Why Preschool shouldn't be like School

New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at much younger ages, may actually backfire. What very young kids need is a safe, warm, rich, stable environment where there are lots of opportunities for exploration and play where grown-ups are not directing them or "teaching" them, but just giving them lots of love and empathy.

Do follow the link below to read the article.....

http://www.slate. com/id/2288402/

A beautiful quote on education

"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experience." -- Anne Sullivan
(She was Helen Keller's teacher)

Let Kids Rule the School

This truly is amazing! Wish there were more schools like this one!

Do follow the link and read more......

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/opinion/15engel.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Where are we heading??!

Do you want your kids to join the race too?
How can one size fit all when every child is different?
What is our education system doing to us and our kids?
Is this an epidemic in America or worldwide?


Do follow this link to find out more......

http://www.racetonowhere.com


"Be / become the change you want to see in the world"
- Gandhiji

Flights of Fancy: Clean -up what? The cobwebs in our minds?!

Flights of Fancy: Clean -up what? The cobwebs in our minds?!: "I have made many adjustments to our homeschooling lifestyle, but there is one thing that I have not been able to let go off completely as ye..."

Teachers and parents - working together

I found this beautiful poem on a website:

Is this how the relationship between teachers, parents and kids is today??! I wonder......

I dreamed I stood in a studio
And watched two sculptors there.
The clay they used was a young
child’s mind
And they fashioned it with care.
One was a teacher, the tools she used
Were books and music and art;
One was a parent with a guiding hand
And a gentle, loving heart.
Day after day, the teacher toiled
With touch that was deft and sure
While the parent laboured by her side
And polished and smoothed it o’er.
And when at last their tasks were done
They were proud of what they had wrought
For the things they had moulded into a child
Could neither be sold or bought.
And each agreed they would have failed
If they had worked alone
For behind the parent stood the school
And behind the teacher, the home.
- Anon

Where a child is truly free.......

How I wish there were more schools like this!.......I know that this kind of freedom works wonders.....it has for my son....and as a mother, you know and can feel the changes that have happened that are sometimes so subtle.......and not tangible to talk about or share with another.....but you know and feel the difference....when a child is given that freedom to be in control....he starts opening up and flowering.....and starts being responsible......when you learn to trust him and give him this choice, he learns to trust you too.....when you learn to truly respect his needs and wait a bit till he figures it out, he learns to respect you and your needs too....

And I believe that only when you are free do you truly learn!

Please follow this link to read more about Sudbury Schools......

http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_01.html