Although I'd heard various bits and pieces about this scientist for years I really fell in love with him during the examination of The Challenger disaster. The Challenger was a space shuttle which blew up in 1986. I recall watching the news and seeing the actual event. Those poor people.
Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist, uncovered the source of trouble aboard the space craft. If you haven't seen a dramatisation or anything about the shocking tragedy, then I won't spoil the fascinating unravelling of the mystery for you. I was riveted.
That began my love affair with Richard. He never knew me. I never wrote, emailed or facebooked. I never exchanged badinage. I never asked him any questions of a quantum nature, but wish I had because I bet he would've answered and made his answer make sense to me.
Here, now, are a few quotes from this man.
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
Quotations taken from
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1429989.Richard_P_Feynman
More about Richard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
Friday, 10 May 2013
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Faith
From the pen of Erich Fromm came this book: The Art of Loving.
From this book comes this quotation:
"Another meaning of having faith in a person refers to the faith we have in the potentialities of others. The most rudimentary form in which this faith exists is the faith which the mother has towards her newborn baby: that it will live, grow, walk and talk. However, the development of the child in this respect occurs with such regularity that the expectation of it does not seem to require faith. It is different with those potentialities which can fail to develop: to love, to be happy, to use his reason, and more specific potentialities like artistic gifts. They are the seeds which grow and become manifest if the proper conditions for their manifestation are given, and they can be stifled if these are absent."
Fromm is saying something important here. Some conditions do not favour the development of that which should grow. I believe that to love, to be happy, to use reason and potentialities that are unique to a person requires that the person land in fertile and well-irrigated soil. It would seem to me that the family or the home educating family in particular is so well suited to providing the enriched soil that I cannot see the reason in removing children from it and taking them into those concrete manifestations of the machine or institutional world called schools.
Home educators have remarked that you have a child in potential and you just add love to allow that child to reach his height and glorious colour in the world.
Fromm continues, "One of the most important of these conditions is that the significant person in a child's life have faith in these potentialities. The presence of this faith makes the difference between education and manipulation. Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities. The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities, and on the conviction that a child will be right only if the adults put into him what is desirable and suppress what is seen to be undesirable. There is no need of faith in the robot, since there is no life in it either."
Thank you, Erich.
I have infinite faith in my children's potentialities, and I have infinite faith that they will achieve their potentialities. I learned to have infinite faith in the arts of home education.
Have faith that your children will become all that they should be.
Just stand back and trust them as they grow.
"Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities."
From this book comes this quotation:
"Another meaning of having faith in a person refers to the faith we have in the potentialities of others. The most rudimentary form in which this faith exists is the faith which the mother has towards her newborn baby: that it will live, grow, walk and talk. However, the development of the child in this respect occurs with such regularity that the expectation of it does not seem to require faith. It is different with those potentialities which can fail to develop: to love, to be happy, to use his reason, and more specific potentialities like artistic gifts. They are the seeds which grow and become manifest if the proper conditions for their manifestation are given, and they can be stifled if these are absent."
Fromm is saying something important here. Some conditions do not favour the development of that which should grow. I believe that to love, to be happy, to use reason and potentialities that are unique to a person requires that the person land in fertile and well-irrigated soil. It would seem to me that the family or the home educating family in particular is so well suited to providing the enriched soil that I cannot see the reason in removing children from it and taking them into those concrete manifestations of the machine or institutional world called schools.
Home educators have remarked that you have a child in potential and you just add love to allow that child to reach his height and glorious colour in the world.
Fromm continues, "One of the most important of these conditions is that the significant person in a child's life have faith in these potentialities. The presence of this faith makes the difference between education and manipulation. Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities. The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities, and on the conviction that a child will be right only if the adults put into him what is desirable and suppress what is seen to be undesirable. There is no need of faith in the robot, since there is no life in it either."
Thank you, Erich.
I have infinite faith in my children's potentialities, and I have infinite faith that they will achieve their potentialities. I learned to have infinite faith in the arts of home education.
Have faith that your children will become all that they should be.
Just stand back and trust them as they grow.
"Education is identical with helping the child realise his potentialities."
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Kettlebells and me
"Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out." Robert Collier. Quoted in 'Instant Confidence' by Paul McKenna.
When you have time to repeat small efforts, and when your time is free to accommodate small efforts then you are bound to progress in whatever you choose to progress in.
Often, home education seems to me to be a series of small efforts day in and day out: you can pace yourself with the efforts. You can make a big effort once a week or a small effort more regularly. Or any combination of small efforts at different times.
I've just started to use kettlebells. Last year, I did for a few weeks, and then I let them slip (not literally, of course). I was going to try, but I relapsed to being my naturally indolent self. But now I've begun again, and I'm determined this time. And this time I am determined to do little and often.
