Mine aren't.
No amount of cooperative learning, grouping, testing, minimal failures, or inclusive classrooms in the world will ever in a million years create the kind of excellence that is created by individual effort.
To me, that is profound beyond words to describe.
But that won't stop me from trying.
Jettisoning the Shackles of Groupthink in Children -- and Adults
The Supreme Importance of Children Taking the
Responsibility to Learn How to Think -- Not What to Think
They (teachers and principals) screwed themselves with me. They proved themselves wrong and I knew that they couldn't be trusted 100%. I knew that by the end of first grade. Truth be told, it was a year earlier that I had learned that even though I knew my parents loved me dearly, that the couldn't be trusted 100%. They were great parents but they too had grown up and been taught what to think like everyone else. My mom was more open-minded than dad and way more than most kids' mothers. As I grew up all my friends thought the world of my mom.
It was a huge benefit to always be skeptical. There's things that the vast majority of adults believe because that's what they've been taught to think. I did something different, I taught myself, out of survival, how to think. I had to learn to think for myself because what else could I do since I couldn't even trust my parents 100%. I had to trust me. I had to be fearless. With that came courage.
They (teachers) all wanted to teach what to think. Being always skeptical I set myself free to go wherever I wanted and never feared that I couldn't find my way back to me -- my world according to me, not theirs or the group. I was still susceptible to groupthink, but I also had a secret tool to extricate myself when groupthink didn't fit my world.
Forty years later, I found myself one night at a bonfire having a discussion about the harm it does when parents lie to their children and how and why it is disrespectful to the child. I was going against the grain but since I was self-taught I was fearless.
Suddenly, from a person that was listening in, I hear over my shoulder from a few feet away: "what about respect for the parents?"--"I have respect for parents, but I have more for children,,,,,,," I quipped. Then silence. It was then that I realized a mass of tension was lifted. Being fearless I was unaware that tension was building. I was oblivious to their fear, until it couldn't be contained and one of the parents had to speak out.
In retrospect, it was as though I was the teacher and no one wanted to question my authority. But when one parent had apparently had enough and did question me, in less than ten seconds they learned how it is to know how to think rather than what to think.
You see, that one parent spoke out on behalf of the parents in the group -- to bring me in alignment with the norms that had been indoctrinated in their minds. The nerve I struck was struck at the adult level with the whole indoctrinated, status quo package. When I quipped that "I have respect for parents, but have more for children,,,,," suddenly they reeled back to the early days of when they were that young child, innocent and honest to a "fault". And they got it!
That they got it wasn't my intention going into the discussion. I entered inquisitively, not righteously.
I was pleased that, in retrospect, the hole I had dug for myself which I was oblivious to, was not a hole at all. Rather, it was the opening for all of us -- adults, parents and children that were present -- to escape the shackles of groupthink. I have no doubt that had I not been fearless, had I feared being left out of the group, that I would have found myself standing in a hole all alone. But it wasn't my hole. It would have been a hole that groupthink pushes a person into when the person fears being left out. In effect, the person does it to themselves by allowing the group to be a higher authority than the highest authority of ones own self,,,, and especially ones own mind.
Hour for hour spent with children versus adults, I still learn more about myself, and others in general, talking with children than I do adults. Young children facilitate snapping me back to the child within when I was like all children and honest to a "fault". It's because their young and innocent and have yet to be heavily taught what to think that they say profound things and ask questions that most adults seldom think to ask,,,, and they do it with all sincerity. They're young, innocent, fearless and honest to a "fault" and I encourage that in them and myself. They simply have not yet accepted the fear of being left out because there is still so much they don't yet know. All children want to grow up fast and become an adult and control their own lives. I let them do that by being their equal, void of groupthink.
I'm inquisitive and so much want young children to be themselves and not fear me as I learned not to fear adults having self-taught myself how to think They sense that respect and that they are my equal. It facilitates getting the best the child can be. I get them, without them being attached to the scourge of early indoctrination.
When I was their age I was slow because I had the extra task of processing information according to my world I was creating, while separating out groupthink. I had to filter everything through my skepticism filter. I was three years behind my peers on picking up on certain things/issues. Mostly they were groupthink issues that I had difficulty fitting into my world.
I have learned to be cautious with children so that I don't lead their thinking. They know how to think and I have to let them think for themselves. Especially when the issue that's being discussed is brought on by the child. They're looking for answers and I realize that I don't have them, but they will discover the answers they seek. Now the task is to follow their lead. I think of it as assisting their innocent young minds to do their own thinking, lead by their own thinking.
You may have noticed that each time you read honest to a "fault", that fault was placed in quotations. Why? Because there is no fault to being honest. Leastwise not to the highest authority which is thyself and especially ones own mind. The phrase is a misnomer and only applies to a groupthink world wherein people are at fault for being honest. Be too honest among the group and you could get attacked or worse, end up in jail.
I speak from experience. I learned the hard way. But it was worth struggling for every inch of my world. Besides, it was the only way I knew how. Today, the only external authority or groupthink that I fear is that which has the power to initiate force against me. Yet I don't cower from them. Instead, I step back and play as a shrewd Bret Maverick plays poker to win despite all seeming odds against -- sub rosa.
"The world's against you boy," he said. "Not my world, mine is solidly intact. If you want to accept their world as your own, then that's your problem, not mine."
As a good friend recently said to me, "It's my world too." Neither of us would ever tell those that chose to join our like-worlds with theirs what to think, rather, we demonstrate how to think. It's becoming contagious I think. Honesty knows no bounds when jettisoning the shackles of groupthink where being honest is a fault.
But in the end it is the free individual who accomplishes, it is the free individual who cannot be manipulated by the statists, collectivists, "agents of change," educrats, progressives, elites or anyone else whose life depends on command and control and setting the agenda.
Dr. Piekoff relates in his book the statement of a journalist who basically nailed the direction in which the entire American society, from religion to government to education, is headed: "No serious thinker any longer believes in verifiable, objective reality."
Obviously the author includes religious-groupthink collectivism in their excellent analysis. Does not the above highlighted in bold describe the scandal in the American catholic Church?
I had the opportunity to talk to a friend's twelve year old son last Sunday while we were playing disc golf. Pretty smart kid into computers and other technologies. Anyhow, during one of our conversations I found myself telling him that back in the mid 1970s global cooling was all the talk of ecologist and what not -- pretty much the same as they talk about global warming today.
I've always been straight with him as I am with all children because (as if anyone needs a reason to respect children -- honest to "fault" they are) actually I respect children more than adults. Anyhow, the way I said it, sort of mater-of-factly in passing, his response was "really!". "Yep, pretty much like how they talk today, but now it's about the opposite -- global warming." I could see his expression change to one of dismay as he realized that what his teachers had been teaching him, they neglected to tell him such an important piece of information.
! Chalk one more up for the good guys -- subtract one from the bad guys. That's how it works, for every point won the opposing side looses one. So as the honest people grow stronger, more powerful the deceivers shrink weaker. It's a unique leverage.