The Velja Approach to Schooling would encourage children to create their own words for describing their unique experience of life.
Words give shape and form to existence.
They are a unique human tool that should be adapted to the individual human.
Students would be encouraged to study Latin and Greek and the Etymologies of words in order to fabricate their own based upon established models.
The process of creating language, of giving aspects of experience labels that could be shared and create a communion of understanding with others, must have been one of the great joys of our ancestors.
The Velja Approach would give that joy to every generation of children which pass through the school.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Thought Experiments
The Velja Approach to Schooling would encourage children to engage in "Thought Experiments".
Einstein engaged in such experiments when he was conceiving of his ideas in Physics, such as imagining a police officer chasing a beam of light and where the officer would find himself in relation to the beam of light.
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The mind is humanity's unique resource among the species of planet Earth.
It's heartfelt cultivation is our greatest fulfillment.
----
Another kind of Thought Experiment would be mental role play.
"Imagine you are a child in Ancient Rome. We are going to dim the lights, and now take your mind back to that time long ago, and be a child then."
The exercise would last as long as the child found it interesting, and then the experience would be talked about the next day.
It is imperative that the child be allowed to take all the time THEY desire to dedicate to the exercise, whether that be minutes or the entirety of the day.
Limited Time creates Limited People.
Einstein engaged in such experiments when he was conceiving of his ideas in Physics, such as imagining a police officer chasing a beam of light and where the officer would find himself in relation to the beam of light.
----
The mind is humanity's unique resource among the species of planet Earth.
It's heartfelt cultivation is our greatest fulfillment.
----
Another kind of Thought Experiment would be mental role play.
"Imagine you are a child in Ancient Rome. We are going to dim the lights, and now take your mind back to that time long ago, and be a child then."
The exercise would last as long as the child found it interesting, and then the experience would be talked about the next day.
It is imperative that the child be allowed to take all the time THEY desire to dedicate to the exercise, whether that be minutes or the entirety of the day.
Limited Time creates Limited People.
"You Forced Children To Do What They Were Not Interested In?"
"And did not see the purpose of?"
"wow...that was stupid."
As we slap our foreheads incredulously at the things our ancestors did, so too will our descendants when they reflect upon the approach our society currently takes towards "education".
"wow...that was stupid."
As we slap our foreheads incredulously at the things our ancestors did, so too will our descendants when they reflect upon the approach our society currently takes towards "education".
Friday, July 11, 2008
Just Like The Busy Kids With Full Schedules
TONS Of Extracurricular Activities
It's exciting to be busy.
To have so many new and exciting things to look forward to.
A human life is a fairly short thing compared to the vast horizons of potential we can imagine.
Our corporeal existence seems far too brief to begin to experience it all.
Naturally, we all have an insatiable curiosity to seek out things we have not seen before.
That is the purpose of a human existence : to experience as much as possible with the time we have.
Those Bright-Eyed, Bushy Tailed Kids
You know who I'm talking about.
The kids at school who have TONS of energy.
They're excelling in academics and in extracurricular activities.
They go on field trips with after-school clubs, to different cities for sports tournaments, and to academic competitions in other cities.
They can play the piano and know how to make a fire.
They are a walking encyclopedia, who are extremely hot on the outside.
I suppose they could be said to be perfect.
I wouldn't call them that though.
I knew these kids in school and they were just genuinely energetic, curious people.
What was their secret?
Everyone Should Be Encouraged and Supported To Be A Hot Encyclopedia (if they want to be)
The Velja Approach to schooling enables kids to shape themselves in whatsoever they wish to be.
I believe that human beings have an insatiable urge to grow and try new and exciting things.
To fill their days with never before had experiences.
To feel that they are becoming more than what they were everyday.
I think all kids should have the chance to be like the Busy Kids,
to be a Hot Encyclopedia.
I wanted to be.
I just needed to do it my way, not the way adults told me I had to.
Again, adults should guide and support not dictate, not bully.
Doing so will raise a generation of genuinely strong young people.
A school full of Bright-Eyed, Bushy Tailed, Busy kids...
Sounds Awesome To Me!
It's exciting to be busy.
To have so many new and exciting things to look forward to.
A human life is a fairly short thing compared to the vast horizons of potential we can imagine.
Our corporeal existence seems far too brief to begin to experience it all.
Naturally, we all have an insatiable curiosity to seek out things we have not seen before.
That is the purpose of a human existence : to experience as much as possible with the time we have.
Those Bright-Eyed, Bushy Tailed Kids
You know who I'm talking about.
The kids at school who have TONS of energy.
They're excelling in academics and in extracurricular activities.
They go on field trips with after-school clubs, to different cities for sports tournaments, and to academic competitions in other cities.
They can play the piano and know how to make a fire.
They are a walking encyclopedia, who are extremely hot on the outside.