Since I now see it's possible to be successful in increasing my muscle strength by practicing my exercises with the kettlebells.
If I don't focus on the success, I might trot along doing my every day or three or four times a week exercises.
I anticipate that I will keep going. I don't like carrying shopping bags and finding them heavy so I have some motivation to stop feeling like the equivalent of the guy who gets sand kicked in his face.
And d'you know? I'm enjoying it.
When you have time to repeat small efforts, and when your time is free to accommodate small efforts then you are bound to progress in whatever you choose to progress in.
Often, home education seems to me to be a series of small efforts day in and day out: you can pace yourself with the efforts. You can make a big effort once a week or a small effort more regularly. Or any combination of small efforts at different times.
I've just started to use kettlebells. Last year, I did for a few weeks, and then I let them slip (not literally, of course). I was going to try, but I relapsed to being my naturally indolent self. But now I've begun again, and I'm determined this time. And this time I am determined to do little and often.
Since I now see it's possible to be successful in increasing my muscle strength by practicing my exercises with the kettlebells.
If I don't focus on the success, I might trot along doing my every day or three or four times a week exercises.
I anticipate that I will keep going. I don't like carrying shopping bags and finding them heavy so I have some motivation to stop feeling like the equivalent of the guy who gets sand kicked in his face.
And d'you know? I'm enjoying it.
Monday, 4 March 2013
The power in me
"Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behaviour, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organisation or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity, be it 'fate' or 'society' or the government or the corporation or our boss..... In attempting to avoid the pain of responsibility, millions and even billions daily attempt to escape from freedom."
From The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck
Every day we allow a teacher to savage the self-hood of our child, we give away responsibility. Every day we blame 'the system' for things that we allow to happen to us, we give away our responsibility. Then we hurt because someone or something has done damage to us. Yet we are the ones who let them. We are the ones who choose.
Home educators take responsibility for their children, their children's welfare, their children's education, their children's safety, their children's mental health and their children's lives. They do that until their children are mature enough to take responsibility for their own.
With responsibility comes pain, the blame game and being the one in charge, but, I believe, more hurt comes from being let down by the schools, the local councils, the officials, the teachers, the politicians. In short, everyone to whom you delegate your responsibilities.
Home education - painful, effective, helpful, hurtful, exhilarating, joyous, disappointing, wondrous, interesting... and so much more.
Freedom. And all under your control.
From The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck
Every day we allow a teacher to savage the self-hood of our child, we give away responsibility. Every day we blame 'the system' for things that we allow to happen to us, we give away our responsibility. Then we hurt because someone or something has done damage to us. Yet we are the ones who let them. We are the ones who choose.
Home educators take responsibility for their children, their children's welfare, their children's education, their children's safety, their children's mental health and their children's lives. They do that until their children are mature enough to take responsibility for their own.
With responsibility comes pain, the blame game and being the one in charge, but, I believe, more hurt comes from being let down by the schools, the local councils, the officials, the teachers, the politicians. In short, everyone to whom you delegate your responsibilities.
Home education - painful, effective, helpful, hurtful, exhilarating, joyous, disappointing, wondrous, interesting... and so much more.
Freedom. And all under your control.
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
States
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
Albert Einstein
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins125062.html#B24EWKMRJGmZoL8J.99
If it is against your conscience to educate your child at school then follow the dictates of your conscience by home educating your child.
Albert Einstein
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins125062.html#B24EWKMRJGmZoL8J.99
If it is against your conscience to educate your child at school then follow the dictates of your conscience by home educating your child.
Saturday, 9 February 2013
The state
"This first experience with 'official' sports was conclusive. Wherever public authorities undertook to meddle with any sports organization they introduced the fatal germs of impotence and mediocrity. The body formed by the good will of all the members of an autonomous sport group becomes swollen to gigantic and uncertain proportions upon contact with this dangerous thing called the State."
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Founder of the Modern Olympics, Paris, July, 1900. From Scriptwriting: A Practical Manual', 2nd edition, by Dwight V. and Joye R. Swain.
That is just what I feel about 'the State', Pierre.
That is what we have to look forward to if 'the State' ever gets its muddy paws all over home education.
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Founder of the Modern Olympics, Paris, July, 1900. From Scriptwriting: A Practical Manual', 2nd edition, by Dwight V. and Joye R. Swain.
That is just what I feel about 'the State', Pierre.
That is what we have to look forward to if 'the State' ever gets its muddy paws all over home education.
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Blind eyes
"It's too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people you don't know."
From the Star Trek film, Insurrection.
It often strikes me as funny - not the ha ha kind but the strange - that people are far too prone to interfering for no reason, yet, when there is a reason, they ignore suffering.
