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Jon Roland discusses an alternative method of education that would work better to both impart knowledge and skills, and to instill civic virtue. With Lela Pittinger. Austin Constitution Meetup 2010/01/25.
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by the way the system of Education that
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my grandfather used Al I don't think
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even he knew the name of
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it was a lancasterian monitorial
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system it was developed by a guy named
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Joseph Lancaster in England in
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1798 uh Lancaster was able as a single
0:22
School Master to teach a thousand
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kids um and the lancasterian schools
0:31
spread all across the world wow it was a
0:35
primary method of Education used in in
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in the the British
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colonies
0:45
um Lancaster caught a lot of criticism
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however as the alternative to his system
0:53
were Church based schools that taught
0:56
religion to members of their Church and
1:00
generally only for the upper class of
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people he caught criticism for two
1:05
reasons first of all in his monitorial
1:08
system they weren't teaching one
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sectarian view of
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religion he left the kids the Bible was
1:15
one of the reading materials but he
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could let the the kids could read it
1:20
from any Viewpoint they wanted to they
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did their own reading they weren't being
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dictated to by minister right and second
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of all he was teaching lower class
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kids it was open to anybody who had a
1:35
couple of shillings to pay for it and a
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desire to learn and a desire to
1:41
learn and that was considered very
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dangerous that you know we only want
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with Lord class people learning becoming
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educated then they could read the
1:50
legislation that has been put over their
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lives right now of course that was not
1:55
an objection in the United States and
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it's Republican virtues they what
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everybody want be educated but it was in
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England right so
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uh uh it flourished in many ways in the
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United States what became the United
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States more than in
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England um but then
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uh
2:18
uh a reformer Koss
2:24
man and uh he brought the the European
2:29
Le
2:31
system forse
2:34
man uh which would might have been
2:37
reasonably well suited for University
2:40
students but it was not suited for
2:41
younger people
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right uh it got some Traction in large
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part because of the success of valerian
2:52
system because when you have a system in
2:56
which everybody teaches and and
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everybody learns you produce a lot of
3:00
people who want to be teachers too many
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people in
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fact and the the horse man System
3:09
created more jobs for
3:12
teachers because when one guy can teach
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a thousand kids that's only creating a
3:18
job for one teacher right when
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uh a teacher is only teaching 30 kids at
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a
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time five a day that's creating more
3:31
jobs for teachers so Lancaster was a
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victim of his own success
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yes but there are still Lancaster
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lancasterian schools in the
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world it's still a method used in the
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military academies for
3:47
example is there's some Lancaster
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schools in England and in
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Mexico and what I did a few years ago is
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I formed the lancasterian society again
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revived it at after you know almost 200
4:02
years and I've been trying to get
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support for uh uh the method to be
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adopted and for lancasterian schools to
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be formed and is that on your
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Constitution website or is that a
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separate website no that's on the
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constitution.org it's a sub subsite I'm
4:18
planning eventually to spin it out of
4:20
the separate
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site on your list of things to do on my
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list of things to do wonderful uh before
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we came in I pointed out uh my problem
4:29
in in that
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regard uh like a lot of people I keep a
4:34
list of things to do mhm and of course
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it was getting to unwieldy because I
4:40
spending too much time maintaining my
4:41
list of things to do right so I decided
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Well what I really should do is to make
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a final comprehensive list and estimate
4:50
for each item how long it would take to
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do
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it so I did but I did this on a
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spreadsheet of course you know on a
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spreadsheet it's very easy not only list
5:00
things but to Total things right so when
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I got finished listing everything I
5:05
total out under at the end of it for all
5:09
the things that I wanted to
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do 26,000 years well and the trick about
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a spreadsheet is unlike a pad of paper
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there is no bottom there is no end you
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can continue there's more cells and more
5:24
cells every cell that you page down that
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can be the trick about spreadsheets
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Maybe you should have stuck with the
5:30
yellow pad well I still use a yellow
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pad I have whole boxes full of them
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going back decades wow but
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um there sort of my diary as it
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were anyway the
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um I figured after I came up with that
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number that I better delegate right and
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so if people wanted to help if they
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wanted to say John I think you have
5:56
great ideas how can I help what do I do
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how can I Whittle down some of these
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26,000 bazillion bajillion years of work
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you have left well I have a little list
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and it's on your website no well sort of
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it's very it's it's several lists on my
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website on my website there are plenty
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of things for plenty of people to
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do um I could easily put you know tens
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hundreds of thousands of people to work
6:29
in your lancasterian system yeah that
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well that
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alone you know but just all the other
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things that need to be done so if you're
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if you out there are watching this and
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you don't have enough to do
6:44
already uh I've got some ideas for you
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and if you're watching this and you have
6:50
plenty to do but you realize that all
6:53
the little side things you have may not
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be as effective at making change that
6:59
you know needs to happen in this nation
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then you need to call John because you
7:04
can definitely look back and say oh I
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probably watched too much TV or too many
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movies or probably read too many romance
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novels for all you people out there but
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you probably will never felt like you
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did too much to help your nation get
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back on the right
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track yeah also I think I have a pretty
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good track record for doing things that
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actually make a difference
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so you won't be wasting your time I I
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don't try to do too much or underrate
7:36
how much I can get done I have a uh I
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generally have a am pretty able to
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identify the little things you can do
7:47
that are within your means to make a big
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difference and a lasting
7:53
difference uh there's a fine art to that
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most people don't do it very well
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they make a lot of effort most of which
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doesn't pay
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off so what I try to do is figure out
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you know first of all I always make it a
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rule that I don't try
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to consider doing things and require
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other people to do
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things okay I just focus on what I can
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do with the resources under my
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command and everyone should do the same
8:29
when you get together in a group one of
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the first mistakes that a lot of groups
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do they St coming up with all these
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ideas for other people to
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do okay and it doesn't it never amounts
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to anything they should focus first make
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an inventory of their own
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resources you know what people do we
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have here how much time do we have how
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much money do we have what skills do we
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have and how can we make use of those
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resources that are under our control to
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make a difference now part of making a
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difference may be to get more of those
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things more people more skills more
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money and so forth but you always want
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to start with the resources that are
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under your
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control and build on that and if you do
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that then you have a chance to make a a
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big difference in the
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world so we've covered sociology and
9:27
making a difference and I'm realizing
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it's getting late and I my social Duty
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requires that I go home and share my
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love with my husband and share a meal is
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there anything we can say to wrap it up
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this evening well that's a good way to
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wrap it up so
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