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So much of modern education feels hurried and harried.
Many
parents feel very concerned if their six-year-old or nine-year-old isn't far
ahead of the so-called grade level curve.
The social observer Alfred Jay Nock
wrote:
"With
the closing of the frontier in 1890 and the subsequent centralization of
economic control, the opportunities for individual initiative rapidly dwindled.
"The stratification of our society into a small owning and exploiting class and
a property-less laboring class became more clearly apparent than ever before,
and this gave rise to a sense that time was pressing.
"It was borne in upon our
public that if a person wished to get on in the world, he had to hurry up about
it.
"Not only were his chances of getting into the owning class becoming few and
small, but his prospective hold upon even a middle class position was becoming
most uncertain; and on the other hand, the likelihood of his sinking into the
exploited and property-less laboring class was increasing at an alarming rate.
"He had no time for more than a vocational training."
In short, the drive of many parents to get their kids ahead
as quickly as possible, and the almost wild fear that a child might get behind,
is at least partially rooted in the class battle which many people feel in
modern society.
This drive often leads to much unhappiness, and frequently
even fails to deliver truly excellent education.
A leadership approach
disregards the anxieties of getting ahead and instead helps each young person
get a great education personally geared to his or her personal goals and potential.
~Oliver DeMille, TJEd.org
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