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Children and education - possible solutions?

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Children and education - possible solutions?
David Hopper	Posted on: Thursday 22 March 2007 7:00:20 pm
	When looking at possible solutions for what would benefit the children the most in this challenging world, it is easy to consider using a remedy that is currently available in most cultures: the school. The actual school building can be turned into a community center. This community center would be able to perform many functions. Besides being an educational center during regular school hours, it can be used for tutoring children with special needs after hours. The school can be a place for parents to come and discuss issues about homework, discipline, and the curriculum. There can be helpers to assist the child with their homework if there are problems at home, or when a parent is working and can't take care of the child until the parent gets home. Some of these after-school programs already exist, or the school building is already being used for other activities such as after-school sports and other recreational activities. In addition, health care for the indigent could be provided. Funds could be allocated for doctors, nurses, and dentists to help parents and children in need of outpatient medical care. We're moving towards community living and raising kids with care workers, i.e., more than one caring adult and the community raising the child. This type of social function has been happening in the Kibbutz in Israel for decades. This process is what Hillary Rodham Clinton described in her book “It Takes a Village”. With the community center providing guidance to the child's social needs in various activities, the goal of the Mystery Schools for the future education would be to provide the needed educational understanding for developing the child's inner mental equipment and faculties. The curriculum and the usual topics of academia taught in today's schools and institutions would be revamped to train the child to maximize his expression of divine creativity in whatever subject he works in. The student would be taught to get in touch with his spiritual essence, such as through learning and practicing meditation, spiritual discrimination, sensing a vision of the Plan, and developing an understanding of the unity of his three-fold nature. In essence, the child would be in training from kindergarten to college for building the Antahkarana. For building the future education and civilization, educators will be tasked to focus on creating a wiser and more determined citizenry and directly helping to overcoming the world's problems. These problems will be addressed when the child first learns to confront their own personal barriers that keep him from realizing his greater potential. By studying the esoteric origins of his problems, the child can learn to identify and transcend his own weaknesses, and thus he can also understand the same problems in others. This will go a long way toward solving one of humanity's greatest issues: prejudice and bigotry. In addition to intellectual development, the child will be taught to contrast the difference between his instinctual and intuitional responses, which will help him to identify with ideas and ideals in an abstract environment  the mind. Education is a process of personal growth and intellectual development. It embodies the wisdom of learning from past mistakes and misunderstandings while embracing a healthy attitude toward building a "divine" humanity. Perhaps, the best changes I would like to see come to pass in the immediate future would be to develop the child's personal sense of self, teach the meaning of seeking truth, and develop an understanding of non-separation from others, including their inter-connectedness with all peoples and the environment. It should be remembered above all else that the child is learning from infancy to adulthood to communicate with their environment in a very diverse and complex world. Left-brain analysis has great value in helping humanity expand their minds in developing greater "technical" understanding about their world. The right brain, however, pulls together all of the subjective elements of being human, such as intuition, understanding, tolerance, patience, and vision. These ideas have yet to be accepted as valued subjects of study for rounding out the child's development in today's educational system. The focus on the left-brain development tends to mask or cover-up our true nature by focusing mostly on the objective aspects of life. Lastly, for good or for worse, it is society, the parents, the schools, the teachers, and the media which are all raising the child. Since the adults are controlling all aspects of the child's life, they are also presenting a full range of conflicting messages. This has to be looked at and addressed. The lack of caring and parental abuse must change and give way to a greater vision which not only allows the child to explore all forms of communication with their world but literally to secure a future for the children to fulfill their greatest dreams. This is our salvation and the best and greatest destiny for humanity's future. David Hopper
In the media:
Amanda Williams	Posted on: Wednesday 28 November 2007 7:00:14 am
	Such community center schools are being tested in New Orleans after the hurricane damaged the existing structure. These schools have extended hours with focus on providing children with the tools they need in order to concentrate on "education" including proper nutrition and health care as well as instruction in creative/constructive use of leisure time. Also, the new "hundred dollar computer" is upon us. The company's mission is to provide every child with a computer. These computers are practially indestructable, capable of communicating with each other via internet, and are chock full of educational games and resources. Many children in developing nations are receiving these computers due to a "two for one" introductory program by the manufacturer.