Re: Reforming Education

From: Clint O'Dell (clintodell@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Oct 07 1999 - 12:24:06 MDT


> >Also, school should be optional. If schools were optional we as a
> >people would be more free from government control (as a first step >to
>not allowing government to tell us what we can and cannot do), >and
>education would become a desire driven enterprise. Desire >driven
>education is more successful than obligated education.

>Can you really apply this kind of reasoning to young children? Somehow,
>they must learn to read, write, interact in positive ways, do simple math -
>just in order to know they WANT to get more education. I think some sort of
>'preschool' or 'elementary school' is inevitable regardless of how it is
>managed. At least until we can impart the basics via that magic pill of
>SF...or download it...

Children will still have to obey their parents. I would hope parents will
be educated enough to give some good reasons why they should attend school.
Subjective and authoritive reasons never worked for me as a child. I always
so the false logic in that sort of reasoning. With VR and interactive
education along with motivational efforts of teachers to stay competitive I
see school as being of some interests to children. How about classes for
parents on successful and not successful motivational strategies. In the
future VR should be like nintindo, everyone has one. You can have software
modeling real worlds that allow children to construct using materials they
learned in school or are taught by the game. This would definately get them
interested in school. Television programs targeted at toddlers making
school sound fun and interesting, and other programs targeted at older
children to continue that understanding and use the materials they are being
taught at that level. I'm picturing Satuday morning Spider Man solving an
elementary chemistry problem to get the bad guys.

This sounds like a lot of work and organization to create a desire driven
environment but the pay off of accelerated and more enlightened youngsters
is well worth it.

>What do you do in the case of parents who cannot afford to pay tuition?
>Private charities? Scholarships? It would be a real shame to lose good
>minds simply because their parents are not successful. This is one reason
>we have mandatory schooling.

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