Politics.be - Los bericht bekijken

TomB · 6 mei 2003, 03:54

Hier is een tekstje over hoe ze scholing aanpakken.

The Amish

Now let me tell you something about the Old Order Amish, a group of 150,000 very prosperous people who came to America with little more than the clothes on their back. Everyone’s heard about the Amish but few people know the astonishing details. Here they are:

• Virtually every adult Amisher has an independent livelihood as the owner of a farm or a business.

• There is almost no crime, no violence, no alcoholism, no divorce, no drug-taking in the group.

• They accept no government help with health care, old-age assistance, or schooling after 8th grade. (They were forced by the government to accept first through eighth-grade schooling.)

• The success rate of Amish in small business is 95 percent compared to the rate nationally in the US of 15 percent.

• All Amish children have a chance to take an expense-paid sabbatical year away from Amish life when they arrive at the verge of adulthood to decide if they want to remain in the community and meet its customs. Eighty-five percent of all grown children prefer to remain in the community, a principal reason the group has grown 3000 percent in the 20th century.

Almost all members when interviewed by outside investigators report satisfaction with their lives.

Donald Kraybill of Johns Hopkins studied a thousand Amish businesses for a book published in 1995 called Amish Enterprise. He had this to say:

“They challenge a lot of conventional assumptions about what it takes to enter business. They don’t have high school educations, they don’t have specialized training, they don’t use computers, they don’t use electricity or automobiles, they don’t have training in how to create a marketing plan.

But the resources they transfer over from the farm are: an entrepreneurial spirit, a willingness to take risks, innovativeness, a strong work ethic, a cheap family labor pool, and high standards of craftsmanship. One of their values is smallness. They don’t want their shops and industries to get large. This spreads entrepreneurship widely across the whole settlement.”

This also is a big part of the Amish definition of education. I’ll add a little more:

The Amish are legendary good neighbors, first to volunteer in times of outer-world need. They open their farms to ghetto children and frequently rear handicapped children from the non-Amish world nobody else wants. They farm so well and so profitably without using tractors, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides, that Mexico, Canada, Russia, France, and Uruguay have hired them as advisors on raising agricultural productivity.

You can figure out a lot about what the Amish believe an education is from the things they fought the government about – and won – when the Supreme Court ruled they had to go to school from first through eighth grade.

The Amish realized the new government schools were social separators built on the principle of mechanical milk separators, whirling the young mind about until both the social structure of the parents and coherent consciousness are fragmented. Schooling separates people from the daily content of life, dividing the world into disciplines, courses, classes, grades, and teachers who remain strangers to their children in all but name. Even religion is studied, analyzed, and eventually separated from family, history, and daily life. It became just another subject for critical analysis.

And the constant competition would destroy many, leaving a multitude of losers, humiliated and self-hating, a far cry from the universal strength Amish community life requires. The Amish wanted no part of that.

They demanded that:

• schools be located within walking distance of home.

• there be no large schools where pupils are sorted into different compartments and assigned different teachers each year.

• school decisions be under parents’ control.

• the school year be no longer than eight months.

• teachers be knowledgeable in and sympathetic with Amish values and rural ways.

• their children be taught that wisdom and academic knowledge are two different commodities.

• every kid have practical internships and apprenticeships supervised by parents.

6 mei 2003, 03:54	#18
TomB Perm. Vertegenwoordiger VN Geregistreerd: 6 januari 2003 Locatie: US Berichten: 14.572	Hier is een tekstje over hoe ze scholing aanpakken. The Amish Now let me tell you something about the Old Order Amish, a group of 150,000 very prosperous people who came to America with little more than the clothes on their back. Everyone’s heard about the Amish but few people know the astonishing details. Here they are: • Virtually every adult Amisher has an independent livelihood as the owner of a farm or a business. • There is almost no crime, no violence, no alcoholism, no divorce, no drug-taking in the group. • They accept no government help with health care, old-age assistance, or schooling after 8th grade. (They were forced by the government to accept first through eighth-grade schooling.) • The success rate of Amish in small business is 95 percent compared to the rate nationally in the US of 15 percent. • All Amish children have a chance to take an expense-paid sabbatical year away from Amish life when they arrive at the verge of adulthood to decide if they want to remain in the community and meet its customs. Eighty-five percent of all grown children prefer to remain in the community, a principal reason the group has grown 3000 percent in the 20th century. Almost all members when interviewed by outside investigators report satisfaction with their lives. Donald Kraybill of Johns Hopkins studied a thousand Amish businesses for a book published in 1995 called Amish Enterprise. He had this to say: “They challenge a lot of conventional assumptions about what it takes to enter business. They don’t have high school educations, they don’t have specialized training, they don’t use computers, they don’t use electricity or automobiles, they don’t have training in how to create a marketing plan. But the resources they transfer over from the farm are: an entrepreneurial spirit, a willingness to take risks, innovativeness, a strong work ethic, a cheap family labor pool, and high standards of craftsmanship. One of their values is smallness. They don’t want their shops and industries to get large. This spreads entrepreneurship widely across the whole settlement.” This also is a big part of the Amish definition of education. I’ll add a little more: The Amish are legendary good neighbors, first to volunteer in times of outer-world need. They open their farms to ghetto children and frequently rear handicapped children from the non-Amish world nobody else wants. They farm so well and so profitably without using tractors, chemical fertilizers, or pesticides, that Mexico, Canada, Russia, France, and Uruguay have hired them as advisors on raising agricultural productivity. You can figure out a lot about what the Amish believe an education is from the things they fought the government about – and won – when the Supreme Court ruled they had to go to school from first through eighth grade. The Amish realized the new government schools were social separators built on the principle of mechanical milk separators, whirling the young mind about until both the social structure of the parents and coherent consciousness are fragmented. Schooling separates people from the daily content of life, dividing the world into disciplines, courses, classes, grades, and teachers who remain strangers to their children in all but name. Even religion is studied, analyzed, and eventually separated from family, history, and daily life. It became just another subject for critical analysis. And the constant competition would destroy many, leaving a multitude of losers, humiliated and self-hating, a far cry from the universal strength Amish community life requires. The Amish wanted no part of that. They demanded that: • schools be located within walking distance of home. • there be no large schools where pupils are sorted into different compartments and assigned different teachers each year. • school decisions be under parents’ control. • the school year be no longer than eight months. • teachers be knowledgeable in and sympathetic with Amish values and rural ways. • their children be taught that wisdom and academic knowledge are two different commodities. • every kid have practical internships and apprenticeships supervised by parents. __________________ In het begin was er niets, wat ontplofte.