Food for tbought:

Found this in the NYT's review of Madeline Levine's book TEACH YOUR  CHILDREN WELL and just had to post it. I will write more about this soon but put it here now as something to think about. How do we prevent schools from putting out children under undue and possibly damaging pressure and do we ever look at the pressure we as parents put on them as parents and evaluate this pressure? Something worth spending some time doing.


"she’s had it. She’s had it with schools that worship at the altar of high achievement but do everything they can to undermine children’s growth and well-being: eliminating recess; assigning mind-deadening amounts of homework; and ranking, measuring and valuing kids by narrowly focused test scores, while cutting out other areas of creative education in which large numbers of students who don’t necessarily test well might find success and thrive. And she’s had it with parents who profess to want nothing more than “happiness” for their children (“Kids laugh when I tell them that their parents don’t mention money as a measure of success; they think I’ve been snowed,” she divulges) while neglecting the aspects of family life that build enthusiasm and contentment, and overemphasizing values and activities that can actually do harm." NYT book reviewJuly 12. 2012