Necessary to change anything is a change in the basic way we live. We need to have "People"
engaged and empowered in an enriched environment

"SOCIAL CAPITAL" / "HUMAN ENERGY"
We are not a democracy. Our people are very separated.

Money /capital and people involvement
are basic to any problem.

I ask that you give some attention to two theories that I advocate for:

1. We need to develop more “SOCIAL CAPITAL”, person to person sharing, cooperating, mentoring, supporting, etc.
We do not have this, because we have lost much of the family small group support,
and we do not have unstructured PLACES where we can meet, play, interact, discuss, etc.

- school buildings, churches, social enters, etc.

I have mostly the bars to go to if I wish to go out at a non pre-arranged time.

2. We need to restructure k-12 education to give
“credit for education” rather than
“credit for time”
i.e.180 days = 2nd grade,3rd grade,etc. ad nauseum.

The expense of giving credit for only!!!
what happens in a school building is
antique, expensive, frustrating, alienating, etc.

Our schools and churches train / indoctrinate for an authoritarian system,
and then we wonder why we have non-acting citizens.

I believe that attention to these extra resources of money and time, can enhance your efforts!!

I will offer my time freely to elaborate on these.
I have an old book draft at www.chieffinc.org

Being older, a homemaker, depressed, etc. I find it very difficult to have a voice in our culture.
I am asking for help.

Yours truly,
Janet Van Asten jan@intsol.net
920-734-0376 cell 920-850-6530
1035 S. Kernan Ave. Appleton, WI. 54915

Janet,

Have you read Daniel Quinn's, Beyond Civilization?

It seems to me that what you are attempting in your venture is a resurrection of sorts of our lost tribal ways. I think Quinn would approve.

I like your honesty. You're putting yourself out there, vulnerabilities and all, and that's a very risky thing indeed.

A sense of belonging is so important for healthy individual development. Divining this condition and its attendant alienation is the first step to genuine emancipation. May your journey from this point on relive you of your pain.

Whomever falls under the umbrella of your concern will be fortunate, I'm sure.

Hi Murray,
I appreciate all comments. Amazon gets alot of my money, and Quinn sounds like a good read so they will probably get more, not that I get all books read. I keep hoping that by being in the house, something will leak in my head. I actually do not do alot of reading on education. Most of my writing is from frustration and years of trying to get some changes made. It is a very lonely process.
Janet

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Janet,

Have you read Daniel Quinn's, Beyond Civilization?

It seems to me that what you are attempting in your venture is a resurrection of sorts of our lost tribal ways. I think Quinn would approve.

I like your honesty. You're putting yourself out there, vulnerabilities and all, and that's a very risky thing indeed.

A sense of belonging is so important for healthy individual development. Divining this condition and its attendant alienation is the first step to genuine emancipation. May your journey from this point on relive you of your pain.

Whomever falls under the umbrella of your concern will be fortunate, I'm sure.

Janet,

The museums in this country have many programs for children. Maybe you could volunteer in a museum and find support for your ideas there. Even visiting museums might tickle new ideas and be a way to meet like-minded people.

I also posted as "Guest in Gatto Land" in the thread below. Thank you for your response. I was being "ironical" there, as someone politely described my tendency toward sarcasm.

Good luck with your work.

Harv

http://www.kidmuseum.org/

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/education.html

Janet,

I just thought of Meetup groups as well. Freestone occasionally posts here with announcements for his group in New York.

I Googled Meetups near Appleton and found this:

http://www.meetup.com/cities/us/wi/appleton/

Again, best of luck,

Harvey

We are in the "information age". We are drowning in information. People are hypnotised to be separate.
I did try to move into the "meet-up" a bit here, but all directions that I move require time and attention. I have spent a lifetime in depression.
I am 68, sucessful by society's standards. All efforts meet in dead ends. Everybody is in the rat race. I can only try so many directions.
Our citizens believe in education!!!! To get them into discusion, debate, dialoug, etc. long enough to even begin to question education is something I don't manage. We are trained not to dialoug, socialize, etc.
We have very few PLACES to "hang out" without a prearranged time and agenda. A few "small" groups
meet in bars and coffee shops. Our religions are very authoritarian, with closed buildings except for specific subjects.
With all the experience behind you, you are one or more steps up to understanding what I am saying.
Don't think the problems are just with the schools, or will be solved by homeschooling. That is the other ditch! The parents were schooled and churched.
You as an adult are living in a very controlled society. The control is through a "money / time/ competition" system. We have no way of knowing where the money is controlled from. It could be any swamp, any where. It looks like some of the control is now coming out of this Q? country(I don't bring the name to mind now) that was to take over our ports.
The only protection we and our loved ones, will have is to network our citiizens! and right now, we are very separated.

Love
Janet
our ports,

Janet,

That post of yours pretty well sums up the fix we collectively find ourselves in. I could not have said it much better myself--or much differently relative to my own experience (btw, I'm 46, male and homeschooled my children as a stay home dad--talk about pariahs and lone rangers!).

I wish I had a magical solution for the mess we've got ourselves in, but sadly I do not.

Homeschooling worked for us in part because we lived near a park (lots of non-synthetic socialization). But homeschooling is a lonely endeavor, although the alternative of mass schooling was much worse unfortunately.

I wish my life was so full of rich and meaningful relationships whereby I'd never frequent an internet message forum..ever! Stay home dads take loneliness and social isolation to a whole new level. Yet without the pain I'm sure I would not have discovered the real world as it is, but rather would have harbored the illusion that my formerly busy life brought me night and day on end.

At the end of the day the cliche, no pain no gain seems to be how the process of self discovery has worked for me. All things considered, social dystopia and all, I consider myself fortunate.

Hi,
My e-mail is posted. I do have ways to
"tinker", Maybe they would work for you.
Janet

.
.
I think this it the Bullsh!t Age not the Information Age.

People talk endless shallow BS that requires no thought and is boring as hell. It is almost as if you scare people if you talk about something serious.

Computers and the internet make it possible for more to produce and distribute more BS faster.

Fire can heat our food and burn our houses down. We don't blame the fire. Be careful on blaming the computers and internet. Sometimes one throws out the baby with the bathwater?