A british program compares early childhood education in Sweden to similar programs in the UK. Watch all the segments here.

I have been rehearsing over the past couple of weeks for a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's musical "The Mikado" which I've been cast in. I was given the leading role, when I actually only intended to join in the tech crew. ;-) It is a fascinating part for me to muse about. There are many ways in which this story touches my heart.

One thing that's always fascinating to me in these kinds of situations, is to muse about the social interplay between the director and the cast and also specifically the director and myself. I love studying any kind of teacher. It's really enriching for me.

This afternoon my mind was brushing over how I choose to approach the project. It's kind of a feast and famine approach. I focus very hard during certain days, and other days I won't even pick up the script. This is a personal ethic of mine. I find it very important to reserve time for other important pursuits of mine during times when I am under obligation to learn something or other - like a part in a play... or when I'm doing something else that's creative in nature. These things aren't linear endeavors, and because of that, and because I'm a perfectionist, I tend to get all too wrapped up in something, to where it hurts me, even though I end really excelling with the task. I focused very hard on the script and the score initially... I learned all of my parts, and wrote out all the solfege for the notes... so I made certain to get the intervals properly. Then I went through all the speaking lines, and transcribed all of my lines into my own private phonetic language.. so I could think about the phonetics of the speech as much as the meaning. But then, I saw that I was way ahead of my colleagues - the other actresses and actors. And so I decided to relax and refocus my efforts onto another project (a computer program that I want to sell at some point, and which is taking forever to put together).

And so, I was relaxed and didn't even study hard for what the director called "the evaluation" - and I didn't do particularly well on that day with the higher notes of my main song which introduces my character - Nanki Pooh. I was, however, on par with the rest of the cast. But what I had done that afternoon before the evaluation rehearsal was to make a personal breakthrough when it comes to singing out loudly on the higher notes - the F's and G's and A's which Gilbert and Sullivan were so kind to write into my part ;-). And that personal breakthrough meant that I was comfortable with where I was now that we are a quarter of the way through our rehearsals.

By now, in the middle of this following week, I have gotten a lot better with that one important song of mine... and I've timed that extra study of mine on the music to coincide with the day we're actually doing the blocking (deigning character actions and motions on stage) for the songs.

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And I am very happy with this personal ethic of mine, that I don't try to impress my teacher. But rather, I make the personal progress I need to in respect to what I need to learn. I was an A student as a child. And in highschool this need to always be perfect really wore on my nerves. It doesn't give an adolescent time for other important things in life - like friends and personal social maturation.

I think that the way grading systems are set up for kids in the West is not a good system. It really presupposes an innate talent or lack thereof with a field, and tries to rate kids based on this static quality that folks imagine that they have. Ideally, an evaluation should be the time when the teacher sees where his kids need help with certain areas. And this means that the most talented kid in the class should feel free to get a C and a D, and even an F, now and then. That's how a kid should ask for help.

But as our schools are set up today... each low mark is a permament indention into the final grade that a youth will get in that course. There's no forgiveness... and there's no accounting for that personal curve of a kid's learning.

The nations that the usa looks to which have more rigorous academic programs - like Japan - have problems with youth who will even sometimes commit suicide because so much seems to ride on their grades. So certainly more academic rigour is not the way forward for usa school. I don't believe that. We could look at New Zealand and get some good ideas for how to design schools better. I haven't even had an opportunity to study how things are done their yet; but from little I've seen, I am very impressed with how kids grow both academically, and in respect to social things. One thing I notice is that they all wear uniforms; and I think this would be a good idea. It would lead to kids taking their role as students more seriously.

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For related food for thought, here is an interview (mp3) with a tenured professor at a Canadian school who recently became a thorn in the administration's side about the grading system, and was then sacked.

