Wipe off the accumulated dust!

This is a great new year 2012 because it is filled with unprecedented opportunities to shine, thrive and live a lifestyle of your own making. Well, I wish all my readers a happy new year. This is the first week article and I hope you enjoy reading it.

This morning I was washing clothes and out of nowhere a thought emerged in my mind. I asked myself a question, why do people wash clothes when they get dirty or why do we wipe off the dust from the table or chairs? Why do we want to get rid of them? The reason is very obvious. Of course we want to wear cleaned clothes or use cleaned table or chairs. If there is dust on the chair, we normally dust off and sit. We normally don’t sit on the dust or we don’t wear the dirty clothes.

This put me into thinking that we don’t tolerate the uncleaned/dirty things and of course nobody does that for sure but we all fail to clean or dust off our bad habits, unforgiving hearts, irritation, anger, jealousy, hatred, quarrel and ill feelings. We don’t get rid of them  instantly. Instead, we wear them all the time, through out the day or month or years. We don’t mind wearing them unlike the unwashed clothes. We find it easy to cover up things or hide it from others by putting on cleaned clothes.

Just like we wash the dirty clothes so that we can look nice when we wear them, likewise, we must also wash ourselves too. We must get rid of our ill feelings, anger, envy, hatred etc. It would be an excellent idea to shed off old habits that don’t bear good fruits,

Another point that I would like to make here is that when we make mistakes, we feel bad. Why should we fret so much about it. Just like the new dress that gets dirty, same we get dirty by making mistakes. Mistakes haven’t belittled or harmed us. The mistakes have only made us dirty for a short time not permanently. We can clean our mistakes by learning some wonderful lessons. It is naive to ask, why do I make a mistake? It is like asking, why does clothes get dirty? Clothes get dirty because that is how it is supposed to be.

We live in this world and we are expected to dirty our hands but we shouldn’t continue to remain in dirt. We should clean and wash ourselves all the time. By becoming dirty you don’t become dirty for eternity. It is for short period. Remember, if you make a mistake, learn the lessons that you are supposed to and don’t have guilt feeling about it.

It is important to wipe off the accumulated dust that has been settled for months, years and lifetime. Do the laundry symbolically to wash off and renew your inner soul. You will feel rejuvenated and refreshed. You will have the wonderful experience of resurrection – becoming new again.

Alwed Ekka

Unschool Yourself For Freedom, Health, Prosperity & Happiness!

Conventional schools operate only to manufacture human products for big international companies all over the world. If people continue to follow the path of conventional education system, they can’t survive rather can not shine and thrive in 21st century. Here are some excellent quotes by wise men and women to inspire and guide us  to unschool ourselves and our future children.

“We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself.” -George Bernard Shaw

“There is, on the whole, nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school.” -George Bernard Shaw

“The only thing I didn’t do in school was learn.” -unschooler Jason Lescalleet

“I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught.” -Winston Churchill

“How I hated this school, and what a life of anxiety I lived there for more than two years. I counted the days and the hours to the end of every term, when I should return home from this hateful servitude.” -Winston Churchill

“School-days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense amd common decency. It doesn’t take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not.” -H. L. Mencken

“Schooling, instead of encouraging the asking of questions, too often discourages it.” -Madeleine L’Engle

“A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.” -George Santayana

“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance that accumulates in the form of inert facts.” -Henry Adams

“We’re drowning in information and starving for knowledge.” -Rutherford Rogers

“Every day I went to school was a constant attack on my self-worth. I learned not to believe in myself. It was a bombardment from all directions; the teachers were saying how bad I was doing in their classes, my family was ashamed of my grades, and the students were attacking me about everything under the sun! I was like a plant trying to grow in darkness–it doesn’t. It all left me afraid to dream my dreams-afraid to be my true self! Who wants to show their true self if they’re just going to get a rock hurled at it?! The real question is: how do we undo the damage done? We have to take time to dream again, not other peoples’, but our own precious dreams that mean everything to us. Our dreams are our life maps.” -unschooler Jenny Smith

“Before children go to school in the first place, all of their natural learning systems are intact. This is what we can see from families who have homeschooled their kids from the very beginning. However, once children are in school for about three years, they are forced to shift over to a very unnatural system to survive the emphasis on memorization and the daily stress, rigidity, and humiliation of classroom life.” -Judy Garvey

