You may have seen this since it's been around for awhile, but it's thought-provoking and VERY entertaining, so I thought I'd post it anyway. You MUST watch it to the end. It's the first video on the site with the above subject in the title (with Sir Ken Robinson).

https://www.ted.com/playlists/77/11_must_see_ted_talks

chas

Great find. I have not seen this one.


I always ask people what are we doing to our children. I can actually relate to this story. My oldest daughter(9) is in a dance school doing balet, jazz....etc And I can see, she can't watch a simple movie without doing splits or standing just on one leg while the other one is all the way up 180%..

One thing I can't understand and I have been talking about this in my kids schools but, somehow it seems I am talking Greek to them. I see kids playing soccer but there is no score. God forbid someone is going to loose.First time I saw this I asked some teachers and parents why is it like this and what is the point of the game?? They were almost appalled becasue I ask such a thing. One mom told me that that they don't want anyone to loose. I asked what is wrong with loosing, and one of the teachers said that they don't want them to loose their self esteem .

I told the teacher that was the biggest BS I ever heard which he was surprised by. I told him there is nothing wrong with loosing as long as you give your best on that field, and maybe they could teach the kids that next time instead of playing their playstations or x boxes they should maybe practice a little bit more and care about the game a little bit more.
That is what I tell my daughter. As long as you give your best and I see that you care when you are on that stage I will not care weather you win or loose. Luckily she is really good and she wins a lot of times. She likes winning.

I've always thought the best thing I could do for my children and grandson is to teach them to be creative and independent. My grandson, who is only 7, has been my greatest challenge. Unfortunately, my daughter purchased some sort of I-pad or him, to which he has become addicted. With luck, he will spend much of the summer sailing with pop-pop.

All the best,

Gary

Sadly, a lot of the education process is putting people in pre-deturmined little boxes...pre-testing them into a specific area, using rote learning techniques to make them conform to a pre-deturmined set of performance criteria, and, if that doesn't work, they just don't cut it!

Another issue is, good teachers do great because they're really into the process of learning and are into the kids. Sadly, 1/2 or more of the current teachers are doing what they're doing because they're too lazy or stupid to do anything else.

A real possibility in the example from the video is, a psychiatrist would have "pilled" the poor girl up on mind altering pharmaceuticals...happens all the time with kids at an alarming rate.

A real find, Chas, and one of my real hot "spots". I would have gladly spent a lifetime in the academic world, except for the disorganization, back-biting and general incompetence I found.


How sad!


Russ