Entries in the 'Children' Category

“What Schools Are Not Teaching (And Should)” (Linkedin)


My new article on Linkedin “What Schools Are Not Teaching (And Should)”

Societies have failed their exams on education. From the beginning to the end through all the school years, our children are sentenced to tiring days confined within classroom walls. It is clear that today’s educational system is far from perfect, but can we afford to just wait for a miraculous change to happen? We need to start asking what the changes are that we would like to see. How should schools be designed so that our children will enjoy their time spent learning and they will actually learn things that enable them to realize their full potential as human beings?

Similar to the way many layers of various minerals were deposited to create the Grand Canyon, so children are treated at school. They are all assembled as a big block, filled layer by layer, like in a production line, without regarding how the place should be built to be adapted to the particular physiological and emotional needs of a child who is growing and developing. Unfortunately, any typical school is a place steeped with violence, ruthless competition and anger, where many students suffer from boycotts, bullying, and other serious phenomena. Nationwide, 42.1% of U.S. students ages 12-18 experienced bullying in the classroom according to federal statistics.

The variety of problems we see in society begin in schools. The contempt, condescension and bad relations so common on social networks, in the workplace, on the roads, as well as in the media, in politics, any and everywhere, are all side effects of what happens in schools. A person, a human being, a humane member of society, is not built there as is evident in the end result. We pay the price throughout life as individuals and as a society.

In order to design something completely different we need to start by drawing a picture of the life we would like our children to live in adulthood. In a world that is becoming more and more connected, the most important thing for success is to know how to build positive relations with others. A person who knows how to make mutual social connections and who could organize good connections between people around him or herself, such a person would succeed in anything and everything: in business, in the workplace, in relationships and in the family. Therefore, the main occupation of the schools should be to build a person with the ability to connect with each and every one.

How do we do that? About a third of school time should be devoted to methods such as circle discussions, conversations, workshops, contact exercises, friendly games, watching meaningful movies, theater simulations, role-playing games and all sorts of means aimed at developing a person’s ability to feel others and communicate well. The goal is to build a deep bond between the children, to make them feel like a cohesive group where everyone feels for everyone and supports each other.

The topics that should be studied in such a framework are from the field of human relationships and the psychology of social relationships between children and parents, boys and girls, etc., so that everyone will understand how others are constituted and see what they can take from it for fulfillment. It goes without saying that we will first need to prepare an infrastructure of teachers who will be experts in leading such processes and detailed curricula.

Another third of the time should be devoted to study tours, field trips, outside of school. The goal is to get to know life itself, the city, the country, the world; to see how different facilities work like banks, factories, courts, hospitals, high-tech companies, automobile repair shops, agricultural greenhouses or chip manufacturing laboratories. They need to see everything with their own eyes, understand how things work, talk to professionals who will explain the working methods, the technologies they use, the laws on which they are based.

Children should be prepared for each tour in advance and followed up with a summary where each child will present his or her impressions of the tour to their classmates, and everyone will absorb the impressions of everyone else. Such tours will inspire children to understand why it is necessary to learn about all sorts of professions that seemed unnecessary in the first place. Another beneficial option is arranging for the youth to be integrated in various workplaces each week so students will be able to find out which profession they are interested in. This will naturally increase their desire to learn and polish their abilities and skills.

The remaining third of the time should be devoted to imparting knowledge in all kinds of elementary subjects such as mathematics, English and science. Here, too, the learning must be conducted in a group format where everyone supports and helps each other to understand things. This would be really meaningful learning, not just a hollow slogan about education.

Thus, school will become an open and fun place, a university of life. And unlike the knowledge retained for a short period of time as currently happens, children will absorb information and experiences deep inside them, and most importantly: wherever they go later in life, they will want to build this kind of relationships around them.

Looking ahead, later in the 21st century the most sought-after profession will be experts in building social connections. Computers and robots will perform most jobs in the future, and what we will be left with is mainly to take care of developing integral relationships between people. This is how the human race will progress by adapting to the system of nature in which everything is connected and interdependent. In such a state of mutual cooperation our life and the life of the future generation will be the best it can be.
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Where Does The Motherland Begin?

766.7Homeland is where you feel good. (Folk wisdom)

If a person is corrected, then it coincides that the homeland is where you feel good. And if a person is not corrected, then he is mistaken in the definition of homeland, perhaps absolutely.

A corrected person is one for whom the goal of his life, his development, and the goal of the world are one and the same.

Question: What is that goal?

Answer: Goodness.

Question: What do you mean by this?

Answer: When everyone feels good.

Question: What simple definitions you give! Is it okay for everyone? Doing good to another?

Answer: Yes.

Question: What is to do good to another?

