Alternative Learning Systems & Experimental Education

"Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to ensure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery." - Benjamin Disraeli

Western Society's educational bureaucracy has become moribund, and hence archaic. Ignoring the fact that desire of learners is more important then organization and administration, they stifle creativity and reward conformity.

The educational establishment has continually extended its power by including younger children and older adults. The health of state authorized institutions is dependent on the successful indoctrination of the people it claims to serve.

Start each day with a loyalty oath, continue the day with rewritten histories, finish with homework as a reminder that your future profession requires a vocation oriented college degree.

Emphasis on science and math that few will fully comprehend will make the mass of students feel inadequate and needing of supervision. Don't fund or ignore all the other disciplines that are involved in being human - subjects where many students would find their passion and abilities. Break subject matter into discrete and short duration chunks that never allow the intense joy of discovery that comes from continued, in depth study.

Don't encourage physical activity in children except in supervised group activities. Call them sick and give them drugs if they will not conform. Train them to be good citizens - yielding meekly and quickly to the demands of any authority.

This formula fit well with the industrial age.

A populace thus trained is unprepared for the enormous change that technology is bringing to all of our lives.

"The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cat's teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice." - Mahatma Gandhi

As the world quickly changes, those empowered by a joy of learning will be able to adapt and avoid the poverty of dislocated lives. Those still in school are at greatest risk as their education under duress is failing them even before it is complete.

We that are finished with indentured education will be wise to unschool ourselves and break the coerced social contract with a bankrupt system.

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." - Albert Einstein

Seek freedom

"Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations! And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." - economist Claude Frédéric Bastiat 1801-1850

"No great man of letters is absorbed by the stream in which he swims." - Chaim Potok

Educational systems developed to assist nation states in controlling their populations have outlived even that purpose. Their monopoly on children's minds has been broken by interconnected computers, TV, and video games. People are realizing there is a difference between society and government.

We have gained access to enjoyable learning tools. The question is -- have we been so taught to hate learning that we cannot rediscover its joys?

You do need to love learning. The age we are entering will be one of constant adaptation. cultivating that love of discovery you knew as a child is not optional - it is becoming far more important than any certificate or degree representing obsolete knowledge.

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

The decline of archaic educational systems is accelerating. Private schooling alone is not the solution either. Private schools have been far more effective than public, but they are less effective than self instruction by motivated learners.

"The risks and rewards of natural enterprise are greater, and of far more value to society, than illusions of security that enslave human cogs in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

We have entered a new era where creativity, flexibility, and desire for achievement will determine success. We need flexible learning systems that allow students to develop these attributes.

"Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned." - John Holt

It is reasonable to enjoy learning like a preschool child -- 24/7/365. Once we rediscover the joys of learning we will never stop seeking that knowledge most valuable to us. People want to succeed at what they love and for whom they love.

We need to provide learning tools and get out of their way.

"Investigating and questioning is human; blind obedience is animal-like. Truth never loses by the former, but it often suffers from the latter." - William Penn

These educational models are but a sample of many choices, if you want to excel at learning.

Some learn outside of normal structured education simply to avoid being forced into a box. Others want to avoid course structures catering to the least motivated student. Many also want to emphasize learning rather than forced cultural assimilation.

"Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them." - Spinoza (1632-1677)

Perhaps you too are looking to release your individual creativity rather than being taught bureaucratic survival skills. You can create and share learning at a peer to peer educational center - The Netcohort Institute.

You may even want to consider creating a college degree substitute.

There are hundreds of varied and good reasons to opt out of educational formats created during and for the bureaucratic age.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced". - Vincent Van Gogh

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"We are surrounded by easily perceived barriers that limit our achievement. Most such walls were erected using substantial appearing mists of ignorance. We need to discover and acknowledge these boundaries, and then run through them." - Allan R. Wallace



Esperanto attempted to bridge gaps words can not. Microfinance bridges a gap in life's possibilities at that same level, the learning stage

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Will YOUR life be based on what you want to use it to accomplish, or by random urges of what you want to do?

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