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Welcome to these regular musings, meanderings, wonderings and wanderings by Wendy Priesnitz. Archives - June, 2005 Honouring Children With Song – June 23, 2005 Given his obvious respect for children and ecological advocacy, I wasn’t surprised to recently receive information about Raffi’s Covenant for Honouring Children, a poetic declaration of our responsibilities to children and the Earth, and of respect for the child as a whole person. It is being circulated through child advocacy and environmental health groups, and an audio version, featuring the voices of Raffi, Dr. Jane Goodall and the Dalai Lama, has been created. The Covenant (© 2004 Homeland Press) reads in part: “We find these joys to be self evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect. The embodiment of life, liberty and happiness, children are original blessings, here to learn their own song. Every girl and boy is entitled to love, to dream and belong to a loving village. And to pursue a life of purpose. “We affirm our duty to nourish and nurture the young, to honour their caring ideals as the heart of being human. To recognize the early years as the foundation of life, and to cherish the contribution of young children to human evolution.” Raffi
is now devoting most of his time to reaching adults with that message.
He is currently writing a book entitled Child
Honoring: How To Turn This World Around, an anthology promoting
respect for the first years of life as the best way to create a humane
and sustainable world. Sounds syrupy, eh? It’s not. This guy is the
real deal. Given his popularity and trust with kids, he gets tons of
corporations wanting to license his songs to sell things to kids. And he
always refuses, saying he won’t violate the kids’ trust. He even
backed out of the Vancouver International Children’s Festival in 2000
after arriving to find it awash in corporate sponsorship. More about
this refreshing guy and his work can be found at http://www.raffisongs.com. Learned Incompetency – June 16, 2005 I became famous for not being good at math and
within my family it became legend-like, this belief that Wendy just
wasn’t good at math. And so I started to believe it too. I was left
with a lifetime of catching up to do in those areas in which school
taught me I was incompetent. Now, I refer to this school outcome as “learned incompetency” and believe it’s one of the worst things
you can do to someone, especially in the name of education. Ranking Kids and Comparing
Schools – June 11, 2005 Such assessments – of children and of school systems – measure whether or not individual kids learn all on the same timetable. That says little about kids but a lot about the stupidity of a system which would dare to expect that everyone learns in the same way, that there is such a creature as “an average kid” who can provide a benchmark for competition to the front of the pack. Kids are positioned by these assessments as ignorant, empty vessels and schools as the filler-uppers, with the most efficient winning the race. They turn well-meaning teachers into drillers of facts that can be regurgitated on a test so that their schools can, in turn, perform well. What these poor kids are really learning is to be apathetic, bored and competitive. Peter Cowley, director of school performance studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the Report Card, waxes enthusiastic about the rankings. “Comparisons are the key to improvement,” he says. “There is great benefit in identifying schools that are particularly effective. By studying the techniques used in schools where students are successful, less effective schools may find ways to improve.” If school systems and conservative think tanks were
really interested in finding ways to help kids learn better, they’d
study the “techniques” of those who learn outside of schools. They’d
ask their students what they want to know and try to figure out ways to let kids
control their own learning processes. That, of course, would require the abolition of
pre-packaged curriculum and other so-called “techniques”. Oh yes,
and they’d get rid of testing. But I guess it’s too much to ask an
institution to dismantle itself! Composting Loses an Advocate – June 10, 2005 As owners of small publishing companies, Mary and I had a few exchanges about publishing over the years. She celebrated the value that small presses contribute to society and felt that mainstream corporate publishers help “dumb down” our culture, creating mediocrity rather than excellence. Their focus, she felt, is only on profits, rather than on presenting information and insights that will lead people to live better lives. And that is why she chose to self-publish her books. There is no doubt in my mind that not only did her books, video and talks help people around the world to live better lives, they have contributed to making Planet Earth a cleaner place. Mary Appelhof, who lived in Kalamazoo Michigan, died of cancer at age 68. Her partner Mary Frances Fenton and
assistant Nancy Essex intend to keep her work alive through her business
Flowerfield Enterprises. Gone
Fishing – June 1, 2005 No Spanking Allowed – June 1, 2005 That commendable action (too bad it doesn’t have more teeth) came just a few months after a six-year-old in a Chicago suburb was suspended from a Christian private school because his mother refused to spank him for such infractions as talking, chewing gum, bringing toys to class and not finishing his work. The mother has refused to back down and withdrew her son from the school. Meanwhile, a Life Learning reader forwarded to us her 11-year-old son’s letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, which says it all. He wrote: “When I was little I used to be hit by my birth parents. I don't wish that pain on any other child. Now I'm living with a new Mommy who doesn't lay a finger on me- except for hugs and kisses! I'm glad that Brookline has brought some more peace to the USA by not tolerating corporal punishment of children in their city!” For more info, including an index of
articles, about protecting children from physical punishment,
visit the Project No Spank
website. Return
to current weblog copyright © Wendy Priesnitz 2005 |
Topics & Passions: natural learning ~ What I'm Reading: The Body Never Lies -
The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting by Alice Miller (2005,
W.W. Norton) ~ What
I'm Listening To:
Careless Love
by Madeleine Peyroux (Rounder Records)
~
Fav
Bookmarks:
Junkyard Sports ~ Fav Quotes
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