Unschooling Yitan Call
Nancy White
| show details 12:36 AM (15 hours ago)
|
(This is a ONE-HOUR call. Our first ever, I think.)
Our primary and secondary educational systems are controversial, to put it mildly. John Holt, Grace Llewelyn, Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and others have done a fabulous job pointing out how deficient the existing systems are, as well as lighting a path forward.
One growing alternative is unschooling. Unlike the popular home-schooling stereotype of parents sharing "classroom" duties at home, unschooling is mostly student-led (and I wince using the word "student"). Explaining it in any depth is beyond the scope of these lightweight invites, so please join this call and explore with us.
We've invited a wonderful group of deeply experienced unschoolers, adult and adult-to-be, including Tammy Takahashi, Sandra Dodd, PS Pirro, some of our Yi-Tan regulars and their kids.
With this awesome posse, let's discuss:
- What is the range of unschooling practices? How quickly is it growing?
- How does the rest of the world respond to unschooling? Is that changing?
- What are the main benefits the Net brings unschoolers?
As always, an IRC Chat will be available during the call, here.
We're now @yitan! Please follow us, and let's also continue using #yitan. This page is on a wiki, here.
Date: Monday, September 21, 2009
Time: 10:30 PST, 1:30 EST
Participant Access Code: 778778
Wiki goodness at www.yi-tan.com
Please feel free to forward this note to people you think would be interested in these calls.
Talk to you on the call!
Bestest,
alexanderhayes
Whilst in chully Dunedin , Leigh and I sat and discussed some of the
reading needs we both have to brush up on to truly inform anything we
happen to instinctively react or rant to.
I spoke of the BA in Education I'd attained by 1994 and the readings
we'd been drawn to focus on such as;
* Assertice Discipline - Lee & Marlene Canter -
http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Assertive_discipline
* Holistic Education - Jiddu Chrishnamurti - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti
Of course the wikipedia entries point to all the associated luminaries
and yup......good ol' Ivan Illich is included.
This link you pass on completes another picture for me.
Many thanks.
On Sep 19, 9:32 am, Nancy White <nancy.wh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought I should pass this along as relevant to those interested in the
> alternative to schools discussions.
>
> show details 12:36 AM (15 hours ago)
>
> Greetings,
>
> Our primary and secondary educational systems are controversial, to put it
> Llewelyn <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Llewellyn>, Paulo
> Freire<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire>,
> John Taylor Gatto <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto> and
> systems are, as well as lighting a path forward.
>
> One growing alternative is
> duties at home, unschooling is mostly student-led (and I wince using the
> word "student"). Explaining it in any depth is beyond the scope of these
> lightweight invites, so please join this call and explore with us.
>
> We've invited a wonderful group of deeply experienced unschoolers, adult and
> Dodd <http://www.sandradodd.com/>, PS Pirro <http://pspirro.com/>, some of
>
> With this awesome posse, let's discuss:
>
> - How does the rest of the world respond to unschooling? Is that
> changing?
> - What are the main benefits the Net brings unschoolers?
>
> As always, an IRC
> Chat<http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/yi-tan/irc_chat?wikiPageId=163280>will
> here.
>
> also continue using #yitan <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23yitan>.
> This page is on a wiki, here<http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/yi-tan/Unschooling>
> .
alexanderhayes
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.education.home-school.misc/topics?hl=en
More often than not I'm finding myself in there than I am in TALO.
> alternative to schools discussions.
>
> show details 12:36 AM (15 hours ago)
>
> Greetings,
>
> Our primary and secondary educational systems are controversial, to put it
> Llewelyn <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Llewellyn>, Paulo
> Freire<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire>,
> systems are, as well as lighting a path forward.
>
> One growing alternative is
> duties at home, unschooling is mostly student-led (and I wince using the
> word "student"). Explaining it in any depth is beyond the scope of these
> lightweight invites, so please join this call and explore with us.
>
> We've invited a wonderful group of deeply experienced unschoolers, adult and
>
> With this awesome posse, let's discuss:
>
> - How does the rest of the world respond to unschooling? Is that
> changing?
> - What are the main benefits the Net brings unschoolers?
