<p>Liiving near Concord for many years, I heard a lot about Bronson Alcott. You can talk about his pedagogy all you want, but he was more than a little off the wall. </p>
<p>In a culture that emphasized several hours of church service for all ages, what those children were saying reflects a discussion by children of what they think they heard in church--as led by a man who thought he had all the answers.</p>
<p>I think I agree that sometimes children will show incredible depth of understanding. I remember a conversation when my uncle died very young and his daughter and I were 5 years old. My cousin was wondering what would happen to him and she questioned the fact that there is anything at all after death even when her elders were telling her that according to Hindu beliefs, he was waiting for another turn at life reincarnated as someone else. According to her, he was what he was when he lived and ashes to ashes, nothing else remained of him! I still remember it after 42 years. I don't know if she's stayed an atheist or agnostic since then, but she convinced me!</p>
<p>But the pain of the death was incredible to her because she knew that nothing remained of him. I think she felt it. I felt it for her...</p>
<p>achat: did you realize that you just revealed your age !!!</p>
<p>Simba, her age is posted. I'm sorry you had to do the math;)</p>
<p>I just wanted to show off my math skills. well now i thnk i can move to second grade.</p>
<p>So there? Of course it had to do with religion, the question was about religion, the students gave answers that talked about religion, JUDEGEMENT is a religious concept, in the way the questioner asked his question. </p>
<p>Taking religion out of the equation does not do the discussion justice. what dmd77 said is true. We have kids in Communion class who can spout of stuff like that, but don't necessarily understand what they are saying. But they here it day after day in their lessons, so they have learned to repeat what they hear. It is expected.</p>
<p>One of the reasons I was impressed by the discussion is differing views were expressed-- I have met many adults (religious) who have one view and one view only of religion, judgement, heaven, what have you. Actually I remember having almost the same conversation with a member of a certain religion about the end of the world. She was so fixated on the end of the world. I said something like well, when you die, that's the end of the world for you, isn't it? --she totally did not get that, and yet in other ways she seemed very intelligent. I don't know why so many people seem to "check their brains at the door" when it comes to their religious beliefs.</p>
<p>There is some intelligience. IMHO.</p>
<p>I'd look at it as decision making.
1. Person makes a statement.
2. Another person contradicts statement.
3. Together they discuss statement.
4. Someone else (parent, teacher, boss, god, etc) says that its not their decison to make.</p>
<p>How about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle applied to the student's comment's.</p>
<p>Itstoomuch--that seems about right.</p>
<p>Dmd77 stated, "Liiving near Concord for many years, I heard a lot about Bronson Alcott. You can talk about his pedagogy all you want, but he was more than a little off the wall." </p>
<p>I won't deny that Bronson Alcott had beliefs that strayed a far distance from conventional wisdom and that those beliefs resulted in both ridicule and failures. However much of his educational pedagogy, which was rejected by most people at that time, is now accepted as the norm. I speak of things like discarding of rote memorization, teaching by stimulating the student's interest in a subject, cultivation of an aesthetic environment conducive to learning and stimulating the imagination, use of the Socratic method to stimulate discussion and truths which he thought lay in the recesses of every child's mind, insistance on color-blind enrollment, daily physical activity for boys AND girls, and a belief that the purpose of education was not to merely gain knowledge but to use knowledge gained to make oneself a better person.</p>
<p>I will not deny that, for better or worse, he was a strict disciplinarian, sometimes resorting to corporal punishment which was the rule of the day. However he sometimes allowed that corporal punishment be imposed on himself if he felt that it would be better in reinforcing proper behavior in the classroom.</p>
<p>His subsequent Fruitland commune experiment was a dismal failure because it embraced an extreme idealism that both dmd77 and I would describe as "off the wall".</p>
<p>However if you read the transcribed classroom discussions from his Temple School classes and compare it to the education which goes on in our contemporary elementary schools, one cannot be anything but impressed and amazed. </p>
<p>I</p>
<p>I think I was the closest... most close. I got the "Judgement Day" part and they were little grasshoppers to boot! :)</p>
<p>Yes NJres, you are awarded not one, but two gold stars!!! Congratulations!</p>
<p>I think I missed something?</p>