"When Schools Don't Educate"

I am linking to a speech written by a man who received the Teacher of the Year award consecutive years from New York City and state.  His speech is entitled "When Schools Don't Educate."
http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/john_gatto.html

I encourage all who care to think, who care about children, who care about people and society in general to read it.  After reading it and also listening a while to a youtube video in which he was interviewed I have been reflecting on my own experience with the education system.  I think of how I went straight from high school to a four year liberal arts college because I thought that was the way you just did it.  I thought of how I was always a pretty good student -- A's and B's and never really struggled within the system except for my youngest years.  I thought of how I never really felt free to explore my own interests and passions until after college (even though my private college experience was better than my public school K-12 experience).  I thought of how even now I am discovering my aptitude at drawing and painting because I am doing it by my own free will and not being constricted by some set of rules.  I don't think that structure is bad but I do think the kind of superficial structure that schools often are forced to use for their students is silly.  Montessori itself is intensely structured but that structure has purpose for dignified development of each individual not just to "make runs smoothly" in an artificial sense.

I welcome anyone's thoughts on John Taylor Gatto's speech, Montessori education, public education and also education/learning in general.  I want to have a discussion about this salient issue.

Where-ever I am (Smacking myself in the Face with Reality)

       I am sitting here in the Hy-Vee dining area in Mankato drinking my $1.75 coffee from the Starbuck's kiosk that I paid.16 cent for (because I used a gift card).  I know, not very romantic...not very typical to describe the mundane like this for me but I had a thought just a little while ago as I was here.  I looked outside to the horizon (here's the romantic in me again) and I thought, "looks like a suburb...wish I was in Minneapolis."  Then I thought..."the better half of my time I am wishing I was somewhere else...this is not healthy."  It just smacked me in the face that I need to just realize that I am here in Mankato -- for better or worse.  I don't love it here but I don't hate it.  I have found some things that I appreciate though to help me -- going on walks and hikes or bike rides for one.  There is a good church here with some pretty solid teaching, worship and friendly enough people.  There is a women's craft collective with an emphasis on crossing cultures with women who have immigrated here with refugee status and women who have lived in the States their whole lives.  I, at least, get to work with children and even do music with them.  I actually have quite a few things to be thankful about.  I also am with my Love, the man I married and even though it's not all rainbows and tulips and sunshine all the time, we love each other and still know how to have fun.  I am glad he is here to do the thing he feels called to do - physics - and I am proud of that.
        The truth is that the Holy Spirit can use me wherever I am and I just need to be willing.  I need to be willing to take the mundane and make it holy.  That stereotypical suburban looking mom in the Starbucks line, maybe she needs encouragement?  I mean, I guess I'm just telling myself I need to realize that just because I'm not doing the thing I *love* and feel "fits" me doesn't mean that God can't use me.  I need to get over myself and my snobbery and ask God what he wants me to do right now.  It may be actually talking to someone who I have some preconceived notion about and not judging them.  It may be seeing the good things in my life instead of focusing on what I don't have.  It may very well be all that and more.

Entitlement Culture

It's funny how your mind can fixated on different things from one day to the next.

Yesterday was Easter and it was a glorious day.  I love Easter.  It is my favorite holiday partly because it means so much (Jesus' death and resurrection is the rock of the Christian faith and is how we can know God!) and partly because the traditions I've been discovering around it (lent fasting, the Pasca (Orthodox Christian) late night celebration) and probably also that is not so commericialized and happens right around the budding of trees and flowers. I took dozens of photos yesterday of our lively church brunch and family get-togethers which I'll try to put up a few of on here in time. For now, I want to turn my thoughts to something I've been pondering most of the day.

As you may know I substitute teach in the Minneapolis Public School Distrist.  Today I returned after a week and a day of spring break.  I ended up in a special education class in North Minneapolis.  There were two black women there who were supposed to be assisting me but they did little.  Not that it mattered too much, the children were very focused and I was actually very impressed by them.  However, it disturbed me how lazy these women felt they could be.  Not only did I have to go over to them and introduce myself when I came in and ask for guidance in the schedule of the day but one woman had the audacity to take a nap while she was sitting in the back of the room and they both were on their cell phones texting or using the internet frequently instead of engaging the students.  These women were probably somewhere in their late twenties to forties (one older, one younger) but they just emanated this sense of entitlement.  Anyhow, it made me wonder why and where the black culture generally gets this attitude.  I know it is not just black people and I am aware that this is a generalization.  Entitlement itself is an issue that pervades the whole culture of the United States of America but happens to particularly be insidious in the black culture.  I found an article from a black website that gave me some insight:
http://www.blackinformant.com/uncategorized/african-americans-and-the-whole-entitlement-thing

My purpose in writing about this is not to judge or continue propagating stereotypes but it is to thoughtfully consider how the black culture in American and the wider culture in general has become so plagued by "entitlement issues."  I know I am not safe from having this attitude at times.  In fact I can pinpoint specific foolish actions I've made in my life that were more based on my attitude of "deserving something" than wisdom.  Entitlement masquerades itself as individuality often.  I'd like to start a dialogue about this because it's something that hurts me to see it's effects (like the negative aspects of the black culture) and honestly, I have a lot to learn about dealing with when I see it in other people (or myself).

 It's interesting to realize that the Bible condemns those who "puff themselves up" but calls the ones who "come as children."  At it's root I think that is the evil of the entitlement attitude.  We are precious and made in the image of God.  We are of amazing value to His Kingdom yet we are sinful and the consequence of sin is death.  We are deserving of death (not the Kingdom) but God gives us the Kingdom.  The only way to enter the second though is to realize the first.

Please share any thoughts about ways we can combat the entitlement attitude in our culture (or other cultures, such as the general black culture of America), churches, homes, schools, and in ourselves.  I genuinely would like to have a thoughtful dialogue about this.