Even when combing the internet daily, I rarely come across an insight spoken or written by a thinker which really prods me and makes me think. Most people who write are parroting some mainstream opinion or sentiment, and you can read the first sentence of a paragraph and already you know what the rest of the paragraph - or even the page - says. It's delightful to find this kind of insight. I often find them in the social commentary essays by "Paul Graham." And last night, I was taken by the words of a man by the name of "Derek Walcott"

Last night I was listening to radio new zealand over the net - and they were broadcasting a BBC program called "World Book Club." I got started about halfway through an extended interview with Derek Walcott.

One question was about something he had written in a book of his called "Omeros." He had said, "It is a crime to leave a man's hands empty." And the person asked him to explain what he had meant.

The scope of this man's reasoning astounded me. This was his (somewhat rambling) response:

In the slave ship they don't have any tools - obviously - so a sculptor (a carver) gets up and he has nothing to do with his hands; that's a penalty; that's a crime - a punishment, because there's an instinct to shape things in every human being. If you deprive the sculptor (the carver) of that instinct then he's technically dead, spirtitually dead. So that crime is a huge one in terms of removing the possibility of tools from an artist - which would make for instance the presence of a poem itself unrealizable. I couldn't write that line if I didn't have a pen. If the pen were taken from me, the thought would not be possible. And that is the punishment we're talking about. But of course, cultures do that. Entire cultures deprive people of expression - so you can't sing your native songs; you can't speak your native language. Consequently you can't write .... Now remember we know that black people can make slaves out of white people just as easily as white people can make slaves out of black people, it has happened - ok? So to deprive a race of utterance is the biggest crime you can do. Right? I mean that's why wars are fought.

So what he's saying is that he looks as it as one of the worst crimes against humanity to forbid people to have the tools they need to fulfill their own personal aspirations. And he goes further to say that this is one of the main causes of war around the globe - if outsiders or governments subjugate people to where they cannot become what they are according to their nature - the people will rebel and raise up arms. It's a fascinating perspective... and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Another interesting thing I noted was that, in his judgement, to punish someone is a criminal act. He put those two words together as synonyms for eachother. I recognize this is true as well. And this premise of his shows that he's a very wise man, in my opinion.

• You can listen to the entire interview (until the BBC takes it down) here (mp3 audio file).

Google wants to use some of its money to put a few really innovative ideas into motion which will change the world for the better. So they solicited for people to submit their best ideas along these lines for a contest. Now that the entry deadline is passed, I thought I might share with you readers my submission to the google 10 to the 100th project.

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Briefly describe your idea

short Philosophy/entrepreneurship vocational school

medium Found a new kind of college/vocational school which caters to gifted students and puts an emphasis on philosophy and entrepreneurship.

long The field of philosophy in previous centuries encompassed all of intellectualism. In this first decade of the 21st century, all of its teachings have been relegated to one department at colleges and universities. And what people call "philosophy" today, is primarily a study of this ancient literature which these intellectuals of other eras wrote. I believe that this turn of events would break the heart of those ancient philosophers if they were around to see it. I would like to see a new form of community or vocational college instituted which would draw gifted young people - those who like to think independently and critically about things, those who look at the patterns of the world around them and seek to put the puzzles together themselves. I think that one could invite philosophy, art, music, and hi-tech professors from other colleges to become the entire teaching staff of this college. This college would take the montesorri ethic of primary schooling up a few notches to the college level. This college would teach entrepreneurial skills, such as how to start your own small internet business; it would teach web design, graphic design, and computer programming. It would teach public speaking skills. It would teach visual art, performance art, and music. All the avenues of communicating and seeking to employ new fresh, and exciting creative ideas would be explored by the curriculum. When young people graduated from this college, they would have the skills to know how to network socially to find others to work with and to find people to help fund their projects. They would have all the skills they need to start their own internet-based business without any capital, and pull in a reasonable income for themselves.

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What problem are you trying to address?

