Entertain A Revolutionary Thought - attending school to

learn

Public schools perform much worse at edifying students than private or home schools. They are
the wrong environment to facilitate learning. The excuse is public schools help students learn
social skills - like how to follow orders.

Primary and secondary education are used to prepare students for college. The education industry
markets college degrees as the only route to get a good job or a promotion.  Follow and don't
think so you can get a nice job, with benefits, in a bureaucracy. Statistics supporting this sales
claim for a college degree are from decades ago when the bureaucratic industrial age was still
healthy.

That promised job, promotion, or income boost is likely to be lost to corporate outsourcing,
downsizing, and eventual bureaucracy capsizing as the new netcohort society develops. In
essence the entire government approved educational experience is developing industrial-worker
and lower management candidates for jobs that won't exist.

If you are required to attend school; shouldn't the emphasis be on learning to logically reason,
adapting to a changing world, and acting with wisdom?

Consider alternative learning for yourself and those you

love 
Wisdom and understanding are enthusiastic pursuits rather than a historic record. What
you know is becoming more important than where you learned it.
"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built
upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child
is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch
real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table,
while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a
rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the
mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas
out of actual experience." -- Anne Sullivan
The world we perceive has been shaped by schools we
attended. 
Perhaps government approved schools have not failed; but have instead delivered exactly
the product desired - compliant citizens.
"Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been
discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery." -
Benjamin Disraeli

Western Society's educational bureaucracy has become moribund, and hence archaic. Ignoring the fact
that desire of learners is more important then organization and administration, they stifle creativity and
reward conformity.

The educational establishment has continually extended its power by including younger children and
older adults. The health of state authorized institutions is dependent on the successful indoctrination of
the people it claims to serve.

Start each day with a loyalty oath, continue the day with rewritten histories, finish with homework as a
reminder that your future profession requires a vocation oriented college degree.

Emphasis on science and math that few will fully comprehend will make the mass of students feel
inadequate and needing of supervision. Don't fund or ignore all the other disciplines that are involved in
being human - subjects where many students would find their passion and abilities. Break subject matter
into discrete and short duration chunks that never allow the intense joy of discovery that comes from
continued, in depth study.

Don't encourage physical activity in children except in supervised group activities. Call them sick and give
them drugs if they will not conform. Train them to be good citizens - yielding meekly and quickly to the
demands of any authority.

This formula fit well with the industrial age.

A populace thus trained is unprepared for the enormous change that technology is bringing to all of our
lives.

"The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cat's teeth acquire no merit from their
enforced sacrifice." - Mahatma Gandhi

As the world quickly changes, those empowered by a joy of learning will be able to adapt and avoid the
poverty of dislocated lives. Those still in school are at greatest risk as their education under duress is
failing them even before it is complete.
We that are finished with indentured education will be wise to unschool ourselves and break the
coerced social contract with a bankrupt system.

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." -
Albert Einstein

Day Of The Longtail 

The world is changing. We need to change quicker than the world to position ourselves for
success.
Let's get that dreaded word disintermediation defined.

Everyone benefits when a middle man is cut out - except the middleman. The technology age has
allowed consumers of products, knowledge, and ideas to go direct to the source and remove
intermediaries. The internet age exception is affiliate marketing; trusted individuals referring potential
partners to quality businesses from their web, opt-in e-mail, and Squidoo links. For the Netcohort,
reputation is an important part of developing relationships and making decisions on the web.

Once buyer and seller are together exceptional things happen. Creators can see what their clients really
want, so specificity improves. End users can select directly from many choices so competition improves
their options.

Quality can go up, price down, service increase. Removing middle layers of distribution improves price
structures, quality, and choice. Now apply disintermediation to education -- direct contact by reputation
between pupil and teacher. Exclude by choice the corporate, government, & union education trifecta.
Parallels between this video's Twilight Zone style media journey, and education's path, are quite
interesting.

You are now entering the educational disintermediation zone.

Both you and your children will benefit. 

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." - George Santayana
"No great man of letters is absorbed by the stream in which he swims." - Chaim Potok

Educational systems developed to assist nation states in controlling their populations have outlived even
that purpose. Their monopoly on children's minds has been broken by interconnected computers, TV,
and video games. People are realizing there is a difference between society and government.

We have gained access to enjoyable learning tools. The question is -- have we been so taught to hate
learning that we cannot rediscover its joys?

You do need to love learning. The age we are entering will be one of constant adaptation. cultivating
that love of discovery you knew as a child is not optional - it is becoming far more important than any
certificate or degree representing obsolete knowledge.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves
equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

The decline of archaic educational systems is accelerating. Private schooling alone is not the solution
either. Private schools have been far more effective than public, but they are less effective than self
instruction by motivated learners.

"The risks and rewards of natural enterprise are greater, and of far more value to society, than illusions
of security that enslave human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

We have entered a new era where creativity, flexibility, and desire for achievement will determine
success. We need flexible learning systems that allow students to develop these attributes.

"Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it
in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that
they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned." - John Holt

It is reasonable to enjoy learning like a preschool child -- 24/7/365. Once we rediscover the joys of
learning we will never stop seeking that knowledge most valuable to us. People want to succeed at what
they love and for whom they love.

We need to provide learning tools and get out of their way.

It's time to do what is best for you and those you love. 
homeschool, adult unschool, experimental college, student directed learning, or dozens of
other good choices
"Investigating and questioning is human; blind obedience is animal-like. Truth never loses by the former,
but it often suffers from the latter." - William Penn

These educational models are but a sample of many choices, if you want to excel at learning.

Some learn outside of normal structured education simply to avoid being forced into a box. Others
want to avoid course structures catering to the least motivated student. Many also want to emphasize
learning rather than forced cultural assimilation.
"Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural
abilities as to restrain them." - Spinoza (1632-1677)

Perhaps you too are looking to release your individual creativity rather than being taught bureaucratic
survival skills. You can create and share learning at a peer to peer educational center - The Netcohort
Institute.

You may even want to consider creating a college degree substitute.

There are hundreds of varied and good reasons to opt out of educational formats created during and for
the bureaucratic age.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be
silenced". - Vincent Van Gogh

Back to the basics is a longer trip than we thought. 

Create Your Own Lens On Alternative Education

Thank you for reading. Don't let me get in the last word.

"Your world view is too extreme - if you refuse to thoughtfully consider other's views." - Allan
Wallace

State you ideas here, click that make a lens button at the top of this page or on the alternative
learning group page. You can make a lens like this one, for free, that can also make you, or a
charity, a little money.

Visit the alternative learning systems group. You can add your lens and help create a resource
to help anyone wanting to escape dysfunctional public systems.

If you support public education, make a lens and start your own group. I'll put a reference link to
your group in pleasant terms and you can put one on the same terms back to me.

We can then let people decide for themselves.