the necessity of doing it.

Today is the Celebration of the Child at Clear Spring School. In addition to music and performances, each child will be honored for their qualities that make them special in our small community.

President Obama was in Germany yesterday talking about education. Contending that poor education policies breed inequality, Obama said that:

“no country will be successful if it leaves half of its children... uneducated and on the sidelines. We have to think of them as all of our children. If Malia and Sasha are doing well but the majority of their peers are not, that’s gonna affect their lives in some damaging way.”

“The good news is that we know what to do, the bad news is that we haven’t convinced everybody of the necessity of doing it,”

Stupidity is alive and well. There are many who think that by ignoring the needs of particular children everything will be OK. But it will not. We have terrorism in the world that can affect even the most sheltered and cherished of our kids because we have stupidity and poverty.

Blog reader René, translated the principles of Sloyd into German as follows:

Prinzipien der persönlichkeitsbildenden, handwerk-orientierten Erziehung:

• Setze bei den Interessen des Kindes an.
• Arbeite dich vor vom Bekannten zum Unbekannten,
• vom Leichten zum Schwierigen,vom Überschaubaren zum Komplexen,
• vom Konkreten zum Abstrakten.

The point is that we've known about effective education since Comenius. And yet we appear to have chosen instead to run our children through  educational canning factories as though they are cans to be filled with certain things. And the children of immigrants or of the poor and in other parts of the world? The conservative Republican attitude seems to have become, "who cares?" But we must care.

Make, fix, create, and accept the responsibility of helping others to learn likewise.