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The American Education System

Hey, guys. I've never asked any of you for a favor but I am tonight. If you are a parent with a kid in school, are in school yourself, or if you are a teacher or in any way involved with the school system, I'm asking that you go to the following link and have a read:

http://geoffreygreer.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/end-totalitarian-teac...

This article at the link is not asking for money, it is not asking for clicks, and there is no advertising or anything behind it. It is the candid, honest sharing of information about what the deal is with our school system today. It's a real eye-opener and it has the potential to change a lot of your views about everything. At the very least, just do me, Josh Gayou (Smokehouse Guitars), a personal favor and read about two or three paragraphs. Give it that much of a chance and see if you don't feel compelled to read the whole damned thing.

I figure if enough people read this, if enough people spread it around, things might just start to change. I don't hold out hope since I'm a realist, but it can't hurt to try.

Thanks all for your patience.

Josh Gayou

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Permalink Reply by Vince Stark on April 23, 2010 at 6:04pm

OK!

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) on April 23, 2010 at 6:18pm

Thanks, brother.

Vince Stark said:

OK!

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Permalink Reply by Andy Estabrooks on April 24, 2010 at 2:07am

This guy is right on. This is why we gave our kids the option to go to a charter school. The school is a vital and lively place, unlike our public schools which are quiet and static. The kids don't run the school , but have a big say in in it and govern themselves for the most part. The kids have "town Meetings" where they set their own policies. The key word at this school is Respect for both student and teacher.

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Permalink Reply by Mama Mojo on April 24, 2010 at 3:33am

This is good stuff, Josh. Respect is the most fundamental value that we can leave our children with and the lack of it for others is truly the root of all evils. How we treat each other as human beings must be taught at an early age for it to make an impact in the child's world and in their lives as adults. Even when we aren't taught respect as children, some of us are able to find the meaning of it as adults and adjust our lives and our behavior accordingly. But that is a hard task when it isn't introduced to us as children. Children mimic adults, and when adults are disrespectful to them they learn that style of interaction. Think about even just the issue of playground bullies and what it takes to bully another person - a total lack of respect for that person as an individual. The bully must be able to shut off all emotion to engage in the act of bullying, and the first thing on the list to go is respect for the other child/person. It is so easy in our world to just dehumanize and devalue others in order to fit them into some lessor category - that makes it ok to act in ways that we would never act if respect were still in the picture. Unfortunately there is a lot of that in this world -- people who truly have no capacity to respect others and just "follow the crowd" of other people who have no capacity to respect or even to empathize either. Changing that dynamic has got to begin in childhood.

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Permalink Reply by Mama Mojo on April 24, 2010 at 3:48am

The other thing that I like about this model of respect is that it flips the notion that "respect must be earned" on its head. I never operate under that premise - I operate under the assumption that people are inherently good and that I will respect them unless they do something to lose that respect. For example, when I see the work of others on this forum, I respect the work. Even if I don't necessarily find it personally appealing, I respect that someone took time to craft it and that it belongs to them. Without that basic respect, I'd bet that I would have far less trouble taking their ideas and using them as my own. Why operate under any other premise? That's when problems arise....