Mythical Beings that Inhabit the Matrix: TEACHERS

*** Fundraising update: We now have only 10 days to deadline for obtaining our  current deficit which is now down to $180.  If you would like to see us continue to do what we have been doing these past 4  years, then please help us stay on the net by donating off to the right at the orange pay pal button.  

We have managed to avoid doing paying ads for various sources, so we don't junk up the blog with distractions, but unfortunately we may have to do that in the future should this not make it for us each month and I do not really want to do that.  We have tried to make this experience as close to that which you would find in a Library.  

But alas, its getting harder and harder for everyone since our jobs and salaries hve headed south for the past few years, leaving our good citizens with no real future and we do not want to help in that direction. 

We wish to thank all of you for your support and contributions, and wish you a happy and "prosperous New Year".  God bless you all for what you are trying to do in awakening others to the truth. 

Vatic Note:   As many of you know, this is one of a few blogs that I follow.  After reading his work, you can understand why I follow him.  He publishes some of the most relevant subjects and issues that is anywhere out there and he documents his work.  His analysis is flawless as you can see from this below.

This was part of a series, and I was so busy fighting the PTB who were gutting my blogs, that I did not catch this series,  so I decided to start putting them up one at a time as I find them relevant and timely for what is going on today.   If only we had more courageous teachers in our system,  the PTB would have no where to go and our students would fly..... 

Did you know, that teachers are trained to teach and then obtain a certificate to be able to teach in the public schools here.  What I was told by a teacher, when I was doing tutoring work on a volunteer basis,  was that teachers are no longer in control of class room techniques for teaching or what tools to use.  When I was in school,  teachers had us at the blackboard all the time... writing and involving ourselves in the information to be learned.

Now they are told to use power point, which is the worst thing you can do to children between the ages of 5 and 8 or 9 since that is left brain vertical thinking and those children between those ages are in their "magical period" and teaching should be geared toward their physical involvement in the information being taught.

What happens now, according to this teacher I interviewed, is that the kids get bored, their minds can't wrap itself around the info when its left brain teaching or vertical learning, so the kids take a hike mentally, into their magical kingdom and do something much more interesting in the mental dream world. So they begin to fail in math.  And yet I found that everyone of those kids were bright and smart, so what was I to do?  Here is what I did.

On one girl who kept drifting off when we were covering math principles,  I asked her "Where are you dear?"   She started to feel guilty and I said "No, its ok that you  went away for a while, I just want to know where you are?   She said "I am out in a field playing with my horses."   I immediately asked her "Ok, you have 6 horses in 9 fields, how many horses do you have?"   She gave me the right answer instantly.

I had another student, a girl, who was petrified of math and numbers.  She was also in her magical period of learning.   So,  I made her get up and "DRAW" pictures of animals that she would pick and not use any lines, but use only numbers to draw the animals.   You can see how the blackboard becomes an important learning tool.

Well, she started out very intimidated but as she progressed, I would ask her questions, like "Ok, have you noticed that you got to decide what animals you would draw?"  She said "Yes".....  Then I asked her "Did the numbers you use to draw the animals have any say in what animals you were to draw?  She said "No".  Then I asked her "Well, if you got to pick the animals you were to draw, then who picked the numbers you used to draw the animals?  She said She did.... then I asked her who told her in what order to use the numbers?  She said she did.

In the end she agreed that she had total control over those numbers, they had no say in anything and that she was powerful and could use those numbers anyway she wanted.  Then I explained to her that if she wanted those numbers to behave in a certain  way,  she could do that using some basic rules.  And so we did work on that.

That girl who was failing math, by the end of the quarter was a B+ student on her way to A- by the end of the quarter.   Everyone of my tutor students, which were 6 of them who were failing math,  ended up in the B plus to A minus classification.   Teachers make or break students and the courage to stand up to the false teaching practices, rests with those teachers.

During that magical period when a child in physically involved with the information she or he needs to learn,  THEY NEVER FORGET IT.   NOT EVER.  We did a physical balloon shaping of our bodies,  to show what an OBTUSE angle looks like, and a skinny rendition of bodies to show what an acute angle looks like.  do you know, those children have never forgotten what those angles are????  The parents were so grateful, and I realized someone has to speak for the children since they are too young to do so.  That is why this is up. 

Mythical Beings that Inhabit the Matrix:  TEACHERS
http://americanactionreport.blogspot.com/2012/05/mythical-beings-that-inhabit-matrix.html
by an American Professor of higher education in Taiwan 

   School, we are told, prepares young minds for life in the world of adults—commonly called real life. Oh? What kind of life is that? To answer that question, we have to take a look at what happens in a typical classroom in most countries that we call “advanced.”
 

     There is a saying, “He who wills the means wills the end.” If you want to know to what end “education” has in mind, just take a look at the means by which this end is reached.

     
First of all, students are arranged in a rectangular group facing an authority figure called a teacher. For twelve years or longer, these pliable young minds are supposed to look to the authority figure to shape their beliefs concerning nearly everything. 