“You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” -Galileo

“I do not believe much in education. Each man ought to be his own model, however frightful that may be.” -Albert Einstein

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” -Albert Einstein

“It is… nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreak and ruin. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.” -Albert Einstein

“When was the last time you saw a tombstone with SAT scores inscribed on it?” -Edward B. Fiske

“Most people, most of the time, learn most of what they know about science and technology outside of school.” -National Science Foundation

“My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school.” -Margaret Mead

“I hate, loathe and despise schools….School is bad for you if you have any talent. You should be cultivating that talent in your own particular way.” -Maurice Sendak (author of “Where the Wild Things Are”)

“Each day was a severe test for me, sitting in a dreadful classroom while the sun and fog played outside. Most of the information received meant absolutely nothing to me. For example, I was chastised for not being able to remember what states border Nebraska and what are the states of the Gulf Coast. It was simply a matter of memorizing the names, nothing about the process of memorizing or any reason to memorize. Education without either meaning or excitement is impossible. I longed for the outdoors, leaving only a small part of my conscious self to pay attention to schoolwork.
“One day as I sat fidgeting in class the whole situation suddenly appeared very ridiculous to me. I burst into raucous peals of uncontrolled laughter, I could not stop. The class was first amused, then scared. I stood up, pointed at the teacher, and shrieked my scorn, hardly taking breath in between my howling paroxysms.” -Ansel Adams (who dropped out of school at age twelve and began taking photographs)

“Oh, yes, I went to the white man’s schools. I learned to read from schoolbooks, newspapers, and the Bible. But in time I found that these were not enough. Civilized people depend too much on man-made pages. I turn to the Great Spirit’s book which is the whole of his creation. You can read a big part of that book if you study nature. You know, if you take all your books, lay them out under the sun, and let the snow and rain and insects work on them for a while, there will be nothing left. But the Great Spirit had provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature’s university, the forest, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals, which include us.” -Tatanga Mani, Stoney Indian

A letter from Native Americans to settlers, dated 1774:
We know that you highly esteem the kind of learning taught in those colleges, and that the Maintenance of our young Men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us Good by your Proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you, who are wise, must know that different Nations have different Conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss if our Ideas of this kind of Education happen to not be the same with yours. We have had some Experience of it. Several of our young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences, but, when they came back to us, they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, …neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, nor Councellors, they were totally good for nothing. We are, however, not the less oblig’d by your kind Offer, tho’ we decline accepting it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take Care of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men out of them.

“I loathed every day and regret every day I spent in school. I like to be taught to read and write and add and then be left alone.” -Woody Allen

“I was undisciplined by birth, never would I bend, even in my tender youth, to a rule. It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.” -Claude Monet

“It is absurd and anti-life to be a part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry.” -John Taylor Gatto

“The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders.” -John Taylor Gatto

“There can be no education without leisure; and without leisure, education is worthless.” -Sarah Josepha Hale

“I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner.” -Aleister Crowley

“Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.” -Anna Freud

“If the student fails to learn, the teacher fails to teach.” -unknown

“Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” -Oscar Wilde

“How is it that little children are so intelligent while men are so stupid? It must be education that does it.” -Alexandre Dumas, fils

“Knowledge has outstripped character development, and the young today are given an education rather than an upbringing.” -Ilya Ehrenburg

“Our schools have become vast factories for the manufacture of robots. We no longer send our young to them primarily to be taught and given the tools of thought, no longer primarily to be informed and acquire knowledge; but to be ‘socialized.'” -Robert Lindner

“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” -Plato

“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.” -Mark Twain

“It is easier for a teacher to command than to teach.” -John Locke

“An educator never says what he himself thinks, but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is educating to hear.” -Nietzsche

“The things we know best are the things we haven’t been taught.” -Vauvenargues

“The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.” -Horace Mann

“Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.” -Lillian Smith

“I can’t give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma.” -L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz

“School is like a lollipop. It sucks until it is gone.” -Ashley Salvati

“How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?” -Henry D. Thoreau

“The more I think about it the more I think high school is seriously warped.” -J.S. Feliciano, Pump up the Volume

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” -Isaac Asimov

“In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it…and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself.” -Grace Llewellyn

“It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.” -Bertrand Russell

“We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. Hey teacher, leave the kids alone.” -Pink Floyd

“Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how.” -John Holt

“L“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einsteinife learning is about trusting kids to learn what they need to know and about helping them to learn and grow in their own ways. It is about respecting the everyday experiences that enable children to understand the world and their culture, and to interact with it.” Wendy Priesntz

