TRADITIONAL EDUCATION OR WESTERN EDUCATION - which is actually better for children, parents, families, communities and Vanuatu? Being blessed to spend time in local villages with many wise and humble people, the sadness of parents separated from their children is a common topic. One of the greatest parent-child separations occurs when children are sent away from their home islands for education in Vila. The solution is both simple and valuable for island communities - encourage Island Schools and Home Schooling so education can continue throughout all islands. Leaving their family and local customs behind children are socialized in Vila by their peer group while their parents and Grandparents are left far away in their native island. School is a habit training mechanism. Schooling is a form of adoption. You give your kid away at his or her most plastic years to a group of strangers. You accept a promise, sometimes stated, and more often implied that the State, through its agents, knows better how to raise your children and educate them than you, your neighbors, your grandparents your local traditions do and that your kid will be better off so adopted. By the time the children returns to the family, or has the option of doing so, very few want to. Their parents are some form of friendly stranger to them. And why not? In the key hours of growing up, strangers have reared the kid.” - John Gatto, youtube link below (6:48 to 7:46) For thousands of years, father to son, mother to daughter, and the wisdom of the wider village has successfully raised children in Vanuatu. Would be great if more funding could be given to allow widespread home school or localized decentralized schooling to allow children to access both their parents and their local culture in their native islands . . . This excellent youtube article by a 29 year experienced teacher highlights the damage caused by children being separated from their parents and how western education ultimately turns children into units of consumption for the endless growth of capitalism. Lets support local schools and local culture over a blind obedience to Western schooling. https://youtube/watch?v=o_CeWip5BpU
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 07:04:45 +0000
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