Re:
> CONFERENCE ON PRIVATE INITIATIVES IN EDUCATION
> KEYNOTE SPEECH: John Taylor Gatto
> Author, Lecturer, 3 Time Teacher of the Year (New York City, 1989 & 1990,
> NY State, 1991).

...
> the outcome in both places is very impressive. We'll start at 8801 Stenton
> Avenue in Philadelphia in a place called "The Institutes for the
> Achievement of Human Potential" which has been teaching babies to read, and
> teaching mothers to teach their own babies to read, since shortly after the
> Second World War. Babies. By the time these kids are 4 what they can do

BTW, before adopting their method, search www.deja.com for
"Doman Babies" to hear about pros/cons.  A number of people argue that
application of the methods promoted by the IAHP can lead to certain
classes of problems later in life.

> Place number two is 20 miles West of Boston, a few miles from Nathaniel
> Hawthorne's famous Wayside Inn on the outskirts of Framingham. It's the
> beautiful Sudbury Valley School, in the old Nathaniel Bowditch cottage,

info at:
http://www.sudval.org/

comments at:
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Sudbury+Valley+School&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&btnG=
Google+Search&site=groups

> It just boggles the mind to see today's graduate students in political science
> seminars wrestling with Paine (no pun intended) when young farmers whizzed
> through it with exhilaration over 200 years ago.

The author ought to be more even-handed...we have no idea that young
farmers read Common Sense (i.e., the sales figures don't tell us the
demographics), nor that they "whizzed" through it.  Heck, maybe it was the
first Coffee Table book? :)

> MIT said a few years back that formal equipment seemed to play almost no
...
> Now think about Sweden, a beautiful, healthy, prosperous and up-to-date
...
> you'd swear it must be a world power. It makes sense to think their schools
> must have something to do about it.

Apparently, the author isn't a logic teacher :)

> When Frederich Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten in 19th century
> Germany fashioned his idea he did not have a "garden for children" in mind,
> but a metaphor of teachers as gardeners and children as the vegetables.
> Kindergarten was created to be, and was quietly celebrated as, a way to
> break the influence of mothers on their children once and for all.

Interesting.

> And the courtroom of the people is the free market. Over 50 years ago my
> mother, Bootie Zimmer, chose to teach me how to read. She had no degrees,

I think that's the main point: parental involvement.

Thanks for an interesting post!

Stan Sieler                                           [log in to unmask]
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html          www.allegro.com/sieler

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