Schools are protected by international human rights law; they should be safe places for children to play, learn and develop. But in Syria, schools have come under direct attack, denying children their right to education in a safe learning environment. An eight-year-old boy from Aleppo refused to talk for more than two weeks after fleeing Syria. When he eventually did speak, his first words were,“They burned my school.”
(via Save the Children)
2nd grade…
“The first image I bought was ‘Child With a Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park, N.Y.C., 1962’ by Diane Arbus. I’d just finished writing and recording ‘Teach Your Children,’ and to me that image in her photo was exactly what I was trying to say with the song. Here was a shot of a normal-looking kid, although he was a little pissed off, and I realized that if we didn’t teach our kids a better way of dealing with our fellow human beings, we were (screwed).”
- Graham Nash
"Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby “schooled” to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is “schooled” to accept service in place of value. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for national security, the rat race for productive work. Health, learning, dignity, independence, and creative endeavour are defined as little more than the performance of the institutions which claim to serve these ends, and their improvement is made to depend on allocating more resources to the management of hospitals, schools, and other agencies in question."Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (1973: 9)
(Source: a-more-perfect-union)
I’m not sure if you’ve heard of Tavi Gevinson (maybe I’m behind the times, or just not even close to the fashion world… I’m not close at all), but this interview (01/24/2013) on the Colbert Report was pretty impressive - she’s the youngest interviewee ever on the show.
Talk about a young High-Achiever. I’m not sure I can say or comment enough about her because I don’t know enough, but I think she can be an inspiration to a lot of students around the world.
Some students seem to breeze through their school years, whereas others struggle, putting them at risk for getting lost in our educational system and not reaching their full potential. Parents and teachers want to help students succeed, but there is little guidance on which learning techniques are the most effective for improving educational outcomes …
Stick it to the man, kid.