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einstein

“I spent three days a week for ten years educating myself in the public library, finding mirrors for myself in hundreds of books. At the end of ten years, I was completely educated. I had read every goddamn book in the library, and I’d written a thousand stories.” ~ Ray Bradbury

“A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed. Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.” ~ Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal

“School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence.” ~ H.L. Mencken

“None of the world’s problems will have a solution until the world’s individuals become thoroughly self-educated.” ~ Buckminster Fuller

“I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.” ~ Seymour Papert

“We learn because we want to learn, because it’s important to us, because it’s natural, and because it’s impossible to live in the world and not learn. Then along comes school to mess up a beautiful thing.” ~ Peggy Pirro

“As far as I have seen, at school…they aimed at blotting out one’s individuality.” ~ Franz Kafka

“We must demolish the institution of schooling because it impedes learning and enslaves children. Then we need to put both money and creativity into creating opportunities and infrastructures that respect children and help them learn.” Wendy Priesnitz

“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.” ~ Frank Zappa

“Children are born passionately eager to make as much sense as they can of things around them. If we attempt to control, manipulate, or divert this process…the independent scientist in the child disappears.”  ~ John Holt

“Everything I am interested in, from cooking to electronics, is related to math. In real life you don’t have to worry about integrating math into other subjects. In real life, math already is integrated into everything else.” Anna Hoffstrom

“Education itself is a putting off, a postponement; we are told to work hard to get good results. Why? So we can get a good job. What is a good job? One that pays well. Oh. And that’s it? All this suffering, merely so that we can earn a lot of money, which, even if we manage it, will not solve our problems anyway? It’s a tragically limited idea of what life is all about.” ~ Tom Hodgkinson

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ~ Pablo Picasso

“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.” ~ Ivan Illich

Compiled by Alwed Ekka

What Did You Learn Today?

I quite often ask children who return home from schools, “what did you learn Today?” “Did you learn anything new?” What replies can you guess you will get when you ask children after the school? The most common replies that you will get: I learned nothing. It was a boring day. There was nothing new. It was the same old thing-BORING. This really got me into thinking why not the children learn something new everyday. There are many things that children don’t know about that they can learn and not be the victim of boredom.

There are vast areas of interests that children should engage in themselves to learn and master because they are capable of doing so. I understand when they go to school they learn nothing other than what is there in the books. Other than apple and orange they don’t teach other fruit names though there are many fruits available.  Parents expect their children to learn something new everyday but their children don’t learn new things. It is a pathetic phenomena today.

It is good to ask ourselves what new things we learn everyday? If we are not learning new things then we should make an effort to learn new things. Learning new things are basis of making our life better and meaningful. Let’s teach ourselves something new and also help others learn new things.

The children should be able to say I learned today about human behaviors, about healthy eating habits, how to remain healthy, happy, rich, and peaceful. I learned today how to be creative, innovative and how to make mistakes. I learned that I can make a difference in the world. I learned today that people are same and should not be discriminated. I learned today to be polite, respectful, helpful and generous. I learned how to make the best use of resources. I learned how to train people, teach people, empower people, guide people, mentor people and I learned to take care of animals, plants, the nature and the earth.

If children are taught all these things they will surely say they have learned something new everyday otherwise the texts will seem boring and stagnant. It is important to teach children what is important. Schools and colleges today don’t guarantee job security or financial security yet people value them too much and go extra mile to pay even the highest fees. The parents are willing to pay high fees for the children to get best academic education but they cringe paying for the most essential things of life that they must learn about.

Alwed Ekka

 

Teach Children To Become Better, Wiser And Skillful!

Many challenges of life could be easily overcome if we teach our children to become better, wiser and skillful. As long as people inhabit the earth, we are going to face problems that could confuse and depress us but if we focus on developing skills that can solve our problems then our children will be able to outlive space and time. Are we making our children better, wiser and skillful human beings of tomorrow?

It is always a human nature to wish life to be easy, less challenging and less demanding. But it should not be so because we can’t evolve to become what we are supposed to be. Schools and colleges must teach children to be better humans, wise and skillful enough to trade on any path they wish. However, it should not be the case of surviving one’s existence over the expense of another. The mentality of “survival of the fittest” should not be determining human existence.