>
> As always, an IRC
> Chat<http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/yi-tan/irc_chat?wikiPageId=163280>will
> here.
>
> also continue using #yitan <http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23yitan>.
> This page is on a wiki, here<http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/yi-tan/Unschooling>
> .
Steven Parker
Hi Nancy
Some good links in relation to Gatto and his research on the schooling system. Particlualry interesting in relation to his comments on networks.
Institutions Need Networks; Human Beings Need Communities
Dumbing Us Down: This new-world-order schooling would serve dinner, provide evening recreation, offer therapy, medical attention, among other services, and would convert the institution into a true synthetic family for children
http://www.jonesreport.com/article/01_08/080108_institutions.html
John Taylor Gatto argues that 'We Need Less School, Not More':
"People who admire our school institution usually admire networking in general and have an easy time seeing its positive side, but they overlook its negative aspect: networks, even good ones, drain the vitality from communities and families. They provide mechanical ("by-the-numbers") solutions to human problems, when a slow, organic process of self-awareness, self-discovery, and cooperation is what is required if any solution is to stick."
"Aristotle saw, a long time ago, that fully participating in a complex range of human affairs was the only way to become fully human; in that he differed from Plato. What is gained from consulting a specialist and surrendering all judgement is often more than outweighed by a permanent loss of one's own volition."
"This discovery accounts for the curious texture of real communication, where people argue with their doctors, lawyers and ministers... instead of accepting what they get... they frequently make their own food instead of buying it in a restaurant and perform many similar acts of participation. A real community is, of course, a collection of real families who themselves function in this participatory way."
"Networks, however, don't require the whole person, but only a narrow piece. If, on the other hand, you function in a network, it asks you to suppress all the parts of yourself except the network-interest part-- a highly unnatural act although one you can get used to. In exchange, the network will deliver efficiency in the pursuite of some limited aim. If you enter into too many of these devil's bargains, you will split yourself into many specialized pieces-- none of them completely human-- and no time is available to reintegrate them. This, ironically, is the destiny of many successful networkers (and doubtless generates much business for divorce courts and therapists of many varieties)."
"If we face the present school and community crisis squarely, with hopes of finding a better way, we need to accept that schools, as networks, create a large part of the agony of modern life. We don't need more schooling-- we need less."
---------------------
"Yet compulsory schooling in factory schools is a very recent, very Massachusetts/ New York development. Now, it is much harder to escape because another form of mass schooling-- television-- has spread all over the place to blot up any attention spared by school. Mass commercial entertainment, as addictive as any other hallucinogenic drug, has blocked the escape routes from mass schooling."
"Unlike communities, networks have a very narrow way of allocating people to associate... If the loss of true community entailed by masquerading in networks is not noticed in time, a condition arises in the victim's spirit much like the 'trout starvation' that used to strike wilderness explorers who ate only stream fish-- the eater gradually suffers for want of sufficient nutrients."
"Networks, like schools, are not communities, just as school training is not education. By preempting fifty percent of the total time of the young, by locking young people up with other young people exactly their own age, by ringing bells to start and stop work, by asking people to think about the same thing at the same time in the same way, by grading people the way we grade vegetables, network schools steal the vitality of communities and replace it with an ugly mechanism. No one survives these places with their humanity intact, not kids, nt teachers, not administrators, and not parents."
"Networks divide people, first from themselves, and then from each other, on the grounds that this is the efficient way to perform a task. It may well be, but it is a lousy way to feel good about being alive."
"Institutions, so say their political philosophers, are better at creating marching orders for the human race than families are; therefore they should no longer be expected to follow, but to lead. Institutional leaders have come to regard themselves as great synthetic fathers to millions of synthetic children, by which I mean all of us."
---------
"Large cities have great difficulty supporting healthy community life... mostly because of the constant competition of institutions and networks for the custody of children and old people. By isolating the young and old from the working life of places, and by isolating the working population from the young and old, institutions and networks have brought about a fundamental disconnection of the generations."
"Over ninety-percent of the U.S. population now lives inside fifty urban aggregations. Having been concentrated there as the end product of a fairly well-understood historical process, they are denied a reciprocal part in any continuous, well-articulated community. By redirecting the focus of our lives from families and communities to institutions and networks, we, in effect, anoint a machine our king."
