posted March 04, 2010 01:19 AM         

SCHOOLS ALWAYS HAVE RULES. I WANT TO FOCUS ON RULES IN SCHOOLS.

Okay this is still quite wide and a little vague. I will define a "school-rule" as follows:

A school-rule is an explicit or implicit dictum that says:
"You must ..."
or
"You must not ..."
If the school-rule is explicit it is something that the students get told, in verbal or written form. If the school-rule is implicit it is assumed everyone knows it. An example of an explicit rule is: "You must wear your school uniform to school every day." An example of an implicit rule is perhaps: "You must keep your uniform tidy and clean."
To further qualify what I mean by a "school-rule" I will say that school-rules and school-punishments go hand in hand. When an explicit or implicit rule gets broken, the person who broke the rule gets punished. Examples of punishments include detention, corporal punishment and expulsion.

So that narrows it down... I'm interested in this because I have often thought that school-rules can be really stupid or cruel, and now that I have the opportunity to teach by my rules and not my co-teacher's, I'm wondering whether it's just me or does everyone ... uhm ... hate school-rules?? The point is, I want to make rules that are NOT stupid and NOT cruel. But maybe this is only because I am a Saggitarian and hate restrictions. So my question is, are there other opinions?
Boy it's hard to make sense today ... my brain is whizzing with all the change I've been through!
Anyway, now that I've narrowed the inquiry I'll go back again and read the specifics of your very astute replies guys : )

posted March 04, 2010 05:38 AM         

Personally, my biggest problem growing up was that I was too smart for the lesson plan, so I breezed through the work and then got bored. Because my questions often disturbed teachers (many who couldn’t—or feared to—answer questions not covered in their answer books) most of us came to an unspoken agreement to let me read & write quietly and in exchange I wouldn't ask anything. And that was the best I could hope for.

This is because of just one aspect of the system I strongly dislike: it creates lessons plans for the average, and the especially bright and dim (and neurodivergent) can’t keep up with it. The dim find it too hard and become discouraged. People like me sped through it and became bored. The teachers were pressured to make the dim ones keep up and the smart ones like me well-behaved which frustrated them with us.

I had this explained to me by a teacher after I dropped out of school and began unschooling. What really ticked that teacher off (but didn’t surprise her) is that at one point I was tested to have a borderline genius IQ and was college level in everything save math (and I was where I was supposed to be on that). Furthermore I just sped through it because I wasn't interested in anything but getting it over with (so presumably I'd have done much better if I'd tried). But instead of putting me in AP or sending me to a special school for the gifted so that I wouldn’t be so bored they put me in an “adaptive behavior class” (literally called that, or ABC) with kids who were just as smart, bored, and cynical as me.

And I’d taught myself to read (though I admit I’m not certain how I did that, though I have guesses), and I taught myself basic math using flashcards so that I’d mastered basic multiplication & division by 1st grade while the classwork was still on basic addition & subtraction.

Because of an evil place a school psychologist sent me (to get the bounty he was paid for each kid he did that to) I missed nearly a year of school and was behind in the next grade (that was when I was sent to live with Granny for awhile and got transferred to that school and they apparently let me continue normally…I guess the place I was in which had schooling simply passed me to avoid being sued). And yet I managed to get caught up very fast in everything but math.

And that’s the interesting thing to me: I just could NOT get it and it was clear I was going to flunk the semester. In desperation I reread the chapters and followed the examples and was just amazed at how much SENSE it made when I just learned it from the book by myself. It wasn’t me, it was the teacher who was messing me up! And I improved so radically that the teacher actually had me tutor many others not getting it AND I was the ONLY one to get every single problem correct on the semester exam, including the bonus question, for a score of a 110.

And I kept it up by tuning out the teacher and just paying attention to the book. It was actually fun that way, like solving a puzzle. And many of those I tutored also did much better once they took my advice of focusing on the book instead of the teacher. But of course she gets the credit for those of us who finally get the math while those who don’t get it are blamed for the failure. And that’s just not right.

I could go on, but it’s late and I’ve said enough. So just one more thing:

I’m currently rooming with a Sag teacher who sounds somewhat like you. She got into teaching because she remembered how bad it was and she wanted to help change it from within. But she’s found it changed her more than the other way around and she hates it, and she’s considering changing careers as she feels fenced in and powerless to change it for the better (and may have no choice given the state’s budget problems, she being one of many not promised a job next year—especially as she’s already been warned to not challenge the faculty or school board again unless she wanted a paper trail started on her with the goal of ending her career anyway).

She also has something of a bossy side and can be harshly critical at times & easily bored by others, but having been around her I do think her seeing herself as smarter than most people (including other teachers) is accurate, and I’ve actually learned from her myself (though she’s said the same of me) in our many stimulating talks.

posted March 04, 2010 06:00 AM         

But that wasn't acknowledged. So were were meant to wear grey skirts, with a jacket and tie and white shirt. Very expensive. My mother didn't have the money. I wasn't deliberately being rebellious, she just didn't have the money and I did most of my growing after 16 (I went from 4'9" to 5'5" in two years).

