Let the Kids Work

The Washington Post ran a beautiful photo montage of children at work from 100 years ago. I get it. It’s not supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to be horrifying. I’m looking at these kids. They are scruffy, dirty, and tired. No question. But I also think about their inner lives. They are working in the adult world, surrounded by cool bustling things and new technology. They are on the streets, in the factories, in the mines, with adults and with peers, learning and doing. They are being valued for what they do, which is to say being valued as people. They are earning money.

Learning: It’s Not About Education

For the very youngest children, learning is constant. Their wondrous progress from helpless newborn to sophisticated five-year-old happens without explicit teaching. They explore, challenge themselves, make mistakes, and try again with an insatiable eagerness to learn. Young children seem to recognize that knowledge is an essential shared resource, like air or water. They demand a fair share. They actively espouse the right to gain skills and understanding in a way that’s useful to them at the time.

What Teaching in China Taught Me About Freedom and Individuality in the World

Working in education gave me unique insight into the parts of culture normally hidden from outsiders and casual tourists. It also gave me a deep resentment for those who maintain their culture at the cost of corrupting young minds. To see children be made into vessels for arbitrary cultural values on a massive scale would be the fire that would consume me.

The Reality of Things

Send him mail. “Food for Thought” is an original column appearing sporadically on Tuesdays at Everything-Voluntary.com, by Norman Imberman. Norman is a retired podiatrist who loves playing piano, writing music, lawn bowling, bridge, reading, classical music, going to movies, plays, concerts and traveling. He is not a member of any social network, nor does he…

Headlines

Nobody asked but … A thing worse than judges making looney decisions is the media loonies’ misreporting of logical decisions.  Here is a major network headline — “Court Rejects Ohio Law That Bans Police From Sex With Minors.”  Headlines are supposed to be a means of finding which stories to read, not a deception, as…

False Dilemma

Nobody asked but … One of the reasons why a dilemma can be false is that life, in reality, seldom sorts itself into two distinct and mutually exclusive choices.  The more classical definition of the false dilemma is where one person tries to convince another that the failure of A will certainly cause the advent…