Question the Quality

Quality control is very often a good thing.

The averages for young people educated in public schools are worse than for homeschooled children and youngsters, and at least not better than for those educated in Steiner schools.

1. In tests, homeschooled kinds consistently out-perform those of public schools. The communication, daily living skills, socialisation and maturity of homeschoolers outscore kinds of public schools on every level. (Bowman, 2011, Pitamic 2004, Seldin 2007, Seldin and Epstein 2003).

A general tip: If you want smarter, more mature children, homeschool them by well structured variants of homeschooling to reap wise benefits. [◦A source]

2. As for Waldorf education, it competes well with public schooling in many ways. (WP, "Studies of Waldorf education")

3. We may sleep on significant issues or problems and perhaps take notes for getting better overviews of them. Solutions may appear, and perhaps wise steps to take. Sound sleep is valuable, and even essential for health.

4. There are gains to be had from ◦Transcendental Meditation, TM. It helps combat stress, also stress in educational settings. Benefits to education, according to findings presented by the ◦David Lynch Foundation:

21% increase in high school graduation rate
10% improvement in test scores and GPA
Increased attendance and decreased suspensions for high school students
Reduced ADHD symptoms and symptoms of other learning disorders
Increased intelligence and creativity
40% reduction in psychological distress, including stress, anxiety and depression
Reduction in teacher burnout and perceived stress.

5. In public schooling, what accounts for the sad facts and figures? Harold Gorst and John T. Gatto, Frank Furedi and John C. Holt and others have all spent a considerable amount of time on telling what went wrong with public schooling in their countries. Various insider outlooks and reflections blend in their works. [Book references for homeschooling and more].

In public schooling, a large class size can limit the help and monitoring each student gets and his or her involvement. Advanced students are often not challenged. Also, there can be much fear and bullying that hinders learning in some such learning climates. As it is said, "The current public school atmosphere can be detrimental to many students."

6. Getting competent and perform well in other ways may help some too. Sound study strategies offer help. To outperform others is not a good motivation. To become a better you - more valuabe to humankind - could be one, or become one.

It could pay to get forewarned and change bad things if you can. Harsh experiences can be hard and costy teachers - limiting too - so stressful that you get ill or die prematurely from them.

In times ahead, if computerised robots and systems replace perhaps half of the human work force, as analytics think they will, there are added reasons to try a combination of what tends to bring better education of human beings. Plan ahead; try to adapt schooling to developments of human beings, and not completely to the mass society with its growth of technical solutions, surveillance and big data to problems it brings? Good schooling is in part learning from the good and bad experiences of others, and thereby avoiding typical troubles in life - perhaps.

Why not combine the best factors of various approaches? One may go for sound homeschooling along with TM, for example. That might pay. And then there is lojong:

Education through Lojong and Similar

Buddha says in the Bhumija Sutta:

If somebody meditates with a wholesome attitude, with right attention and mindfulness, then whether he has expectations or not he will gain insight.

He says in the same sutra that it helps to avoid wrong ideas and the wrong methods, and go for methods that produce fruits. So, the results depend on the methods, how well they are used, and for how long, among other factors. They include "right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right mode of livelihood, right endeavour, right mindfulness, right meditation." [More]

During in-between meditations it might be fit to memorise good ideas and formulations that help the living. In Tibetan Buddhism such practice is called lojong. From older yoga sources similar ways are described too, for example verses about sanyama in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. "Different strokes for different folks" is a slogan that may prove useful too.

~ೞ⬯ೞ~

Maturation and Education

Maturation is growth from deep within, often unrecognised at any moment. Education is a twofold attempt of upbringing and schooling children and young ones or adults. There is informal education out of school and in the schoolyard and other environments, and formal education that often results in grades.

On the one hand some forms of public schooling seeks to tend the plants, and on the other hand make them fit a market or demands of a social nature. A twofold purpose, but the adaptation to society and its demand rank above the self-unfoldment needs most often. Homeschooling and Waldorf education front a richer growth from within, loosely said.

