From: jc (jcpryor@nccn.net)
Date: Tue Aug 30 2005 - 06:37:55 BST
At 10:25 PM -0400 8/28/05, Arlo J. Bensinger wrote:
>
>
>Hi JC,
>
>What? Huh? You lost me, amigo. Can one be "Good" and be "uninvolved"?
Ok, here's what I mean. When I think "good people" I immediately
think of people involved. People sacrificing time and money and care
for others and for society. Sometimes in isolation, working upon a
piece of art or poetry that will heal. They are all involved.
When I think uninvolved, I don't just mean a hermit meditating in
some retreat, Involvement can be pure mental involvement with no
apparent outward manifestation. Many times, true involvement is
refraining from action which you naturally want to take. But
whatever manifestation involvement takes, it means you care.
Uninvolvement implies uncaring. And uncaring equals low quality.
This sorta struck me when you said, "how to get good people
involved". Perhaps I was thrown by my interpretaion of the "how".
>First, I
>don't think anyone can ever be entirely uninvolved, unless the move
>to a island
>and become fully self-sufficent or something like that. Second, I think people
>are involved in many different things. My focus is language learning
>primarily,
>but also education in general (although I defer to Mati's
>experience, which far
>outshines mine). I was referring only to getting more people involved in the
>education of our children. Not too many are actively involved (compared to the
>number that COULD be).
I myself feel pretty fortunate in that regard. I was involved in a
charter council for my kids school, and it was a pioneering program
before charters schools were even in place. A home school charter
for twenty five years when I was involved five years ago and I got to
bounce ideas off the district supervisor every week that affected my
children's education. Then they wanted to go to regular school but
not public school and that's where they are now.
Our charter council commissioned a talk by John Gatto once and I
loved his Dumbing Us Down. The most important education of children
starts with socializing in their natural family. I think early
education is just fancy day care and does much more harm than good.
No matter how good the educator of high quality the system. But
there lies the rub. The real question is how the school system can
possibly provide the natural family socialization which has been
wiped out in this country.
>"Education" is an easy target in "bitching" about things. But it takes a Good
>person to rise above that and volunteer time and energy to make things better.
>So my Kudos to Ham is for that effort. He and I may disagree on things here,
>but I applaud his efforts.
>
>Lastly, I don't think volunteering his time makes Ham "Good", I think Ham is a
>good person based on my experience with him here. I may disagree with him on a
>number of points, but I have never seen any indication that he is not "Good".
Well my point was general and if pointed, certainly not at Ham whom I
don't know, but myself whom I do. This idea of getting more
involved, more activist, more vociferous, has been brewing within me
for some time. And something I'll probably keep harping on until I
actually get something done.
jc the procrastinator
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