Then all change – daddy wanted to give me the best perceived in society to give me any advantage he could… so St Paul’s it was and I resisted and rejected so hard.

Only in retrospect can I appreciate both him and the school. At the time I felt imprisoned and manipulated
and utterly shocked by competition having learned about collaboration and co-operation from my parents and Africans alike. ..Oh and the missionaries were cool too. Really kind – I took this all as the norm.

All my close knit group of friends went to Oxford and Cambridge and I escaped early and made it to art school. The rift grew. They were analytical and always comparing one thing with another (the intellectual way of being competitive).

The thing that strikes me most having read your blog and the scores of fantastic comments, is that I naturally found competition abhorrent and frightening having missed out on the government’s early programming. The first exam I ever took was the entrance exam which was a novelty. After that exams were a yearly nightmare that the others accepted so I tried to – except my best friend who rebelled and creatively free-formed her A level exam papers. She escaped earlier than I did by being expelled for disgracing the school with the examining bods.

A lot of the comments are very perceptive – we don’t notice our programming at the time. We are so keen to be part of something (and why not?) that we tend to copy others willy nilly and do what they do to be accepted. Even rebels copy other rebels.

Leandro Herrero says we are hardly Homo Sapiens – rather Homo Imitatus. I believe Lynne has picked up on a pivotal point of change – which WILL save the planet and fast – competition has caused the bloodshed and pollution – not religions, not politics – not even the ridiculous incompetent bankers. All of them are innocent. It’s competition after all that is the beating heart of tragedy.

The Romans started it – copied it from Atilla the hun probably and that idiot Alexander the Great (yeah right) look where it’s got us now.

I think this is a very important piece of observation and beautifully written. thanks again

Jackie Mackay

John Gatto shows us that Ivy League schools do not produce the most successful graduates, some of the world’s richest entrepreneurs are high school drop outs and Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie didn’t finish elementary school. An education matters desperately, but spending a fortune on college fees will not get you one.

Filled with examples of people who have escaped the trap of compulsory schooling, Weapons of Mass Instruction shows us realization of personal potential is not possible within the system of compulsory schooling. That requires a different way of growing up and learning, one Gatto calls “open source learning.” In chapters such as “A Letter to Kristina, my Granddaughter”; “Fat Stanley”; and “Walkabout:London”, Gatto gives us a window into a different reality.

Why is it that you talk about children competing as a bad thing, and at the same time wants to have your children in the “best” school. Don’ you see that your choice is keeping the system going?

Competing will only stop when we chose to stop teaching it by doing it.

We need a new model of educating. Real education is not memorization. It is the process of being taught knowledge and then, experiencing that knowledge. My daughter learned math and algebra from cooking and making things. Our children need hands-on education. They need real experience. Our kids grow up into teens and do not know how to take care of themselves. They don’t know how to make things or fix things. The only fulfillment in their lives is to be better than someone else, hence, competition. Isn’t competition just a sneaky way to get the attention of kids who might rather be doing something else? When little children play together, the first thing they think of is not having a race, but building a fort together and carving roads in the dirt!

Children need apprenticeships by age thirteen doing something real, gaining skills, solving problems, and learning to trust themselves.

One more item. It is also documented that “schooling” was planned as a way to make factory workers for the industrial era and to control the population. With a little investigation, one finds that the curriculum has been “dumbed down”, and today, it is worse than ever. Text books, especially math and algebra, are intentionally made to be confusing and convoluted so the student feels dumb and cannot figure things out without the teacher. The teachers can’t figure it out either without the teacher’s manual.

First, be aware of what’s going on, and let’s start new models of education for our children.

Thanks to you, Lynn, for your great work and important books!

Sometimes, I “feel” evidence that the concept of our universal “oneness” is something that people are generally moving towards, and that encourages me. Then, learning of experiences such as yours, re the UK school structure, and the parental attitudes, make me wonder if we remain in an essentially unevolved, almost barbaric mode.

Possibly my periodic feelings of optimism about our “spiritual” development, in general, are largely delusional.

Or to contemplate the phenomenon from a perspective, similar to those”parents”, possibly mankind falls into two categories, which will cause some to feel smug in the belief that they are superior:

1. The spritual evolvers;
2. The spiritually blind.

If we suscribe to the idea of “oneness”, are we destined to evolve, or to stagger along on a semi-barbaric path, with only temporary flashes of enlightenment?

I have found Americans are brought up to tell it like it is, but Ive learned to water my true thoughts and words down as they are often perceived as aggressive or lacking empathy.

Though this can be very frustrating…my straight language is intended to provide concise communication, not intimidate or put someone off.

Americans are taught from conception that we are the greatest country in the world, and it’s only after you leave the country for any period of time that you realize this assumption comes at a price; the alienation of the rest of the planet.

We need to meet in the middle!

If someone wants to know if you have a second house in the country, they should just ask. If they want to know where you intend to send your daughter to college, then they should simply inquire.

The rolling eyses and side glances are the fruit of envy or jealousy, so maybe you’re better off without that circle of aquaintances?

If you believe in the power of intention and the ability for your thoughts and words to have an impact on your experience of the world, than stop worrying about offensive people and start focusing on what you want!