Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > Hyde Schools
Joe Gauld... on Education
Ursus:
Here's another letter to the Editor from Gauld's indefatigable pen. It was on a page with several other letters preceding it, and I scrolled slowly down, occasionally getting distracted by reading another's story. However, as soon as I spied that now familiar phraseology, "...impotency ...educational ...throughout my 50-year career," I knew I had found it! :rofl:
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http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2001/ ... r.h20.html
Education Week
Vol. 20, Issue 32, Pages 44-45
Published: April 25, 2001
LETTERS
Terminal Cynicism: Reform Needs a Revolution, Not a Premature Obituary
To the Editor:
America has had to endure the impotency of educational reform throughout my 50-year career. Now, in "The End of School Reform" (Commentary, April 4, 2001), Peter Temes cynically tells us the system cannot be reformed, and to accept the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's heroic idea of simply saving as many students as we can.
Mr. Temes gives us the analogy of the man who loses his watch in the living room, but chooses to look for it in the kitchen because the light is better there. Indeed, once America finally tires of the misplaced kitchen searches of Mr. Temes and colleagues, it can start searching where a new and revolutionary educational system is to be found.
Such naysayers rigidly believe that the basic purpose of school must be the intellectual development of the student. But this focus is only a minor subset of a far more powerful purpose: character development.
A focus on character unleashes the deepest human motivation—self-discovery. Adolescence is primarily meant to help students answer the three basic questions of life: Who am I? Where am I going? What do I need to do to get there?
Today, our zeal to provide universities with better students and industry with better workers forces students to ignore or look elsewhere to answer these crucial questions. But if we focus schools on character, and thus self-discovery, students will begin to devour what we presently try to shove down their throats—and more.
Why don't schools make this obvious intellect-to- character transition? Because we fear (1) revolutionary change of the unknown, and (2) our abilities to address larger issues like character.
Character is primarily taught by example. This means that teachers—and parents—need an ongoing program to address their own character and self-discovery.
In character development, parents are the primary teachers and the home the primary classroom. This means that we must make the family part of our educational process, and train parents just as we do teachers.
Clearly, to change schools for our kids, we must first be willing to change ourselves.
We presently lack the guts to institute such revolutionary change, but given increasing Columbine-like tragedies, we may soon find the vision to shuck our long-term cynicism, as expressed by Mr. Temes, and finally live out the true meaning of our American creed.
Joseph W. Gauld
Founder of Hyde Schools
Bath, Maine
Woodstock, Conn.
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---It's damaging not only for the "losers," who are merely training material for the "winners," it's damaging for the "winners," if they have a conscience.
--- End quote ---
Could not have said better myself. One of my rallying cries. If something is that toxic for one, eventually it'll be toxic for them all. If they have a conscience.
--- End quote ---
When we started out at Hyde , we did all those feel good team building things: the team has to cross the rope bridge, the team has to climb the wall. Then in the regular year we learn to group into two piles: on track and off track etc. Hyde could not function without the failure group. One on the lessons at Hyde is the dehumanizing of the other.
Anonymous:
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---I bet Joe is filled with sangfroid when ever he thinks of his 14 AP calculus prodigy going off into life as a failure.
--- End quote ---
He sure as hell brings him up enough! That poor chap has unwittingly become part of the Hyde mythology just by having had the misfortune to run into Ol' Lucifer himself in a prior generation...
--- End quote ---
I beg one of you, please, tell me this story of early promise betrayed.
Ursus:
Thus far, in this thread, not a single solitary sentence has emerged from Gauld's (indefatigable) pen that has been in agreement with or in support of any other system or philosophy of education. Or any tiny piece of any of it, for that matter.
It's Gauld vs. World, Featherweight Championship. Or Battle of the Tight-Ends.
Here's a telling statement from 1992's "Just Do It":
--- Quote from: ""Joe Gauld"" ---I chose teaching for the exciting challenge of truly preparing kids for life, hoping to have them return one day to say, "If it weren't for you, Mr. Gauld...''
--- End quote ---
Ursus:
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Ursus"" ---
--- Quote from: ""Guest"" ---I bet Joe is filled with sangfroid when ever he thinks of his 14 AP calculus prodigy going off into life as a failure.
--- End quote ---
He sure as hell brings him up enough! That poor chap has unwittingly become part of the Hyde mythology just by having had the misfortune to run into Ol' Lucifer himself in a prior generation...
--- End quote ---
I beg one of you, please, tell me this story of early promise betrayed.
--- End quote ---
Oh, it's just that same old story of smarts vs. heart that he has told a million times over, several times a year at Bath, and which finds its way into at least 30-50% of his published material. I'm sure you have heard it before. Here's a snip from the previous page in this thread, from the 1992's "Character Development: A School's Primary Task":
--- Quote from: ""Joe Gauld"" ---This experience tells us that if we take care of character, academic achievement will follow. But I was long duped by the mafia's enshrinement of academic achievement. When I taught advanced-placement calculus 30 years ago, I gave my highest grade to a lazy and arrogant 14-year-old genius, while trying to convince him he was totally unprepared for life, and my lowest to a dedicated but discouraged kid, while trying to convince him his character and drive might someday make him the best engineer in class. The first did graduate from MIT with an "A" average at 18, but he has long been unemployed. The second became a top engineer.
--- End quote ---
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