     
Taking notes is vital. No questions are to be asked except for clarification or further detail. Questioning the accuracy of the authority figure’s assertions risks such labels as “disciplinary problem” or an acronym-style label that can be punished with psychotropic drugs.

    
 This regimen is reinforced by progressive steps that are continuously repeated in cycles. 

     Let’s say, for example, that the subject is geography. Let me lead you through the routine.

     Most students would be delighted to learn about people in other parts of the world, their cultures, and their concerns; but, like most other subjects, geography isn’t about gaining understanding. It’s about learning to look to authority figures for what you’re told to believe. It’s about making this mind-numbing experience an ingrained part of your existence.

     Each day, the child is told things to write down and memorize. Each day, he is issued a task called homework, in which he reads and memorizes but is never supposed to question. It doesn’t matter what he memorizes. What matters is that he learns not to question what he is told. 
 

     For example, the child is told that Easter Island’s highest point is 507 meters above sea level. He’s not told that, due to gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, and due to the turning of the earth, sea level near the equator is higher than sea level at the poles. What we call sea level is an entirely arbitrary number based on what is considered sea level at Cornwall, England. Why is the sea level of Easter Island measured according to where the sea is in Cornwall rather than the actual level of the sea at Easter Island?

     For that matter, the concept of meters is as arbitrary as the agreed-upon concept of sea level. As for Easter Island itself, the locals call it Rapa Nui. Why is the child taught to call it by a name that the locals don’t use?
 

     Even when the information they’re taught isn’t entirely arbitrary, it’s often entirely useless.
 

     What does it matter that the capital of Alaska is Juneau? From 1901 to 1906, the capital city was Sitka. I don't know or care what it was before that.  What does it matter that the capital of Brazil is Brasilia? Until 1960, it was Rio de Janeiro. If the location of the capital isn’t sacrosanct to the people of Alaska and Brazil, why should it be all that important to the students? If we care to know those things, don’t we have the Internet?
 

     It isn’t important. What is important is that the students memorize and be able to repeat, without question, anything the authority figure tells them. By doing this, they develop a credulous nature and avoid learning to think for themselves.
 

     Once they’ve memorized all this, the drill is reinforced by taking quizzes. The quizzes almost invariably take the form of multiple choice questions or filling in blank spaces. 

The authority figure refrains from asking discussion questions or any other questions that require higher order thinking skills. After all, while the students are learning the 4R’s (reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic—never mind spelling), they’re absorbing the 3D’s: deliberate dumbing down.
 

     The mind-numbing exercises of quizzes are reinforced by tests, which, in turn, are reinforced by exams. Children who unquestioningly memorize what they’ve been told are rewarded with higher grades. Children who give answers contrary to what the authority figure has told them—even when the authority figure is mistaken—are punished with lower grades. Children who make a habit of questioning the authority figure are remanded to a charlatan who has them medicated with mind-altering drugs that may lead to such violent behavior as school shootings.
 

     Isn’t all this supposed to prepare children for life as adults? To whose benefit is all this?
 

     If real life is a multiple choice test, it’s a test in which each question has dozens of right answers and hundreds of wrong answers rather than one right answer and four wrong ones. In real life, wrong answers rarely receive lifelong punishment. 
 

 In real life, we learn from mistakes; and, often, failure is the mother of success. In school, children are punished for asking others for answers. In real life, we benefit from asking others.
 

     As such, real life is student centered, cooperative learning, and project based learning with emphasis on authenticity. As schooling should be preparation for real life and not real life itself, project lessons should be scaffolded—that is, guided in increments. If school really were intended as preparation for real life, that’s the way it would be structured. That’s the way I try to structure my classes.
 

     On the other hand, the late George Carlin had a serious point: “The real owners of this country don’t want people with critical thinking skills. They want people who are just smart enough to run the machines but too dumb to ask questions.”  (VN: George Carlin was awesome. )
 

     I want my students to question what I tell them. I want them to think for themselves. I want to prepare them for a real life in which they have control over their lives instead of having to look uncritically to such bogus authority figures as news reporters, politicians, government bureaucrats, materialistic pastors, and—yes—school teachers.

     
I am grateful to teachers who taught me the value of thinking, and who guided me in the process—teachers such as George Reeves, Ted Peters, Jack Montgomery, Pat Rydz, and others. Looking back, I can scarcely believe how credulous I once was. I suspect that I still have far to go.

     In the video below, you'll see ESL (English as a Second Language) students of whom five teachers and an administration official said to me, "Don't expect too much of them.  Their level is very low, and they're not very motivated."  For their mid-term exam in English Conversation, I assigned them to teach the class in English for at least ten minutes.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9JNqJfJxuI

     There’s a big world of options outside Plato’s Cave. I’ve caught a glimpse of that world and want to see more of it. I’m still searching. I want to show it to others.

 

---

The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.