There's a lot of important consequential reasons to prefer freedom and free societies and freer arrangements between people to more closed, repressive, controlling relationships between people...
But the most important one, I'm convinced...
Is the learning...
Whether we like to admit it or not...and we don't...so that's the reason why we need reminding:):):)...
We tend to learn best under freer conditions...
That doesn't mean anything goes...
It just means that freedom offers us the best conditions to explore and learn and transcend our limitations...and to learn which limitations to internalize...rather than living subservient to external controls from others...
Freedom is the only route to self-discipline...rather than repression...
And this week I've been learning why...
Special education is a lot like...the problems in Palestine...
Repressive means of dealing with some pretty hard cases combined with a lot of pity and self-pity for people involved when our efforts to create greater security fail, and noone wants to take responsibility...
Special education has two major categories...
People with clear and significant disabilities that limit their functioning...that can either be corrected (like with hearing aids)...or improving marginally with less expectation of normal functioning (as with many students with severe multiple disabilities, including clear cognitive disabilities like Downs' Syndrome)...
The second category is a lot of kids who could do all kinds of things...who have no real limitations present...often a lot of behavior problems and bad attitudes...and all kinds of excuses...from themselves...from family...from teachers...for why they aren't succeeding in school like their peers...
My strategy...that has been more successful, thusfar, and that I have much confidence will yield exponentially more successful results, in the long run, is to put success or failure squarely in the laps of students...no matter how far behind they are...while remediating and giving extra support on all kinds of skills...
Right now...two of my classes are doing a social scientific study into excellence...
We developed a list of excellent qualities, people, activities where excellence can be demonstrated, etc., that I will type up into a list that they will take to 3 teachers and 3 other adults in their lives to rank what qualities they think are most important to achieve excellence...in school...and in life...
The data we collect, we will examine with our newly acquired skills with percents, decimals, and fractions...
And do math work for the rest of the semester with self-generated data...
Then each student will do an interview with the adult in their lives who they respect the most...
And build a relationship with a significant adult in their lives...around what it takes...to achieve excellence...in school...and in life...
I'll do a lot of work where I don't think they'll realistically do the work...like developing some basic questions for their interview...
But...for the most part...this will be on them...and an individual and group effort...
And the whole point...is to get beyond the tried and failed efforts to remediate kids' skills on a small scale...
And to get all of them to start thinking bigger...for themselves...and around the biggest issues of humanity...
And to learn about the qualities that might get them and all of us there...
The kids in my 1st and 2nd hour classes have been real shits, lately...even my good students...
And we've spent a lot of time talking about the relationship between attitude, practice, hard work, and learning...and how their efforts will likely reflect in their grades...
And I'm learning to just let the kids hang on their grades...
Meaning...letting them earn them...good or bad...and to use their grades as a learning opportunity...to take responsibility for their learning and for their lives...
Teachers, as much as students, have been somewhat resistant to this idea...
Because everyone's gotten so used to expecting so little from these kids...
But I think we're all moving in the same direction...
And the kids are definitely learning more...I'm confident of that...
And as I tell each of them...as often as possible...
They are all capable of doing whatever they want to do with their lives...for Black History Month, we studied David Harold Blackwell, the most reknowned black mathematician...as just one example of the horizons they can scale, if they set their minds to it...
I just won't settle for pity as some kind of substitute for education for these kids...
No matter how much they bitch and complain along the way:):):)...
And for some odd reason...the whole experience...no matter how rotten it can be, sometimes...like being in love...makes me look forward to more of it...to being a father...and to working with kids for the rest of my life...
Schools...and adults...as with every generation...will need to learn how to better handle and deal with kids and other adults than they do now...
We treat each other...and kids...still far too harshly, generally...and have still far to unrealistic expectations for them...in ways that dampen many of their hopes and dreams, unnecessarily...
All so we do not have to face our own failures...as parents...and teachers...and adults who care about children...
And as people...
But I do look forward to guiding us in a better direction...in whatever capacities I end up doing that...
The sentencing of Tom Delay, this week...Mr. Delay's failure to take responsibility for his role in shady campaign finance fundraising...and all of our failure to recognize that such efforts perpetually fail (Jim Wright's prosecution seems to have had little effect, almost 20 years later, when Democrats controlled Congress)...
All demonstate to me the total insanity that so much of the country lives with, right now...how totally out of touch with reality so many people are...
There is almost no indication that anyone has learned any lessons from Mr. Delay's prosecution...except Democrats around how to get rid of a House leader who's been kind of dick, to be honest, for the last decade...
Republicans have defended Mr. Delay...and I've heard almost literally zero acknowledgement by anyone that anything needs to change in campaign fundraising...
And Democrats will no doubt go on to do many of the very things that they so aggressively pursued Mr. Delay for...using the issue, cynically, to score electorally, in the meantime...
And so many people...will go on...ignoring the clear and present reality...
That forcing our way through issues that don't require force does not work, long term...and many if not most issues are better handled through democratic discussion, inquiry, thought, debate, and otherwise engagement...
Listening to those same Republicans talk about ways to kick out 12 million illegal aliens in the United States (have any of them even considered the magnitude of sending away 12 million illegal immigrants?) just makes all the more clear to me just how far people will go...to avoid reality...as they develop ideas, generally poor ones, for how to improve it...
Freedom...and the responsibility that it better allows to develop...is the best way for a mature society to deal with most of its most serious issues...
And when aggression and force must be used...because no other alternatives exist...the least possible neccessary aggression and force is the most likely to accomplish our aims...
I have very little doubt about that, any more...I've just seen it work too many times...
And more importantly...I've just seen the alternatives fail to many times...a fact that I have no need nor interest in ignoring...
I've got a meeting to get to...
Have a great day, everyone:):):)...
Love,
Ben
