Sandra Brown

>Next, the dumbing down of liberal education for the
purpose of providing a few required courses so the >students can get on
with the real business of careering. Finally, so much of >its has become
a business in and of itself that sometimes it almost >seems that the fact
that learning is supposed to take place there is almost >an afterthought.

Here, here, David. And the number of students admitted to any particular
program or department is not related at all to the amount of students who
want to be there, but is directly proportional to the amount of so-called
"jobs" the experts think there will be available, operating on that old
scarcity model again. Never mind where each person's skills are, or what
kind of valuable work they want to do.

My husband has been a social worker with children for almost a decade. For
years now he has wanted to go back to school to become a secondary ed
teacher. He has tons of experience with kids and a ton of knowledge and
love for the English language, history, folklore, music, and mythology, but
the system is set up to keep him out. No evening courses, long period of
unpaid student teaching required for "state certification". And every
school that he has called about teacher certification has had a horrible
attitude with him; no effort at all to help him find a way to become a
teacher. I have been shocked at how rude some of these people have been, as
I have made a lot of these phone calls.

It disgusts me that these people are in charge of higher education for
teachers!

I agree with what you said about Steiner, as well, David. Most of what he
wrote was his observations of children. And a lot of what he wrote about
how children learn very closely resembled John Holt's ideas about how
learning comes from within and must be meaningful to the child.

Hope all is well with you, and looking forward to the release of your book!

Warmly,
Sandra Brown
Ann Arbor, MI