I became aware of the problem early in my teaching career, in 1967 or so. We were doing a standard-definition exercise in a composition class, and a student was reading aloud her brief definition piece that began, “In the United States treason is” — and then merrily gave her own definition.

“Whoa!” I said, “Time out!” and made the “time-out” gesture. “If ‘treason’ is the word you want to define, you can argue for all sorts of definitions, but if you start a sentence ‘In the United States treason is,” you have to finish the sentence with the definition in the Constitution.”

(It’s Article 3, section 3, but I just looked that up; I couldn’t have given the citation from memory in 1967, and didn’t. But back to the story).

Blank stares from the class.

“It’s the one crime defined in the Constitution.”

More blank stares.

“You’ve got to know this!” I said; “You’ve all just passed an exam on the Constitution.” And indeed they had.

I was teaching at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, and my class was 100 percent students from, mostly, Illinois, with a few from New York. They had to pass the Regents’ Exam in New York, or the Public Law 195 exam in Illinois to get their high school diplomas, demonstrating among other things working knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.

“Right,” one of my students replied, “we passed the exam.”

“OK, so you have to know this,” I said.

Giving me the sympathetic look we insensitive people give the pathetically slow, the student repeated, with more careful enunciation, “We passed the exam.”

I had figured — like the legislators who mandated the exams — that high school graduates would pass a pretty thorough examination on the U.S. Constitution and, therefore, have a working knowledge of the Constitution. My student knew that they had passed the exam and, therefore, didn’t need to know the material any more, and probably wouldn’t.

I was starting to learn to take very, very seriously what has recently been called, “academic bulimia,” the process by which students “cram” for an exam and “regurgitate” the material on it.

When you regurgitate, you get some poison or irritant or excess out of your system.

Now an English-speaking student might, figuratively, chew on an idea, decide to swallow it, digest it and assimilate it. (We like eating metaphors for learning.)

The easier method, though, is cram and regurgitate, and that was what the fully certified high school graduates in my class had done to get to a major university, and that was back when U.S. education was in good shape.

They had figured out the system, played it and won: If not a top slot, they got a respectable niche in higher education.

The only problem is that they were U.S. citizens who had passed the exams and came out pretty much ignorant of the most basic way — an elegant theory, not messy political facts — their government worked.

Students in the 21st century will be equally proficient in gaming the system of high-stakes exams, and nowadays the schools have money on the line, too, and many schools will help with the game.

So, don’t expect much from high-stakes exams beyond more kids and their elders in the education business getting good at the various games of high-stakes exams.

What you can hope, wish and pray for is a change in American culture where education for citizenship and the life of the mind are respected by people important to kids, primarily by other kids.

Don’t hold your breath while waiting.

— Richard D. Erlich lives in Port Hueneme.

Source: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2010/feb/23/academic-bulimia-and-the-test-game/

In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does. Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on.

So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.

Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.

Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.

In our theoretical classroom, children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation — adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once children are proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events or people. These are all activities children naturally love, if given a chance to do them in a genuine way.

What they shouldn’t do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it.

Along the way, teachers should spend time each day having sustained conversations with small groups of children. Such conversations give children a chance to support their views with evidence, change their minds and use questions as a way to learn more.

During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play — from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games — can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way. It can also help them acquire higher-order thinking skills, like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else’s perspective and thinking of alternate solutions.

A classroom like this would provide lots of time for children to learn to collaborate with one another, a skill easily as important as math or reading. It takes time and guidance to learn how to get along, to listen to one another and to cooperate. These skills cannot be picked up casually at the corners of the day.

The reforms suggested by the administration on Monday have the potential to help liberate our schools. But they can only do so much. Our success depends on embracing a curriculum focused on essential skills like reading, writing, computation, pattern detection, conversation and collaboration — a curriculum designed to raise children, rather than test scores.

Source: Susan Engel, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/opinion/02engel.html

An article in The NY Times (Aug. 16, 2009) about current research done on how babies learn confirms what John wrote nearly fifty years ago and should give heart to parents and teachers who want to help children learn in their own ways.

