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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Let's Keep it Real

"Let's pretend for a moment we're two real human beings."

 - Ty Webb

 This says it all!

Well, everything and nothing anyway.

 And, the whole thing hinges on the interpretation of the word, real.

 Q:  So, what is real? 

 A:  Everything?

A:  Nothing? 

 A:  Practice?  Theory?  Pleasure?  Pain?  Truth?  Lies?  Being Crazy?  Being Right?

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming,
Or the moment of the truth in your lies.
When everything feels like the movies,
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive.

- Iris (Goo Goo Dolls) / So 90's 

Thus, therefore, heretofore, as such, it's impossible to define reality.  

"Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience.  As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes.  This goes on and on.  Every reaction is a learning process.  Every significant experience alters your perspective."

Emerson ? Camus ?

You Kant be serious.

It's Hunter S. Thompson (albeit from 1958, well before he feared and loathed in Las Vegas).

So, maybe, therein, lies the answer.  

 Maybe it's all real.  And it changes daily for each of us.

"You have your way.  I have my way.  As for the right way, and the only way, it does not exist."

- Nietzsche 
 
I am inspired to explore real institutional learning opportunities by challenging the conventional wisdom/ common practice/ cultural DNA of homework and lack of human empowerment in schools.  

I'm inspired by the natural, timely cracks I am seeing in traditional Education (Read:  Homework,  GPA,  SAT,  Focus on Weaknesses, etc.) as the research continues to roll in:

Why Exercise is Good for the Brain

Sleep Strengthens Brain Hemisphere Connections

Delusions of Gender

And, cracks are "... in everything.  That's how the light gets in...".  In this regard, we should (as parents and educators) continue to pay attention to the "light" that is getting in versus remaining accustomed to the "dark".

The End of the College Essay 

* with commentary here
  
Evolution Didn’t Equip Us for Modern Judgments

Why Millennials Can't Grow Up

Look, I know I'm crazy.

I also know I'm right.

And, I'm super comfortable with both...

...sort of...

Bartender, another shot of lucid courage, please!

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.  If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened.  But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

Here's the thing;  As a father and a teacher I am concluding an 18 year longitudinal study.  My eldest graduates from high school in a few months.

My findings are that classroom time is spent on largely teaching kids how to follow directions and very little on validating their own thinking process. This is not touchy feely. We demand that kids abandon "their" thoughts for "ours".

Secondly, I have learned that homework is absurd and is in direct conflict with a healthy lifestyle for a developing child and adolescent.

I support athletics and extracurriculars, though, because I also learned that kids have interests that turn into passions and this gets them into appropriate trouble (learning deep lessons about themselves) and out (resilience and grit). Unfortunately, this takes time. This time is, currently, dominated by culturally assumptive and absurd homework.

I suspect we all know this. But we continue to go off the cliffs like lemmings.  All the while we are "lem-menting" the notion of gravity because we keep crashing and burning.

I ain't no lemming. 



 

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/friedrichn159194.html#A1m9d5P7d
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