"Nearly a century ago, a French sociologist wrote that every institution's unstated first goal is to survive and grow, not to undertake the mission it has nominally staked out for itself. Thus, the first goal of the postal service is not to deliver the mail, it is to provide protection for employment. The first goal of a permanent military organization is not to defend national security but to secure, in perpetuity, a fraction of the national wealth to distribute to its personnel."
"It was this philistine potential-- that teaching the young for pay would inevitably expand into an institution for the protection of teachers, not students-- that made Socrates condemn the Sophists so strongly long ago in ancient Greece."
"For 150 years, institutional education has seen fit to offer as its main purpose the preparation for economic success. Good education = good job, good money, good things. This has become the universal national banner, hoisted by Harvards as well as high schools. The absurdity of defining education as an economic good becomes clear if we ask ourselves what is gained by perceiving education as a way to enhance even further runaway consumption that threatens the earth, the air, and the water of our planet? Should we continue to teach people that they can buy happiness in the face of a tidal wave of evidence that they cannot?"
"What, after all this time is the purpose of mass schooling supposed to be? Reading, writing and arithmetic can't be the answer... It divides and classifies people, demanding that they compulsively compete with each other, and publicly labels the losers by literally de-grading them, identifying them as "low-class" material. And the bottom line for the winners is that they can buy more stuff!"
"An important difference between communities and institutions is that communities have natural limits; they stop growing or they die. There's a good reason for this: in the best communities everyone is a special person who sooner or later impinges on everyone else's consciousness... However, networks, like schools, expand indefinitely, just as long as they can get away with it. "More" may not be "better," but "more" is always more profitable for the people who make a living out of networking."
--------
"The culture of schools only coheres in response to a web of material rewards and punishments. A's, F's, bathroom passes, gold stars, "good" classes, access to a photocopy machine. Everything we know about why people drive themselves to know things and do their best is contradicted inside these places."
"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges. What's gotten in the way is the theory that says there is one right way to proceed with growing up. That's an ancient Egyptian idea symbolized by the pyramid with an eye on top-- everyone is a stone defined by its position on the pyramid-- it signals a worldview of minds obsessed with the control of other minds, obsessed by dominance and strategies of intervention to maintain that dominance."
"The humming of the great hive society foreseen by Francis Bacon, and by H.G. Wells in The Sleeper Awakes, has never sounded louder than it does to us right now. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn nothing is important; force them to plead for the natural right to the toilet, and they will become liars and toadies; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly."
"Individuality, family, and community, on the other hand, are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way." The schools we've allowed to develop can't work because the structure is held together by a Byzantine tapestry of reward and threat, of carrots and sticks. Official favor, grades, or other trinkets or subordination have no connection with education; they are the paraphernalia of servitude, not of freedom."
"Sixty-five years ago, Bertrand Russell said mass schooling was a scheme to artificially deliver national unity by eliminating human variation and by eliminating the forge that produces variation: the family-- a recognizably American student: anti-intellectual, superstitous, lacking self-confidence, less "inner-freedom"
"Schools, I hear it argued, would make better sense and be better value as nine-to-five operations or even nine-to-nine ones, working year-round. We're not a farming community anymore, I hear, that we need to give kids time off to tend the crops. This new-world-order schooling would serve dinner, provide evening recreation, offer therapy, medical attention, among other services, and would convert the institution into a true synthetic family for children-- better than the original one for many poor kids, it is said-- and this would level the playing field for the sons and daughters of weak families."
"Yet it appears to me that schools are already a major cause of weak families and weak communities. They separate parents and children from vital interaction with each other and from true curiosity about each other's lives."
-- John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down
Also for context of the education NWO system technological control grid being implemented incrementally (much as one trains an animal to accept new conditions until they know no different) check out:
Concern at pupil data microchips
The school says the microchip is not a tracking device
A
secondary school in Doncaster has been trying out a scheme where
pupils' records are accessible via a microchip embedded in their school
uniform.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7110105.stm
Once-wary Australians accept their daily lives being monitored, writes Damien Murphy (Rubbish!).
