More than a year ago I watched the dvd école buissonière that depicts a school between two world wars at the tipping point for letting children express themselves in the classroom. Today the expression of children in the classroom differs when schools increase working with standard materials and try to much to fix life on measures, leaving not enough room for the particular beauty of the momentary occurence not yet catched in words.
Another approach to education would be to look at what is a good practice. There are institutes, teachers, schools and researchers that already work that way that I've encountered in the Netherlands on internet. I don't know any worldwide examples but I'm sure they exist. However, serendip is a site where psychologists and biologists get into discussions on the human mind during their studies and is one of my favorite examples of a good practice teaching. I have more on this blog somewhere... (this blog is starting to look like my purse).
I was thinking that the emphasis on literacy maybe is not right. Maybe there's a group of young ones that need schools to be more tactile (working and learning with the hands) and more about skills and affective responsibility (friendship, sharing, responsibility). These schools could focuss on skills rather than on verbal development. On small business skills and development of a strong rural middle class.
I had a wooden puzzle in my hands. A fisherman's son thought he wouldn't know how to solve it, but he was going through the right steps. A lesson about non-verbal learning.
