unpublished until 1946, cited in Brant, Irving, The Bill of Rights, 1965, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom
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Doesn't this
sound like unschooling, in a group setting? Reminds me of our house, anyway.
I think I need to add this link to the ed discussion I think I may be the only one still interested in over on DailyKos. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/6/28/73725/5108
Nance