I wish that children should be educated and taught to become better humans in order to continue the purpose of existence itself. I would like to see young people finding new ways to live on this earth. They should cast aside the conventional system, the dogmas, the doctrines, the old beliefs, old philosophies and various cartels for pretty obvious reasons. The conventional systems have failed us and misled us to anarchy. There is no cohesive principles in existence that can support human beings who want to live peacefully, happily and freely.

Even if nobody is teaching children to become better, wiser and skillful, they will be led to choose only those things that matter to them. Many youngsters do spot the errors in the old system and they don’t want to be part of it. Children will attract better things, better life and better future if they use their wisdom and skills wisely for the benefits of all. TEACH children to become better, wiser and skillful so that they can attract all the good things they wish.

Alwed Ekka

 

Instruct Children Through Informal Ways!

As a saying goes, ‘there is no ready made solution to problems’, we should realize too that there is no established formal ways to teach children everyday. Children get tired and bored when we apply the formal ways to teach them. They resist the formal approach but accept without hesitation when there is informal style of instruction. I will explain further what I mean by informal ways.

Today, children are taught in a formal environment all over the world and they get conditioned to learn in a traditional way. Though they dislike it, they have no choice but to resign to the fate of established system. Formal education system may work for some but not all children therefore parents must use their prudence to know what their children really require and provide them respectively.

I have observed first hand that children don’t really enjoy formal set up of instruction because it is rigid and inflexible. It curtails their freedom of movement, expression, experiment, exploration, imagination and innovation. Students learn more when they are taught in a friendly and informal way. They feel relaxed, open and receptive. I have been using informal approach for the past six years and I have noticed children gaining greater benefits this way than formal method of instruction.

Include as many informal words, expressions, tools and ideas as you can in order to teach children and they will love it. Your energy won’t be drained as much as it would otherwise. The children won’t feel lousy, lethargic and stressed too because the burden gets lighter. Try out yourself and use it for greater effectiveness and result.

You will discover informal ways of instruction while teaching the students and observing them. It is said that students should concentrate in the class but more than that teachers should be attentive during the period of instruction to get any feedbacks from the students. The feedbacks show up as you immerse yourself in instructing the students. Informal ways are kind of on the spot teaching tools. Without real connection there is no much gain and outcome so be open to apply informal ways to teach any difficult concepts.

 

Alwed Ekka

Learn As Little Kids Do!

At times, I wonder how children are highly capable of learning so many languages when they are exposed to such environment only by listening to adult’s conversation. In India there are many languages spoken and a child grows learning as many as five to eight languages just by listening and speaking with their peer groups. It is amazing how children can learn to speak languages at tender age. It proves that learning is not reserved for special class of society or people rather it is possible for those who understand the human ability.

Intrigued though we may be to know the science behind it but one thing stands out tall is that we learn things as little kids do. We as adults don’t really recognize how children learn and we don’t appreciate their learning styles. It is the need of the time that we adults recognize and approve how children learn and we should never emphasize only on adults mode of imparting knowledge. Children learn by listening and if you teach them they don’t learn much. We humans learn by listening first, then speaking, reading and writing. I think this works well if we encourage our children to continue the process of learning by listening.

My son is two and half years  in age and we haven’t taught him how to use the grammar to speak the language. He just didn’t learn that way. He learned to speak by listening to us speaking. He learned his rhymes by listening and then repeating it again and again. It proves the argument that children do learn differently than adults and adults must not forget how they learned their language first.

Learning by listening is a powerful tool and can enhance the quality of learning if practiced with diligence. I am sure people will recognize the reality and apply in their daily life. I am trying to follow the same style. I listen to audios, videos and then try to apply others ways. It works wonders and faster. My son is a prime example for this. I am proud to observe his learning style and speed. Apart from listening, he learns by observing, how things are done.

My son observes me how I use the computer. He sees me closely how I switch on and off the computer and  he does the same. He is two and half, and he can use the mouse. He clicks on Youtube videos and he is able to enlarge the screen too. Now he just wants to use the computer by himself. He just scrolls and searches for rhymes and other toy videos. It confirms one thing that we do learn things by doing and involving ourselves. So let’s try to listen and involve by action so that there can be a positive result.

Learn as little toddlers do and it can be highly rewarding in a short time. Let’s give thoughts to this idea of learning as children do to reap greater rewards. I am sure we can learn much by listening and doing.

Alwed Ekka

(P.S. I am not an expert in learning and education, but just try out.)