Two books and some thoughts

While we were away in December, B joined up with a Writer's Workshop. While there we had the opportunity to meet the Guptara family, including the Twins, who recently had their first book published and launched.
I finished the book last night, and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it...it was a bit of Lord of the Rings, with a little Chronicles of Narnia, a sprinkle of Eragon with a suspense/conspiracy plot holding it all together. If you are looking for an easy, yet compelling read for the holidays; I recommend that you run out and buy a copy of this book...or you can order it on Amazon and never have to go looking for it. I am looking forward to the next book so that I can observe Bryn, one of the main charcters, coming to terms with his new-found abilities, and the choices that he'll be faced with.
The other thing that has challenged me in this book is how the boys were released by their parents to pursue their passion. Actually, Jyoti and Suresh are moving in separate directions in preparation for their futures. Jyoti was given permission by his parents to finish school at 16 in order to become a full-time novelist. Suresh on the other hand, is currently living in a different country, attending a school where he can prepare for the type of post-secondary education he wants.
The challenge to me, as a parent, has been a reminder to look at each of my children as separate being, with individual passions, abilities and calls. It is so easy to think of a one-size fits all approach to life. I see that there is an increasing global trend to try to put everyone through the same type of education, pushing them to the same paths for similar types of careers, and then marking success by similar standards.
On that note, I picked up another book to read last night. I was sad for the
Conspiracy of Calaspia to come to an end so early in the evening, so I wandered through the bookshelf looking for something new. Often, I re-read books that I find particularly compelling or enjoyable; however I was looking for a new books. Then my eyes settled on Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto.
This a collection of five pieces written by John Gatto, reflecting on what he has seen in his career as a teacher in a public school in the US. This was an interesting tag-on to the thoughts about releasing children to pursue their passions. His position is that the educational institutions are failing the children that they are supposed to be helping. His list of the seven lessons that are universally taught are: confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem, and the reality of constant surveillance. To say the least, this is a disturbing list of lessons, and lessons that I know that I don't want my children to imbibe. That particular speech is concluded with the following statement by the author: School is a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned. I teach school and win awards doing it. I should know.
Suddenly, I realized that the concerns I was trying to express to M's teacher last year reflected the same concerns this teacher saw in the way education was being administered in the typical school. What a relief to have someone else express the same thoughts...maybe I wasn't being as unreasonable as I was being told that I was.
Even now as I think about the things I was told by some teachers, who in other contexts I really appreciate, I am shocked at their candor. One teacher told me that you can't believe what children tell you...meaning that the things M was saying were probably not true. And another teacher told me that it's good for children to learn that adults aren't nice and they need to get toughened up...meaning that M needs to tolerate unkind and disrespectful remarks from her teacher. As I think about these two remarks, I can clearly see that these two women and many others like them, simply have a different value system than I do. I do not ever want my children to feel like I will take an adult's word over their's simply because they are children. And I do not want my children to grow up feeling like they have to tolerate disrespect because the person being disrespectful is an authority figure. I know that I will have to guide them in appropriate ways to oppose an authority figure, but that is worth the effort to me rather than teaching them that they need to accept oppression as the way things are.
In some ways it is unfair for all of you to have to wade through my thoughts and opinions without being able to challenge and contradict me. So let me invite you to share some of your thoughts... I am looking forward to hearing from you!!!