Increasingly Australians are being bar-coded and scoped. Their
whereabouts are checked, along with the company they keep. How they
make money, how they spend it - all is monitored in the name of
progress, profit and private and national security.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/technology-that-exposes-your-dirty-linen/2008/01/06/1199554485298.html
Schools get rules on biometrics
Biometric systems are used in school for registration and payment
Schools
are being given official guidelines to clarify how they can use and
store pupils' biometric information, such as fingerprints.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6912232.stm
NOBODY SEEMS TO NOTICE NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE
This is a brilliant segment from one of George Carlin's latest specials where he, as only George can do, smacks you upside the head with ... all » the truth of things, free of any nasty sugar coating.
The only thing I disagree with in this segment is that it will never change?????
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=3066348032691252021&q=george+carlin+education&total=11&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
Warning: Do not watch this iof you are affended by bad language!!!
John Eyles
Reinventing the Classroom: Social and Educational Impact of Information and Communication Technologies in Education
September 15, 2009 - The seminar provided a forum to critically examine: (i) Large scale efforts to incorporate Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) into education; (ii) The impact of these efforts on learning; and (iii) The challenges of evaluation and monitoring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH94FSWsp5U
Leigh Blackall
I think Gatto's critique of networks is interesting but a pitty that it is so loaded with emotionally biased words. I mean "devil's pacts" really!
All those things human that he argues a network breaks, can easily be found in notions of family and community. Consider the recent and continued supression of women in such groups, homosexuality, transgenderism, counter views on the religion or politics of the group.. on and on and on.
A networked relationship to the world is neither ideal or perfect, and it does seem to disrupt localised groups like families, community and workplaces.. but that might actually be a good thing(?)
--
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
SL - Leroy Goalpost
http://leighblackall.blogspot.com
Leigh Blackall
What struck me in my short time in America (and that has struck me in the years I have been interacting with Americans online) is how totally unaware they generally are of things outside themselves. But I can understand that, because what is inside most Americans I have met and interacted with is quite frankly impressive and often amazing! (or ShitHot as Mike would say :)
Most English peaking people I have met are self absorbed like this to some degree, but it becomes so nakedly bare for Americans because they have the resources and technology to project themselves and all their flaws, all over everyone else.
OLPC started as an experiment, and we were all excited by it to some degree (although we should have known better). When the experiment started returning evidence of failure or worse, they don't/won't take the "scientific" view.
The best shut down to the OLPC experiment would have to be:
Glory By Binyavanga Wainaina
- To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan Illich
The Virtues of Mundane Science By Daniel M. Kammen and Michael R. Dove
Barbara Dieu
In the same line as what you have been linking to- here is an interesting cyberpunk fiction series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherland
Warm regards,
Bee
--
Barbara Dieu
http://barbaradieu.com
http://beespace.net
Steven Parker
| John D. Rockefeller, Sr. Quote |
|
|
Leigh Blackall
I realise I come accross as an Illich fan boy - but it has more to do with the experience of not meeting many people who actually read his work, or people who rather than discuss his points, suggest I read something else which more often than not has nowhere near the relavence or impact. Gatto for example, is almost entirely drawing from Illich, but distracting from the underlying principle. Network doesn't work, either causing my misunderstanding, or eliciting a general misunderstanding. The real point I wanted to make is the assumed value of family and community as Gatto's counter point to networks.. as though they didn't need any further explaination, when too easily one can question those on the same terms he questions networks.
Barbara Dieu
>Given that my entire family are school teachers, homeschooling will be very difficult. But we will be looking for an active community.
Cuando éramos niños en la Patagonia - Google Books http://bit.ly/e2YUS
reports on the lives of a group of Belgian families who emigrated to
the Chilean Patagonia after WWII - with a doctor, a teacher and a
priest and established themselves in Chile Chico for some decades.
Like many others around the world, they started from scratch, lived on
agriculture and all the children were schooled by and in the
community. Later many moved to Santiago and did their higher studies
there. I met the children and grandchildren from one of these
families, who are now artists, dentists, journalists, doctors,
engineers...
http://chilechicobelgas.blogspot.com/2005_11_22_archive.htm
The original families themselves, however, had been part of a well-educated elite in Belgium so they could pass it on to their children. What is
terrible is when school (as it is) is the only way out for many kids and home does not provide them with the needed community and healthy environment.