Dreams could be instructive

We are not only less reasonable and less decent in our dreams... we are also more intelligent, wiser and capable of better judgment when we are asleep than when we are awake. - Erich Fromm
The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind. - Sigmund Freud

Dream interpretations may be tried, but how to interpret dreams right? That is often a big problem. Edgar Cayce: "Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions." Maybe not all dreams are like that: Most dreaming from the evening and towards the morning are handling of "bits" or left-overs from yesterday, dream studies show. Morning dreams, though may point forwards in some ways -

As for seeds, sprouts and tender plants in the mind soil or soul: Getting into significant ideas and exploring advancing openness could be fine for students. Getting in rapport with one's own basic guts and dreams too. Craig Hamilton-Parker points out in the introduction of his unpaginated book, The Hidden Meaning of Dreams (1999):

Before you can work with your dreams, you need to . . . remember them. . .
If you use the methods described ... to capture a dream, you're soon going to want to decipher its meaning . . . this may appear difficult because you're confronted with what appears to be a load of nonsense. But it's not. Your thoughts, ideas, worries, hopes, and fears are all represented by symbols, metaphors, and images within your dreams . ..
Psychology has many useful theories that can help you understand what your dreams are trying to tell you about your emotional state, ambitions, fears, and so on. . . .
There are no limits to the mind's ability to generate an . . . abundance of dreams. (Hamilton-Parker 1999, introduction, passim)

Sigmund Freud believed that in sleep the ego relaxed and could no longer adjudicate between the conflicting forces of the id and super-ego. His follower Carl Gustav Jung in time broke with him and went on to believe that the unconscious offered ways to inner wholeness and healing, that dreams gave access to these positive energies. (Hamilton-Parker 1999, introduction) [Carl Jung on dreams and dreamwork]

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake. - Erich Fromm, once a follower of Freud.
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. - C. G. Jung

Sleep and dreams are necessary for survival. According to the Vedas, during dreamless sleep a spiritual person may "reach the Brahma-loka", that is, transcend or merge with Supreme Brahman for a while or a little longer and in that state perceive things to come in the fabric of time, and further, their dreams may reveal facets of reality. (Hamilton-Parker 1999, introduction)

The author says that if you dream of being an invalid you may feel that something has robbed you of your ability or self-confidence, and so on. Dreams are seamed scenes for the individual, reflecting his or her state, conditions and much else.

Keeping a dream diary near your bed is a help to recall dreams. And learning Jungian methods of drawing impressive scenes from dreams and note the key elements it the diary, could help you toward getting to terms with recurrent dream themes you host.

From the Hebrew tradition

The Hebrew tradition is that one has to honour Yahweh, which means "I Am" (etc.) above all. If "heaven is within you" and God is in heaven, it suggests that the way to please one's self, or Atman, is not to get stupefied in front of works of art - various man-made gods and the like, but rather pay attention to many a dream.

Some scientists and artists see that dreams have held solutions they were looking for. "Let us learn to dream, gentlemen, and then we may perhaps find the truth," stated the Nobel laureate Kekulé, after a dream put him on the track to a solution he was searching for.

If you don't feel up to it yet, you could still benefit from sound dream theories or from learning how to go about interpret dreams. It may not interfere negatively with wise measures otherwise. The more violent the repeated dreams, the more urgent the message within them may be, or maybe not Interpreting the dreams you have, is largely individually based, although there are many common parts to count in too. Dream page: [Link]

Some Other Points

It generally helps to be on guard. Many animals learn it or die. Those who trust too much, have not learnt to ask for evidence or to believe as little as possible, but they are keen all the same, for they may be in for hard times because of their trust. [Kalama Sutta] Benefits can be had from sound scepticism and doubt well cultivated, but it is a hard school. [Believe well and doubt well if you can]

For example, do you doubt that the Vatican Council, which is the highest authority in the Catholic Church, exhorts all members to recognise, preserve and promote the good things in Hinduism and Buddhism? If you doubt it, ask for evidence. Here it is: [◦Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions. Nostra Aetate].

Trust is not to be looked down on, though, nor is rightful shares and roles in interactions either. But play it safe. Submitting much through trust may spell disasters to come. Trust, gullibility and credulity make beginners ensnared and victims of plots. The long-range results may include life lies to some.

Bizarre or frivolous claims against ponderous evidence have to be handled well before the propagators strut. A worst case scenario had better be taken into account before you commit.