Alison Gopnick, a professor of psychology at Berkeley and the author of The Philosophical Baby, writes, “The philosopher John Locke saw a baby’s mind as a blank slate, and the psychologist William James thought they lived in a “blooming, buzzing confusion.” Even today, a cursory look at babies and young children leads many to conclude that there is not much going on.

New studies, however, demonstrate that babies and very young children know, observe, explore, imagine and learn more than we would ever have thought possible. In some ways, they are smarter than adults.”

Gopnick cites her own and others’ research that demonstrate that babies and children up to five years old have “capacities for statistical reasoning, experimental discovery and probabilistic logic [that] allow babies to rapidly learn all about the particular objects and people surrounding them. Sadly, some parents are likely to take the wrong lessons from these experiments and conclude that they need programs and products that will make their babies even smarter. Many think that babies, like adults, should learn in a focused, planned way. So parents put their young children in academic-enrichment classes or use flashcards to get them to recognize the alphabet.”

The important thing Gopnick points out, as Holt did, is that babies and young children learn best from the people, places, and things that surround them, not from formal lessons. She writes, “The learning that babies and young children do on their own, when they carefully watch an unexpected outcome and draw new conclusions from it, ceaselessly manipulate a new toy or imagine different ways that the world might be, is very different from schoolwork. Babies and young children can learn about the world around them through all sorts of real-world objects and safe replicas, from dolls to cardboard boxes to mixing bowls, and even toy cell phones and computers. Babies can learn a great deal just by exploring the ways bowls fit together or by imitating a parent talking on the phone. (Imagine how much money we can save on “enriching” toys and DVDs!)

But what children observe most closely, explore most obsessively and imagine most vividly are the people around them. There are no perfect toys; there is no magic formula. Parents and other caregivers teach young children by paying attention and interacting with them naturally and, most of all, by just allowing them to play.”

A very important aspect of this research is that preschool-age children have developing, flexible brains that can’t focus on just one thing to the exclusion of all else around them—the opposite of what school expects from kids—and that this openness and curiosity are what feed their brains. Gopnick writes, “Adults focus on objects that will be most useful to them. But… children play with the objects that will teach them the most. In our study, 4-year-olds imagined new possibilities based on just a little data. Adults rely more on what they already know. Babies aren’t trying to learn one particular skill or set of facts; instead, they are drawn to anything new, unexpected or informative. …Focus and planning get you to your goal more quickly but may also lock in what you already know, closing you off to alternative possibilities. We need both blue-sky speculation and hard-nosed planning. Babies and young children are designed to explore, and they should be encouraged to do so.”

It is refreshing to know that even more research backs up the idea of giving children free-range in thought and action, though it seems this information never gets a fair hearing in schools or politics since we keep making policies in those areas that lock and track children into specific learning at younger and younger ages. Research and theories that confirm the “babies are smart” idea existed before John wrote of course, but, like Holt’s ideas, they never get serious attention from educators. One of John’s favorites was a wonderful book by Millicent Shinn, The Biography of a Baby, written in 1900.

If you’re interested in reading Holt’s perspective on this issue, I suggest reading the chapter “Learning Without Teaching” in Teach Your Own, and John’s books How Children Learn and Learning All the Time. In fact, John wrote Learning All the Time, his last book, to be, in his own words, “a demonstration that children, without being coerced or manipulated, or being put in exotic, specially prepared environments, or having their thinking planned and ordered for them, can, will, and do pick up from the world around them important information about what we call the Basics.”

Source: http://patfarenga.squarespace.com/pat-farengas-blog/2010/2/22/new-research-supports-john-holts-views-about-learning.html

Global Village School (GVS) and Secular Humanists share similar values and principles:

At GVS we are interested in peace, compassion, justice, sustainability, community, integrity, appreciation of diversity, caring for the Earth and our fellow beings, creativity, and living an authentic and meaningful life. We offer secular curriculum that encourages the development of thoughtful human beings, and when we explore religion we do it in a non-dogmatic way.