Steven Parker
I'm re reading Illich's Tools for Conviviality. Personally I like reading Illich more than Gatto. He goes deeper, or uses words that allow more of us to go deeper. Illich would describe what you say Gatto means as, industrialisation, institutionalisation and specialisation - I don't think he would go so far as to say codependence is a bad thing. For example: “...conviviality = individual freedom realized in personal interdependence, and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value”
I realise I come accross as an Illich fan boy - but it has more to do with the experience of not meeting many people who actually read his work, or people who rather than discuss his points, suggest I read something else which more often than not has nowhere near the relavence or impact. Gatto for example, is almost entirely drawing from Illich, but distracting from the underlying principle. Network doesn't work, either causing my misunderstanding, or eliciting a general misunderstanding.
The real point I wanted to make is the assumed value of family and community as Gatto's counter point to networks.. as though they didn't need any further explaination, when too easily one can question those on the same terms he questions networks.
Steven Parker
Leigh Blackall
Steven Parker
Barbara Dieu
If you google you can read it from here
http://opencollector.org/history/homebrew/tools.html
or here
http://www.altruists.org/f311
B.
Steven Parker
Brent
brent.
--------------------------------------
http://www.waihekeradio.org.nz
http://pedagogyofthecompressed.blogspot.com/
rgrozdanic
alexanderhayes
Truly.... it is.
>
> read more »
alexanderhayes
On Sep 28, 5:55 am, Leigh Blackall <leighblack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I didn't read all of Steven's mega dump, but found the connection that Gatto
> apparently makes between school and networks curious. I struggle to see the
> connection, when in very many schools these days, they actively work to
> compliment the family and community values. Schools that have people who can
> assist with housing, food, and meeting other parents, as well as police
> liaison etc.. This doesn't mean I personally value or appreciate schools
> anymore, I think family and community (if they as groups are in fact
> desirable to people) can be complimented in many other ways besides school.
>
> I think Gatto's critique of networks is interesting but a pitty that it is
> so loaded with emotionally biased words. I mean "devil's pacts" really!
>
> All those things human that he argues a network breaks, can easily be found
> in notions of family and community. Consider the recent and continued
> supression of women in such groups, homosexuality, transgenderism, counter
> views on the religion or politics of the group.. on and on and on.
>
> A networked relationship to the world is neither ideal or perfect, and it
> does seem to disrupt localised groups like families, community and
> workplaces.. but that might actually be a good thing(?)
>
>
> read more »
alexanderhayes
It's inflamatory, reactionary and the t-shirt stand lives by it.
One smacks of anger.
On Sep 28, 6:26 am, Leigh Blackall <leighblack...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Negroponte is a freak out! I'm sorry to generalise with insensitivity
> towards those who share some of his traits, but his language and accent,
> loaded with his narrow logic boardering on religious obsession, is quite
> frankly frightening - horrible, yet nothing new, to be expected from his
> class, gender and nationality. What frightens me most is that he is using
> the issue and ideas of dechooling that I also subsribe to, and pushing his
> overwhelming agenda with it. Suddenly I don't like the company on this
> bandwagon.
>
> What struck me in my short time in America (and that has struck me in the
> years I have been interacting with Americans online) is how totally unaware
> they generally are of things outside themselves. But I can understand that,
> because what is inside most Americans I have met and interacted with is
> quite frankly impressive and often amazing! (or ShitHot as Mike would say :)
>
> Most English peaking people I have met are self absorbed like this to some
> degree, but it becomes so nakedly bare for Americans because they have the
> resources and technology to project themselves and all their flaws, all over
> everyone else.
>
> OLPC started as an experiment, and we were all excited by it to some degree
> (although we should have known better). When the experiment started
> returning evidence of failure or worse, they don't/won't take the
> "scientific" view.
>
> The best shut down to the OLPC experiment would have to be:
>
> Wainaina<http://leighblackall.blogspot.com/2009/05/glory-by-binyavanga-wainain...>
> *
> 2. *To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan
> Illich<http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm>
> *
> 3. *The Virtues of Mundane Science By Daniel M. Kammen and Michael R.