I suppose they could be said to be perfect.
I wouldn't call them that though.
I knew these kids in school and they were just genuinely energetic, curious people.
What was their secret?
Parents who believed in them.
That they believed in themselves.
That's it.That they believed in themselves.
Everyone Should Be Encouraged and Supported To Be A Hot Encyclopedia (if they want to be)
The Velja Approach to schooling enables kids to shape themselves in whatsoever they wish to be.
I believe that human beings have an insatiable urge to grow and try new and exciting things.
To fill their days with never before had experiences.
To feel that they are becoming more than what they were everyday.
I think all kids should have the chance to be like the Busy Kids,
to be a Hot Encyclopedia.
I wanted to be.
I just needed to do it my way, not the way adults told me I had to.
Again, adults should guide and support not dictate, not bully.
Doing so will raise a generation of genuinely strong young people.
A school full of Bright-Eyed, Bushy Tailed, Busy kids...
Sounds Awesome To Me!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Flowers Will Bloom In Their Time
Take All The Time You Need or Want
This is one of the fundamental tenets of The Velja Approach.
There are no deadlines.
No school bells yelling at students to march to their adult-imposed indoctrinations.
No punishments for not performing for adult amusement in the time frame adults dictated.
School is FOR the students.
Adults are there to guide and support but the fuel, the drive, the passion is "always" from deep inside the student.
Some Flowers Blossom Quickly, Others Take Years, Both Are Invaluable
The Velja Approach is a mature approach to education.
All students are full of boundless potential, to be cultivated in their own style.
Believe in the student.
Support the student.
Love the student.
and they will :
blow-your-mind. ; )
This is one of the fundamental tenets of The Velja Approach.
There are no deadlines.
No school bells yelling at students to march to their adult-imposed indoctrinations.
No punishments for not performing for adult amusement in the time frame adults dictated.
School is FOR the students.
Adults are there to guide and support but the fuel, the drive, the passion is "always" from deep inside the student.
Some Flowers Blossom Quickly, Others Take Years, Both Are Invaluable
The Velja Approach is a mature approach to education.
All students are full of boundless potential, to be cultivated in their own style.
Believe in the student.
Support the student.
Love the student.
and they will :
blow-your-mind. ; )
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Practical Knowledge
Perspiration Stains
I don't have a lot of money, and I don't like to have to buy new clothes if I feel that they can be salvaged by laundering.
I'm researching on the internet how to remove my perspiration stains and other stains.
It is a really involved science!
There is a lot of research that could be done and a lot of experimentation, just generally a lot to learn.
This is the kind of Practical knowledge that everyone could benefit from.
Take Your Laundry to School
Instead of "Chemistry" class, the students take their laundry to school and use the chemistry lab in tangent with the school laundry facilities, to discover their favorite way to remove stains from their laundry.
IT'S PRACTICAL SCIENCE!
Yay! : )
The Untapped Potential
School has so much untapped potential.
Children could emerge from school as such strong, confident, visionary young people...there is just so much scope which has yet to be kindled.
Let's ask for more out of life and out of our education system. ; )
We owe it to our kids,
and,
to the memory of us as kids and the unfulfilling schooling we had to endure.
No blame.
"Everyone is doing the best they can, just nobody has any idea what they are doing."
We're all winging it, doing our best.
We just keep learning how to do things a better way.
We have been trying Standardized Education for a long while now.
It doesn't work.
It's time to try something else.
I don't have a lot of money, and I don't like to have to buy new clothes if I feel that they can be salvaged by laundering.
I'm researching on the internet how to remove my perspiration stains and other stains.
It is a really involved science!
There is a lot of research that could be done and a lot of experimentation, just generally a lot to learn.
This is the kind of Practical knowledge that everyone could benefit from.
Take Your Laundry to School
Instead of "Chemistry" class, the students take their laundry to school and use the chemistry lab in tangent with the school laundry facilities, to discover their favorite way to remove stains from their laundry.
IT'S PRACTICAL SCIENCE!
Yay! : )
The Untapped Potential
School has so much untapped potential.
Children could emerge from school as such strong, confident, visionary young people...there is just so much scope which has yet to be kindled.
Let's ask for more out of life and out of our education system. ; )
We owe it to our kids,
and,
to the memory of us as kids and the unfulfilling schooling we had to endure.
No blame.
"Everyone is doing the best they can, just nobody has any idea what they are doing."
We're all winging it, doing our best.
We just keep learning how to do things a better way.
We have been trying Standardized Education for a long while now.
It doesn't work.
It's time to try something else.
Growth and Evolution
The Velja Approach to Schooling is wholly and absolutely committed to the Growth and Evolution of students.
This is in stark contrast to the current model of education which has the mandate of making children into functional, obedient drones.