The problem I see, is that gifted and intellectually oriented young people in the usa today are not well served by the typical college/university curriculum. To tell a person who has a passion for thinking critically and independently about things to sit down and absorb all the current models from a certain intellectual field, both correct and incorrect ones, and then regurgitate them in a multiple choice test is something such a young person balks at. History tells us of many innovative folks who were either home schooled or dropped out of formal education early on. Examples of such folks:

Thomas Edison

Henry Ford

Michael Faraday

George Washington

Walt Whitman

Wilbur Wright & Orville Wright

Walt Disney

Abraham Lincoln

Norman Rockwell

Andrew Carnegie

Christopher Columbus

Benjamin Franklin

I think the reason for this, is that traditional education techniques are not usually well suited to innovative thinkers.

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Who would benefit?

Everyone would benefit. If you nurture and take care of gifted young people, more of them will come to fruition in their lives. They won't be stuck working seasonal jobs in order to reserve time for themselves to write and think. They won't become socially inept, in the way that many geniuses are known to be, today. They won't live their lives in poverty. They won't be handing out all their ideas over through their blogs/internet discussions for others to do, who actually have the resources - people who do not understand the ideas, and who end up implementing the notions poorly. If one takes care of this gifted segment of young people... then those people's ideas and insights will be given wings to go out and help the world, in much the same way as this 10¹ºº project is doing. Basically, I'm asking you to expand your project exponentially.

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What initial steps would be done to set up the project?

• Gather funding
• Purchase or rent classroom space
• Send out a bulletin about this agenda to colleges across north america, asking for interested teachers and professors to submit resumes
• Have the philosophically-minded folks who respond to this invitation draw up a charter, and sketch out a vision for the school's mission
• Design a curriculum, considering (1) all the different types of students who would be interested in attending this kind of college. What would each group seek to get out of the experience, by the time they are finished at the school? and (2) the various skill sets of those who have been hired to work at the school.
• Explore ways of finding grant moneys and other financial-aid for students.
• Publicize this school broadly, and also specifically inform those in the private sector who would be interested in netting the students for employment once they are done with the program.

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What would be the optimal outcome?

The optimal outcome would be that a school would be founded - first as a vocational institution... but eventually it would gain accreditation to give out standard Associate degrees. Like the Montesorri ethic of teaching children, this vision itself would catch on and become popular - and would spawn many other new colleges around the world which would have this same ethic and vision of catering to this specific set of gifted young people in a similar manner. The students from the program, after they graduate, would form organizations which allow them to draw on each other's skills, and work on projects together. They would each go on to live up to their own aspirations. Some would go on to traditional four year universities.

There is a wonderful resource called reddit.com which has filled a need in my internet routines. Naturally, we will always have google - which allows a "pull internet;" Google is great if you have in mind exactly what you want to find. But it's nice to also have services which offer a "push internet" - where you can just go and find whatever is coming your way that day - and read up on hundreds of fascinating topics that you wouldn't have known about before. Reddit is just this sort of a service. And while the front page will often be full of crass jokes and absurdities and misguided passions - if you look through the list of smaller link sharing groups there, you can find some gems. This is a current list of my favorite groups there.

Africa
AnimalRights
Art
Attenborough
Buddhism
Design
FineArt
Freethought
Frugal
Green
IntellectualReddit
Intellectualmaterial
Kucinich
MacleansMagazine
MensRights
Parenting
PhilosophyCorner
Quebec
Shortfilms
Survival
WorldHistory
artistic
bicycling
blackculture
canada
culture
energy
gnu
greenfatigue
history
india
language
lifehacks
lifestyle
mises
musicians
painting
parsoc
philosophy
photography
science
science2
smart
snobs
taoism
tedtalks
transit
travel
writing

• the essay

One person's take on the differences between these kinds of students.

Ken Robinson talks about the notion that schools and parents often do a very poor job of finding people's inborn talents. His thrust is that schools were designed at the onset of the industrial revolution, in order to train people in the skills that were most in need at the factories. So that means that mathematics and the sciences are considered the most important, and art is considered the least important - especially the performing arts. One allusion he uses is the idea that the way education is set up today, it "strip mines" children's minds for the things which the society wants most out of them.