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letemgobarefoot

I write about unschooling, living a self-directed life & parenting peacefully.✌🏻#Changingthescript on unhealthy dynamics. Inner work required.🧎🏻‍♀️

Of all the many amazing things Gatto said about ed

Of all the many amazing things Gatto said about education, this continues to stand out as a favorite.

I think we have settled for a very weak definition of "education" by allowing it to be intricately wrapped up with "schooling".

The tendency to focus on students' output in comparison to one another misses the beauty of individuality.

When we standardized learning, we lose creativity and stifle the #growthmindset.

When we aim for conformity, then individuality becomes threatening.

When we focus most of our attention on the brain as a computational organ, we miss the vital importance of mental wellness.

Schooling does not = education.

A real education takes into consideration the entirety of a human—mind, body, and spirit.

The GATTO Series continues. This quote is from hi

The GATTO Series continues.

This quote is from his book, Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling.

What I love about this quote is how he combines the problem with the system, highlights the best qualities of youthfulness, and offers a solution all in one breath.

And how powerful is the statement "TAKE an education rather than merely RECEIVE schooling"?

You can read the full post here:
www.letemgobarefoot.com

We might not have a super scenic view 😅, but it

We might not have a super scenic view 😅, but it’s nice to switch up the spaces we inhabit and break routine. Outside we go!

You can’t see the strong fan off to the side which makes being outdoors bearable right now in this Southern heat plus it keeps the pesky bugs away without using chemicals on our bodies.
(Weather app says 89 but “feels like 98”🥵).

Ok. Maybe they aren’t “insanely” fun, but di

Ok. Maybe they aren’t “insanely” fun, but did it get your attention? 😂

We have enjoyed lots of game play together over the years. So much learning takes place too.

I made a list of a ton of skills kids are learning or improving while playing. And I included a list of games we have played/still play. Guaranteed laughter, joy, bonding, and yes, Learning.

Make learning fun again...Play games!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Here are just some of the skills:

NUMBER RECOGNITION & AWARENESS
CALCULATION
ECONOMICS/MONEY AWARENESS
SHAPE AWARENESS
GEOMETRY
COLOR RECOGNITION & AWARENESS
WORD PATTERNS & RHYMING
READING

PROBLEM-SOLVING
STRATEGIZING
TIME MANAGEMENT
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
MEMORY/MEMORIZATION
PREDICTING

Find the rest at: www.letemgobarefoot.com

Next up—The Underground History of American Educ

Next up—The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling.

Full post, along with links to videos created by Brett Veinotte of @schoolsucksproject
⬇️
www.letemgobarefoot.com

(An excerpt)

His expressions are shared because they ring true for many, many people who have been involved (or are involved) in the schooling system of our country. Given the current state of things with COVID-19 and schools either being shut down completely and utilizing virtual schooling or being open, but turned into significant isolation zones, I believe his words are more important than ever. #schooling

First up in The Gatto series is his resignation le

First up in The Gatto series is his resignation letter which was printed in the Wall Street Journal in 1991.

I quit, I think

I’ve taught public school for 26 years but I just can’t do it anymore. For years I asked the local school board and superintendent to let me teach a curriculum that doesn’t hurt kids, but they had other fish to fry. So I’m going to quit, I think.

I’ve come slowly to understand what it is I really teach: A curriculum of confusion, class position, arbitrary justice, vulgarity, rudeness, disrespect for privacy, indifference to quality, and utter dependency. I teach how to fit into a world I don’t want to live in.

I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t train children to wait to be told what to do; I can’t train people to drop what they are doing when a bell sounds; I can’t persuade children to feel some justice in their class placement when there isn’t any, and I can’t persuade children to believe teachers have valuable secrets they can acquire by becoming our disciples. That isn’t true.

Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents.

An exaggeration? Hardly. Parents aren’t meant to participate in our form of schooling, rhetoric to the contrary. My orders as schoolteacher are to make children fit an animal training system, not to help each find his or her personal path.

The whole blueprint of school procedure is Egyptian, not Greek or Roman. It grows from the faith that human value is a scarce thing, represented symbolically by the narrow peak of a pyramid.

That idea passed into American history through the Puritans. It found its “scientific” presentation in the bell curve, along which talent supposedly apportions itself by some Iron Law of biology.

It’s a religious idea and school is its church. New York City hires me to be a priest. I offer rituals to keep heresy at bay. I provide documentation to justify the heavenly pyramid.

(The rest of his letter in comments ⬇️⬇️⬇️ )

“I feel ashamed that so many of us cannot imagin

“I feel ashamed that so many of us cannot imagine a better way to do things than locking children up all day in cells instead of letting them grow up knowing their families, mingling with the world, assuming real obligations, striving to be independent and self-reliant and free.”
-John Taylor Gatto

Have you ever read Gatto’s work? His thoughts are so hard hitting that they are painful to read sometimes. I actually feel a discomfort in my stomach and I shift my body. It’s a visceral reaction because I know exactly what he’s expressing. As a product of the public school system and as an adult participant (teacher & tutor), I have witnessed all the ways a child’s view of self and other is systematically restructured. So, I get what he’s saying. I understand his experience. And it’s unnerving.

No one in their right mind consciously sets out to contribute to the anguish of another in our education system. But it happens all the time and it’s become so commonplace that people are numb to it.

Well, Gatto wrote to poke us and make us feel the truth. He was a man who dedicated his life to education. First as a public school teacher in NYC for close to 30 years. Then, as a speaker on education reform after he publicly resigned in the same year he was named New York State Teacher of the Year. I’m going to spend some time discussing his work over the coming days in a few posts called: The Gatto series. Stay tuned.✍🏻💡
#reimaginechildhood
#lifewithoutschool

Ocean, A Poem By Mary Oliver (second picture) R

Ocean, A Poem
By Mary Oliver (second picture)

Recently, on a day trip to the mountains, we saw a random rainbow off in the distance and it filled me with joy. We were gifted with another one, but this time over the ocean. And I was filled with joy. It was magnificent.

Despite all the craziness in the world, the unsettled feelings, the fear, and the worry I encourage you to step away from it all as often as possible and find a chance to lose yourself in the bountiful opportunities nature offers right outside your door.

If you can’t make it to a sandy beach or the mountains, take a walk in a wooded area or lay on the grass and look up at the sky—clouds, moon, or stars. Find a meandering creek and look for tadpoles and crayfish. Walk a greenway and look for birds, deer, or insects. Look at the variety of flowers blooming in your neighborhood or take notice of the trees and shrubs. What’s blooming? What is fragrant? What stays green year round?

Nature has been our classroom from the beginning. She never disappoints. 🌎

#theworldisourclassroom #ocean #rainbow

School today. Standing underneath greatness. “

School today. Standing underneath greatness.

“The Angel Oak Tree is estimated to be in excess of 400-500 years old, stands 66.5 ft (20 m) tall, measures 28 ft (8.5 m) in circumference, and produces shade that covers 17,200 square feet (1,600 m2). From tip to tip Its longest branch distance is 187 ft. There is considerable debate about the age of the Angel Oak. Some contend that it is 1,500 years old. Most believe that the more conservative estimates are more accurate.”

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