> Dove<http://leighblackall.blogspot.com/2009/05/virtues-of-mundane-science-...>
> *
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Leigh Blackall <leighblack...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > I didn't read all of Steven's mega dump, but found the connection that
> > Gatto apparently makes between school and networks curious. I struggle to
> > see the connection, when in very many schools these days, they actively work
> > to compliment the family and community values. Schools that have people who
> > can assist with housing, food, and meeting other parents, as well as police
> > liaison etc.. This doesn't mean I personally value or appreciate schools
> > anymore, I think family and community (if they as groups are in fact
> > desirable to people) can be complimented in many other ways besides school.
>
> > I think Gatto's critique of networks is interesting but a pitty that it is
> > so loaded with emotionally biased words. I mean "devil's pacts" really!
>
> > All those things human that he argues a network breaks, can easily be found
> > in notions of family and community. Consider the recent and continued
> > supression of women in such groups, homosexuality, transgenderism, counter
> > views on the religion or politics of the group.. on and on and on.
>
> > A networked relationship to the world is neither ideal or perfect, and it
> > does seem to disrupt localised groups like families, community and
> > workplaces.. but that might actually be a good thing(?)
>
>
> read more »
alexanderhayes
years I have been interacting with Americans online) is how totally
unaware
they generally are of things outside themselves. But I can understand
that,
because what is inside most Americans I have met and interacted with
is
quite frankly impressive and often amazing! (or ShitHot as Mike would
My god Leigh.....couldnt you have been a little more kind on your
hosts ?
> towards those who share some of his traits, but his language and accent,
> loaded with his narrow logic boardering on religious obsession, is quite
> frankly frightening - horrible, yet nothing new, to be expected from his
> class, gender and nationality. What frightens me most is that he is using
> the issue and ideas of dechooling that I also subsribe to, and pushing his
> overwhelming agenda with it. Suddenly I don't like the company on this
> bandwagon.
>
> What struck me in my short time in America (and that has struck me in the
> years I have been interacting with Americans online) is how totally unaware
> they generally are of things outside themselves. But I can understand that,
> because what is inside most Americans I have met and interacted with is
> quite frankly impressive and often amazing! (or ShitHot as Mike would say :)
>
> Most English peaking people I have met are self absorbed like this to some
> degree, but it becomes so nakedly bare for Americans because they have the
> resources and technology to project themselves and all their flaws, all over
> everyone else.
>
> OLPC started as an experiment, and we were all excited by it to some degree
> (although we should have known better). When the experiment started
> returning evidence of failure or worse, they don't/won't take the
> "scientific" view.
>
> The best shut down to the OLPC experiment would have to be:
>
> Wainaina<http://leighblackall.blogspot.com/2009/05/glory-by-binyavanga-wainain...>
> *
> 2. *To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan
> Illich<http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm>
> *
> Dove<http://leighblackall.blogspot.com/2009/05/virtues-of-mundane-science-...>
> *
> On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Leigh Blackall <leighblack...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > I didn't read all of Steven's mega dump, but found the connection that
> > Gatto apparently makes between school and networks curious. I struggle to
> > see the connection, when in very many schools these days, they actively work
> > to compliment the family and community values. Schools that have people who
> > can assist with housing, food, and meeting other parents, as well as police
> > liaison etc.. This doesn't mean I personally value or appreciate schools
> > anymore, I think family and community (if they as groups are in fact
> > desirable to people) can be complimented in many other ways besides school.
>
> > I think Gatto's critique of networks is interesting but a pitty that it is
> > so loaded with emotionally biased words. I mean "devil's pacts" really!
>
> > All those things human that he argues a network breaks, can easily be found
> > in notions of family and community. Consider the recent and continued
> > supression of women in such groups, homosexuality, transgenderism, counter
> > views on the religion or politics of the group.. on and on and on.
>
> > A networked relationship to the world is neither ideal or perfect, and it
> > does seem to disrupt localised groups like families, community and
> > workplaces.. but that might actually be a good thing(?)
>
>
> read more »