Blogging Break

I'll be out of town a great deal during the next week or two; subscribe to the RSS feed and you will know when I return. I had planned to talk about the competitors of BFU this week, perhaps I can do that when I return.

For a few interesting reads, try these:

A rewrite about the inspirational Dr. Margarita Pereyda

A chance to challenge your independent thinking

And as close as we will get, for now, to a Foreign Language Department for Bastiat Free University and the Netcohort Institute.

Best,

Allan

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No Anti-bureaucratic School Rants Today

Well, except the title of this journal post.

It would be easy to rant, but you probably already know about the problems I'd address. Another rant would scare off folks that want to know more, and put the awake few to sleep. There is a better way. If we need and want change - let's listen to someone successful at creating change.

"To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
R. Buckminster Fuller

This should be easy, the old model is already obsolete. However, it is self perpetuating. What we need discover is a way to break the chain of delusion that impels new cows into the slaughter yards. Ranting, while easy, is not the answer.

"My days of whining and complaining about others have come to an end. Nothing is easier than fault finding. All it will do is discolor my personality so that none will want to associate with me. That was my old life. No more."
Og Mandino

I can look at this post and see where my mind has tried to slip into anger and hostility. A release of anger and angst will not achieve our purpose of expanding viable alternatives to the common education. Once our better learning regimes are expanding; creating battles will not tear down the entangled webs of sophist rhetoric.

The BS, MS, and Phd will just get piled deeper and deeper. (you know what BS is, MS is More of the Same, PhD is Piled higher and Deeper.)

Creating a better mouse trap is also no guarantee of the world beating a path to your door. The world must know of it, and it must be enough better to justify replacing the old and developing new methods of application.

It is apparent in this post-bureaucratic era that integrity, accomplishment, and actual knowledge are becoming more important than diplomas. We realize this makes options like free universities, the Netcohort Institute, unschooling, homeschooling, and open schools an overwhelming improvement when compared with most existing educational platforms.

The reason to beat a path to our independent doors clearly exists.

The next step is to let the world know it is worth the journey.

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The Importance of Education and the Power of The Internet

I have several lenses at Squidoo about education, learning, knowledge, and understanding.

I have one The Importance Of Education that has an almost seasonal quality about it.

It appears that at the end of a school year some teachers assign a project to their students that requires a definition of "the importance of education." The first reaction of many students is to Google the assignment. That leads them to my page.

Now I don't have an approved book in their school library, the public library will not have any of my materials in their reference section, and they won't easily discover the advantages of self-directed learning in available periodicals. They certainly won't find an outline for the Netcohort Manifesto or current information about student directed learning at the Netcohort Institute.

What does happen, is their search engines will direct them to a trusted website that offers fresh insights into the importance of education -- and they discover my lens. At the least they will discover there are both social and personal reasons for education. They may use that bi-pole relationship to develop their essays. The open information in the lens is not necessarily what educational authorities would approve for their coerced students.

By the power of the internet, both sides of the story about educational importance are told.

To the horror of bureaucrats -- students can make up their own minds.


"The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real."
John Taylor Gatto


Mark up a big plus for the Internet.

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