Like Secular Humanists, we encourage critical thinking and value intellect and science. Our curriculum encourages an appreciation of open, pluralistic societies while offering service learning opportunities where students can learn and do something about injustice.

To learn more about our secular homeschooling approach:

Please take your time and explore our site. Feel free to contact us with any questions or ideas that may come to mind. We look forward to partnering with you as we continue in our mission of educating for a better world, one person at a time.

Founded in 1999, the creation of Global Village School was fueled by deep concerns about violence, discrimination, and the state of the planet, along with a compelling vision of a better world. We are an international K-12 homeschool diploma program that empowers students to cultivate their gifts and passions by engaging them in a creative, flexible education process grounded in the principles of peace, justice, diversity, and sustainability. We partner with schools, groups, and individual families to provide the kind of education that prepares students to be wise and capable stewards of the planet and each other.

UU families are welcome to enroll their children in Global Village School. Global Village will be the official “school of record,” maintaining student files, providing written evaluations, issuing official transcripts, and providing diplomas upon graduation. We will provide curriculum (regular or customized) and individualized teacher support. Families can also choose to purchase curriculum only, or to work with Global Village teachers on selected courses. Other families may wish to have us develop a customized curriculum for them, and then work with it on their own. Families can also use our learning styles profile, whether or not they wish to enroll.

Global Village School (GVS) and Unitarian Universalists share the same values and principles:

Our values include peace, compassion, justice, sustainability, community, integrity, appreciation of diversity, caring for the Earth and our fellow beings, creativity, and living an authentic and meaningful life.

Like UU’s, we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, we have deep respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, and we have the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. We believe that each person must be free to search for what is true and right in life.

It is from these values and beliefs that Global Village courses such as Planetary Stewardship, Literature of Diversity, The History of Civil Rights in the U.S., International Human Rights, and Reflections on Peacemaking have emerged.

To learn more about UU compatible education and curriculum at Global Village School, check out our website!

The drive to Sally Carless’ house is indicative of her nature. The road is a small, private road with huge boulders and wild sage lining its edges. Massive oak trees suspend their limbs above the road, adding a green canopy of vegetation, and breaking up the sunlight with patches of shade. You cross a creek over a small bridge, up a little hill and then back down. There, at the edge of the Los Padres National Forest, with avocado orchards to one side, sits a small older ranch house. Here, surrounded by natural serenity, is where you can find Sally Carless, founder and visionary of Global Village School.

Global Village School is a nonprofit distance-learning school founded in 1999 designed to teach tolerance, practical social activism, peace and an understanding for those of different religions, races, physical disabilities, ethnicities and sexual orientations. Global Village School offers customized K-12 curriculum and a high school diploma program. The School’s mission is to teach children how to become proactive in their own lives for social change and social awareness, while at the same time providing a safe haven for students who are harassed or ostracized in the average school environment. The ultimate goal is to provide a place where everyone “belongs,” and develops a sense of individual self-worth sufficient to produce a conscientious, proactive world citizen.

As one approaches the small ranch house that Sally calls home, it is difficult to ignore the beauty and the peacefulness with which she has surrounded herself. Sally sits at a small table underneath a huge oak tree, her dog by her side. She is unpretentious, dressed in jeans and tennis shoes. She has a gentle, quiet nature and a passionate love of the earth and its inhabitants.

Sally Carless holds a Masters’ Degree in Education, curriculum and instruction, with studies in alternative and experiential education and counseling. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in wilderness recreation, with an emphasis in environmental studies. In addition, she is a California credentialed teacher and has done graduate study in the field of counseling and depth psychology, and she has done extensive training with Jean Houston (Human Capacities Training Program) and Barbara Meister Vitale (Practical Applications of Brain Research).