I will say it again, the Assembly Line has permitted our species to enjoy heretofore unprecedented material abundance, but, the philosophy which created the Assembly Line has seeped into the belief with which we approach education (all of our relationships really).
We must recognize this.
Recognize that it is wholly unfulfilling and choose to embrace a system which strengthens, rather than weakens our children.
Why?
Because Earth sure could use Humanity's very first generation of universally, strong, confident, empowered human beings.
A generation which would mark the next step in human evolution.
All by just believing in our children,
in the way we were never believed in.
Chains are meant to be broken after all.
This is in stark contrast to the current model of education which has the mandate of making children into functional, obedient drones.
I will say it again, the Assembly Line has permitted our species to enjoy heretofore unprecedented material abundance, but, the philosophy which created the Assembly Line has seeped into the belief with which we approach education (all of our relationships really).
We must recognize this.
Recognize that it is wholly unfulfilling and choose to embrace a system which strengthens, rather than weakens our children.
Why?
Because Earth sure could use Humanity's very first generation of universally, strong, confident, empowered human beings.
A generation which would mark the next step in human evolution.
All by just believing in our children,
in the way we were never believed in.
Chains are meant to be broken after all.
"I Need To Feel Special"
The Velja Approach to Schooling understands this need in children (in everyone actually), and bases its approach to education on it.
Making Children Strong : Because Strong Children Become Strong Adults
The Velja Approach to Schooling is dedicated to doing one thing above all : Making Children Strong.
The Meditation Room
Temet Nosce (Know Thyself)
The sign hanging over the doorway of the Oracle's Kitchen read the above.
The Matrix had a powerful influence on me, as I know it did tons of people, all over the world.
The movie was a rallying cry for people to recognize their dissatisfaction and unfulfillment with the gray emptiness of the capitalist dream.
The movie told people to instead look inside themselves, deep, inside themselves to find the "truth" of their own inner strength, of faith in themselves.
The Meditation Room
Schools in the Velja approach would all have meditation rooms.
I imagine rooms based on a Japanese style.
The sound of flowing water.
Soft cushions on which to kneel or sit cross-legged.
Scrolls hanging on the walls with wise proverbs written in Chinese characters on them.
Bamboo walls with their look of earthiness and flexibility.
The Student
Knowing yourself,
Knowing who you are,
enables a person to act in harmony and accordance with their perception of themselves.
This is absolutely vital to living in a way that does not feel strained and disjointed, out of whack with one's inner sense of rightness.
A healthy adult is one who feels "in tune" with themselves.
In The Velja Approach, students would be practising this fundamentally intrinsic aspect of human existence from a young age.
Whenever a student felt that they were lost,
confused,
unsure of their direction,
and they had exhausted external channels of guidance (parents, teachers, friends, books....),
they would have a quiet room to go to where they could search deep inside themselves for the answers only they themselves can give.
The school would provide the facility, the "tool", but would not force the student to make use of it.
That door would be one the student would choose to venture through on their own.
That is what The Velja Approach does :
provide the students with the "tools" to explore this life,
the adult encouragement and support to explore freely,
and the adult maturity to allow our young people to explore without imposing limits on their imagination or sense of wonder.
Know Thyself.
The sign hanging over the doorway of the Oracle's Kitchen read the above.
The Matrix had a powerful influence on me, as I know it did tons of people, all over the world.
The movie was a rallying cry for people to recognize their dissatisfaction and unfulfillment with the gray emptiness of the capitalist dream.
The movie told people to instead look inside themselves, deep, inside themselves to find the "truth" of their own inner strength, of faith in themselves.
The Meditation Room
Schools in the Velja approach would all have meditation rooms.
I imagine rooms based on a Japanese style.
The sound of flowing water.
Soft cushions on which to kneel or sit cross-legged.
Scrolls hanging on the walls with wise proverbs written in Chinese characters on them.
Bamboo walls with their look of earthiness and flexibility.
The Student
Knowing yourself,
Knowing who you are,
enables a person to act in harmony and accordance with their perception of themselves.
This is absolutely vital to living in a way that does not feel strained and disjointed, out of whack with one's inner sense of rightness.
A healthy adult is one who feels "in tune" with themselves.
In The Velja Approach, students would be practising this fundamentally intrinsic aspect of human existence from a young age.
Whenever a student felt that they were lost,
confused,
unsure of their direction,
and they had exhausted external channels of guidance (parents, teachers, friends, books....),
they would have a quiet room to go to where they could search deep inside themselves for the answers only they themselves can give.
The school would provide the facility, the "tool", but would not force the student to make use of it.
That door would be one the student would choose to venture through on their own.
That is what The Velja Approach does :
provide the students with the "tools" to explore this life,
the adult encouragement and support to explore freely,
and the adult maturity to allow our young people to explore without imposing limits on their imagination or sense of wonder.
Know Thyself.
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