I find the ineffable and incalculable damage that schools and LAs can do particularly puzzling. They've shown that their type of education is, in a large amount of cases, unfit for purpose; they cannot control the difficulties that arise from so many young people being shoe-horned into a restrictive institutional setting (e.g. bullying). Yet they insist - some of the LAs but not all - on 'monitoring' home educators. Many years ago now, when the LA was pleased to make an appointment with my family to discuss our educational provision (that of my husband and myself), the two Education Welfare Officers were thirty minutes late.
My children were pacing the floor, anticipating they didn't know what. They had enough information to know that EWO workers could, if they deemed it necessary, send them back to the torture chamber that school had become for them. They knew they were under scrutiny (something they didn't like; they're not the 'fame' types of people) and they would be judged.
They were frightened because they were alert to possibilities.
The EWOs were, as I said, late.
As it turned out, the visit was mainly with H. and I. My children said "Hello" to the EWOs as the council workers stepped inside, and my youngsters walked out to go to their grandmother's house to get her new recalcitrant microwave oven working.
The LA visit was tedious but relatively painless because H. believes in giving and giving and giving even more and so he went through every strand of every possible subject in glowing colour and in depth. Great depth. The greatest depth.
They wriggled. They hid yawns. They were unflatteringly keen to shoot out of the door.
But the stress, although over for the time being, had been severe. The anticipation of what they might/would/could/should say had us - H and I - in little pieces, even though we knew we were 'all right' and we 'had it covered' you just cannot ever control the random elements when you introduce 'schooly' people to the people of the home based education.
Those particular EWOs have long since moved on to other jobs. But the memory of that day still has the ability to lash, and sting. It still hurts that we, with all our care and love, not they, are the ones to be judged and 'monitored'.
As I quoted before, "It's too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people you don't know."
Of course, I could mention the many cases in this country of where that saying can be applied as well. The ill people, disabled folk, ordinary beings who have fallen on hard times and get no real help, no proper support, from the state, from society. We are fond of coating everything in words, and believing that words are enough. We ignore and turn our backs on real suffering of real people, deserving or undeserving. We shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes when we should act.
"It's too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people you don't know."
It is much harder to understand and forgive. It is easier to put aside people's suffering, to not understand it, to think ourselves above it. When we will become the community, the society, we have the ability to be? When will we rise to the levels we should attain?
When?
From the Star Trek film, Insurrection.
It often strikes me as funny - not the ha ha kind but the strange - that people are far too prone to interfering for no reason, yet, when there is a reason, they ignore suffering.
I find the ineffable and incalculable damage that schools and LAs can do particularly puzzling. They've shown that their type of education is, in a large amount of cases, unfit for purpose; they cannot control the difficulties that arise from so many young people being shoe-horned into a restrictive institutional setting (e.g. bullying). Yet they insist - some of the LAs but not all - on 'monitoring' home educators. Many years ago now, when the LA was pleased to make an appointment with my family to discuss our educational provision (that of my husband and myself), the two Education Welfare Officers were thirty minutes late.
My children were pacing the floor, anticipating they didn't know what. They had enough information to know that EWO workers could, if they deemed it necessary, send them back to the torture chamber that school had become for them. They knew they were under scrutiny (something they didn't like; they're not the 'fame' types of people) and they would be judged.
They were frightened because they were alert to possibilities.
The EWOs were, as I said, late.
As it turned out, the visit was mainly with H. and I. My children said "Hello" to the EWOs as the council workers stepped inside, and my youngsters walked out to go to their grandmother's house to get her new recalcitrant microwave oven working.
The LA visit was tedious but relatively painless because H. believes in giving and giving and giving even more and so he went through every strand of every possible subject in glowing colour and in depth. Great depth. The greatest depth.
They wriggled. They hid yawns. They were unflatteringly keen to shoot out of the door.
But the stress, although over for the time being, had been severe. The anticipation of what they might/would/could/should say had us - H and I - in little pieces, even though we knew we were 'all right' and we 'had it covered' you just cannot ever control the random elements when you introduce 'schooly' people to the people of the home based education.
Those particular EWOs have long since moved on to other jobs. But the memory of that day still has the ability to lash, and sting. It still hurts that we, with all our care and love, not they, are the ones to be judged and 'monitored'.
As I quoted before, "It's too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people you don't know."
Of course, I could mention the many cases in this country of where that saying can be applied as well. The ill people, disabled folk, ordinary beings who have fallen on hard times and get no real help, no proper support, from the state, from society. We are fond of coating everything in words, and believing that words are enough. We ignore and turn our backs on real suffering of real people, deserving or undeserving. We shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes when we should act.
"It's too easy to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people you don't know."
It is much harder to understand and forgive. It is easier to put aside people's suffering, to not understand it, to think ourselves above it. When we will become the community, the society, we have the ability to be? When will we rise to the levels we should attain?
When?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