Ms. Carless is also the founder and former co-director of Ila Wii Chala Summer School, in Redding, California, and has been a director for the American Indian Education Programs, Marysville, California. Sally has been active in curriculum development, teaching, personnel management, experiential and alternative education, and she has been teaching for twenty years. Sally is a true believer in lifelong learning and continues to attend many conferences, seminars and training sessions.

Sally Carless’ peace and diversity school has only been with us for a couple of years (editor’s note:  this was in 2002). But you need do no more than turn on the nightly news to know how urgently this kind of education is needed – globally. Currently the school has only United States students, but the inquiries from around the globe are coming in, and Global Village is in the process of signing up its first student from the Czech Republic.

So what brought on this desire to teach about peace and diversity? And what words of wisdom can Ms. Carless offer on the teaching of tolerance and peace? Ms. Carless has the following to say:

“You can find peace education on the Internet. You can find multicultural education. But they are not generally linked together. The problems, however, have the very same roots – fear, lack of understanding and lack of exposure to those who are different. So that’s how the vision for Global Village came about: minority education grew into multicultural education and into diversity education, and so on, until it became peace and tolerance education.

“Peace and understanding can only come about with personal responsibility and awareness. Our society and many religions teach people to be followers. But in order to build a world with responsible, aware citizens, we must teach our children to think for themselves. And that is where our education comes in. Global Village’s courses provide students with the missing links. Such as, how are human rights and the global economy interrelated? How does it impact a child laborer in Asia when I buy a pair of tennis shoes? What is the true cost of that tennis shoe – not just in dollars, but human suffering? What is the true cost of the electricity I use in my home, of the gas I burn in my automobile?”

Sally saw a need to respect all students. “The advent of schools for minorities was a good starting point. But now we need to take the next step. Because in a minority school, what you have is a group of kids, who, even though they now feel safe within their own group, they still don’t know anything about the other groups. What they learn is still ‘us’ and ‘them.’ And the division is maintained. Global Village is attempting to integrate the minorities and the mainstream, the domestic and the foreign, to produce a microcosm of the real world and to teach all of these students the value of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and social activism.”

Another way in which Global Village addresses personal responsibility and awareness is to introduce students to service learning. The student volunteers to work on a project that improves their community, improves the environment, etc. Generally, the student works with existing advocacy groups like The Humane Society, The La Leche League, Get Out the Vote, or some other special interest group that is helping to improve the world. The student ultimately reports on this project and they are given credits for their “hands-on” learning experience. By volunteering their own time and energy for a project of this nature, the student learns about real world dilemmas and real world solutions firsthand. They use their independent thinking skills and their sense of personal responsibility and awareness to affect the project on which they are working. They learn to be responsible, proactive world citizens. Each child will gain from this experience in their own unique way, but they will all learn that one person can and does make a difference.

Sally continues with her thoughts on teaching peace. “How we are personally affects the whole. If you are peaceful, you have an impact on the world around you. If you are not peaceful, you also have an impact on the world around you. If you are attending a peace demonstration and you act violently or aggressively, you are not truly working for peace. If you work for peace, but don’t want your children associating with that gay couple across the street, then you are not truly working for peace. If we are not peaceful as individuals, how can we have peace in the world? If we cannot individually show restraint in the face of perceived wrongs, how can we expect nations with nuclear weapons to show restraint?”

The vision behind Global Village School is that peace, tolerance and understanding can and must be taught in this ever-shrinking world. “Children don’t start out noticing differences in race. They learn it,” Sally concludes. Children are highly malleable. If a child is taught that they must kill the ‘heathens,’ ’sinners,’ ‘barbarians,’ he will live that teaching. If, however, a child is taught that we should value our diversity, he will live that teaching. And if a child is taught to think for himself, he will live that teaching as well, and decide for himself. “What we’re talking about here is a higher level of being, a higher level of decision making.”