So what I actually wore was green dungarees with a Happy Mondays t-shirt underneath (or some variation) and my Dad's green cardigan.

They hated me. But I and my mother felt that my attendance at school was the most important thing, not what I wore. And I elected to be there, it was not a legal requirement!

posted March 04, 2010 02:37 PM         

and as i said, gurdjieff and other people who have mastered themselves get away with it a LARGE percentage of the time. buckminster fuller spent 60 years of his life following his own rules devised from his observations of what natural law was...that if you are contributing to the evolutionary impulse of the universe you will be cared for. it worked for him too.

when a schoolchild it is a lot harder to call your own shots but one of the basic rules is one does not CHALLENGE the status quo but follow one's own "drummer" and show people, when they ask, how your way works better for you...

posted March 08, 2010 04:21 AM         

I think there should be more praise for good and ignoring of the bad then there'd be no need for 90% of rules!

posted March 11, 2010 10:43 AM         

I break rules when...
1. They make no sense to me.
2. They make sense to me as a general rule, but me breaking them doesn't cause any great harm.

By the 2nd, I mean something like how, since childhood, I've had a tendency to visit luxury hotels, not book in, but enjoy the facilities. Take a swim, use the gym, snoop around in general. The rule that only guests should use the facilities makes sense to me, but if I'm having a good time and not causing any problems - why not?

I did this regularly when I was about 9. The hotel wasn't that long a walk. I'd swim there a couple of times a week. The only time I got kicked out was when I brought a big group of friends with me. When I was alone or with one other person, the staff always let it slide.

People tend to let you get away with the 2nd type as long as they can tell you're not challenging the rule as a rule, but are just enjoying life.

posted March 11, 2010 10:54 AM         

When someone becomes my partner - personal or work related - I tend to have one or two clear rules that I say from the start. Like with my SO, on our first date (!), I knew that it had been a while since he'd been in an exclusive relationship. In the couple of years I knew him, he only casually dated. So I told him that for however long we lasted - a week or 6 months - it was to be only me and him. And if he couldn't do that, to let me know, because for however long I would be touching him, I would want him to be only mine.

That's often my approach when I feel like we're accountable to someone else for our behavior. Watching kids, I let them know from the start what the main rule is. The rest they should be able to deduce from that first rule.

posted March 11, 2010 11:24 AM         

There is a rule to
contradict every rule,
so, it makes no sense
to make rules primary.
You just get confused.

They are tentative, provisional,
and highly conditional --
they cannot dictate conduct because
a spiritual life is one lived
in the presence of constant exceptions;
whatever beliefs one holds,
one holds at one's own risk;
the "job" of the universe
is to undermine our beliefs
and call them into question,
so, whatever you think --
that is what the universe exists
to disprove.

I realize, this is the opposite
of what many people say --
that reality reflects our thinking.
We may try to focus,
more and more narrowly,
on the realities that
corroborate our beliefs, but,
ultimately, the more firmly we hold
to a belief, the more consistently
we will be met with exceptions to it.
The spiritual life is not about
holding fast to dogmatic ideals,
but, about constantly revising
one's conceptions concerning
the nature of reality.
Really, it is about seeing,
pure and simple.
Seeing what is.
Any comment we make on that
must be superseded by the
immediate experience
of the present moment,
which does not "follow from"
past experience or observation,
but, undermines what has been
in order to impress us with
the utter distinctness
of what is.

All conceptions of experience, --
that is, past experience
(since only what is past
can be conceptualized),
ultimately, inhibit our receptivity
to the ongoing experience.

Rules and dependecy upon
some conception of order
cannot be done away with,
and are necessary to the
survival of human organisms, --
but, it is my contention
that we form expectations,
for better or worse,
on an unconscious level,
and our proper sphere of activity
is not to consciously enumerate
and adhere to these expectations --
or ideas about patterns in the universe, --
these rules; rather, our business
is to trust that we are already
relying upon them, for the most part,
unconsciously, and that the work of
the conscious mind is to free itself
from the tyranny which those rules
would excercise, were they to
become conscious and concretized.

When we try to observe them --
our beliefs, expectations, or rules, --
and especially when we articulate them,
we subject them to a hardening process,
and, ultimately, we kill them,
and sap them of their dynamism;
the element within them which
most accurately reflected reality.

Truth, it seems,
is not a place to stand,
but a place to step;
we are in possession of the truth
only when we are in motion;
when we speak, and not when
we have spoken; when we formulate,
and not when we repeat formulations.
Truth is the rule, the exception to it,
and the rule that arises from the exception;
also, the exception that arises out of
the consequent rule, ad infinitum;
truth is fractal.

And everything I just said
lost its meaning
the instant I said it.

Sure-footed is light-footed.

posted March 11, 2010 11:36 AM         

Valus,
You articulate my innermost thoughts and
fleeting impressions better than I ever could.
Thank God for you.