“Throughout history people have dehumanized the ‘other.’ It was easier to justify slavery, or the stealing of indigenous lands or the murder of people of a different culture or religion or race, if you could convince people that they were ‘less than human,’ that they were ’savages’ or ‘heathens.’ But the world is much too small now. In the past, people on one side of the world could fight a war and people on the other side didn’t even know about it. Now, not only do we know it instantly, but we are tangibly affected by it. The economy is affected; the environment is affected; our souls are affected. Instability in one area of the world now threatens the stability of all the other areas of the world.”

As the sun begins to sink in the west, a cool breeze drops oak leaves on Sally’s outdoor table. A pink sky paints the whole area with a reddish hue. There is a profound silence as we both contemplate the complex subject that has occupied our afternoon– and much of Sally’s life. An oak leaf lands in my hair, as dozens more dance dizzyingly to the ground. Like the great oak tree that sheds one leaf at a time, we must plant the seeds of peace on earth, one child at a time.

Check out how our website looked during this time period here:  http://web.archive.org/web/20020722010001/http://www.globalvillageschool.org/

Author, Marsha Chandler. Source: http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/multicultural/chandler.htm

Each grade level contains core resources plus many extras – most likely much more than you will be able to get through in a year. Each curriculum guide includes:

1) A detailed list of books and resources for the year, along with information on where to get them;

2) A study guide with planning templates, and sample activities;

3) General information on the Global Village Whole Child Healthy Planet Method, including articles and coaching tips for parents about homeschooling in general, making the most of the program materials, assessment, etc.; and

4) Many useful and fun extras including a supplemental reading list.

Grades 5-8 are approximately 100 pages in length; Grades K-3 are 70-80 pages. Grades 5-8 have monthly recommendations on how to schedule the various materials and activities into 9 month-long units. Since there are so many different ways the resources for the younger grades can be utilized, Grades K-3 include more free-form general recommendations.

Check out samples in grades 1-8 here: http://www.globalvillageschool.org/k8-sample.html

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What responsibility do alternative educators have to address the challenges facing our planet and society? Current struggles are numerous: everything from human oppression and violence to animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation.  Do we believe that young people deserve to be truly prepared for the challenges their generation will face?  If so, how can educators inspire learners to become engaged agents of positive and abiding change?

Enjoy: http://www.educationrevolution.org/2008workshop4.html

Recipe for a Prejudice-Free Society

By Kamron Yazdani

“Peace-o-Pie”

10 lbs. love of humanity

1 teaspoon seeds of positive energy

1 teaspoon cream of martyr

2 cups wine of justice and mercy

1/4 cup freedom

1 pound tolerance and open-mindedness

5 teaspoons essence of unity

1 passport

Dash flavor and harmony

1 spoon of the sweet honey of nature

2 “peaces” clarified butter

Icing of goodwill

2 cherries of humor

Directions:

First, you need to add the base of the entire recipe and work with the goodness of the foundation, to enrich the final result. With that in mind, begin with 10 lbs. love of humanity. To get the recipe started, add a teaspoonful of the seeds of positive energy. Once initiative begins to take place, use 1 teaspoon cream of martyr to put yourself on the right path no matter what the cost. In order to enable the recipe to develop properly, you must include 2 cups of the wine of justice and mercy. To allow the recipe to rise fully, you must include 1/4 cup of freedom.

Next, you must use 1 pound tolerance and open-mindedness so that the flavors of the recipe are balanced. After that’s completed, add 5 teaspoons essence of unity to bring the recipe together. 1 passport is necessary to broaden the recipe. To unify the ingredients, you must use a Dash of flavor and harmony. 1 spoon of the sweet honey of nature will also be needed to sweeten the experience. One of the most important ingredients in this recipe is 2 “peaces” of clarified butter, which is used to enlighten and reveal the flavor. Finish the recipe off with the icing of goodwill, and make sure you don’t wait for it to cool. Finally, you must add two cherries of humor on top to lighten the mood of the dish.

This is a recipe best served with a side of humility and garnished with good intent. Do not serve cool. Must be kept warm for the flavors to reach their full potential.

and scroll all the way to the bottom to hear the interview.