Answer: “Do not do to another what you do not want to be done to yourself.” This is the main rule.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 8/5/21

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New Life 1318 – Coping With Violent Communication In The Family

New Life 1318 – Coping With Violent Communication In The Family
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and Nitzah Mazoz

The education system needs to teach children how to behave in relationships. Children who grow up in families with violent communication will likely feel insecure and want to escape. They should withdraw from their violent family environments in order to succeed in building new, corrected patterns. They need positive examples to learn from. The first principle we should teach is the principle of equality. If someone relates to us with verbal violence, we reflect the same back to them, like a mirror image, so they will feel their need for correction. Behind the principle of equality, there is a desire to be built by each other, to build the right patterns for ourselves.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1318 – Coping With Violent Communication In The Family,” 9/12/21

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“What Are The Three Most Important Values We Should Teach Our Children?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: “What are the three most important values we should teach our children?“

We should give our children knowledge about the world’s structure, about the fact that the world is an integral system, how people are interconnected and interdependent, and with such understanding, how we should behave accordingly.

When we understand the extent of our integrality, we should aim our attitudes and behaviors at no less than loving and caring about other people as we love and care about ourselves.

Such interrelations are necessary in order for us to enter into harmony and balance with nature. Otherwise, if we fail to achieve balance with nature, if we remain detached with no perception and sensation of ourselves as a single system, then we will evoke suffering upon ourselves.

Also, on the other side of the same coin, to the extent that we achieve harmony and balance with nature—a global and balanced unification with nature—we will achieve a safe, peaceful and harmonious life on a different spiritual, eternal and perfect level. It is because doing so elevates us from the animate physical level of existence, which we now feel, to the level of spiritual existence, which we will feel as soon as we start ascending from the level of negative egoistic connections to the level of positive altruistic connections.

Based on a Q&A with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on September 9, 2006. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

Generation Z will Lead Us To The Creator

963.1Comment: Generation Z are those born after 1997.

Some say that they are brave and independent. Their heroes are not astronauts, scientists, but stars and bloggers. They were born with a phone in their hands, they learn about the world in a split second.

Their clip-thinking allows them to “read” a person from photos and videos in a couple of seconds and determine whether it is worth communicating with him further.

My Response: That is correct. What else is there to poke around in a person? It is only possible at this point in time to find out whether he is useful for me or not.

Comment: That is, they are total egoists.

My Response: Pragmatic, simple, and straightforward.

Question: Secondly there is an absence of barriers in communication. They easily get to know the stars, they can write to Elon Musk, whomever they want. The Internet gave them the opportunity not to be afraid of anyone at all, not to be ashamed. So, is such behavior good?

Answer: Of course it is good. Why should I grovel in front of anyone? How is he better than me? What is he? Are they some majestic people, some special stars, scientists?

Comment: But we have always had some element of respect for certain people. Some famous professor, Nobel laureate, or Olympic champion. And these individuals can easily communicate with anyone.

My Response: Everyone is equal. We have already gone through this. There is nothing special about any person.

Question: What do I value a person for, so that I still freeze a little with respect to them?

Answer: Only according to his benefit for society, his practical benefit for society. Nothing else.

Where will you find such people? That is a question. This is where such a clip-consciousness is needed, good perception and assessment, sorting and result.

Question: And then I will respect this person?

Answer: It will be absolutely clear to you why you respect him. And others will agree with you.

Comment: Another characteristic is the absence of complexes. They accept themselves as they are, erase blockages, settings, frameworks within themselves.

My Response: Of course. And what is in a person, what is there that did not come from nature? And what is there in others? Where are their personal traits? Therefore, there is no basis for justification, accusation, or shame.

Comment: That is, you support the notion that a person should have no complexes: “This is who I am! This is the way I am!”

My Response: Of course. If we do not have these complexes, we will be able to figure out what is in us and what we really need to fix.

Comment: You said: “Because it comes from nature,” so it is not mine, like anything else.

My Response: Of course! And they understand all that. This is the basis of the framework that is not me. “Go to the craftsman who made me” if you have any claims on me.

Comment: That is, if I have complaints against myself, I say: “The Creator did it to me,” and that’s it. And I am talking to Him.

My Response: Yes. But you see, this is calculated based on the fact that people think that way, that they will embrace each other and thus relate to each other. That is, then I will see in the other the result of the Creator’s work on him.

Question: Will I will always have the view through the Creator at another individual? And for myself too: through the Creator at me?

Answer: Yes, it is the Creator who does everything. This is the next stage of Generation Z.

Comment: But should I know something about the Creator?

My Response: No. I see the results of His actions.

Comment: One last thing: self-importance; there are no more self-confident young people than zoomers. It is difficult to influence them with ideologies, they are independent, and they feel their value.

My Response: In general, this is true. Why should I respect or despise someone for anything? I just have to appreciate people for their potential, for the fact that they can grow. Even if today I do not see it.

Question: And the fact that there is my self-importance, what good is there?

Answer: That I have the opportunity to grow, one that will be respected by society.

Question: But you are talking specifically about spiritual growth?

Answer: No, actually, not about the spiritual.

Question: So something that will be respected by society? If I grow up doing something for society, is that my growth?

Answer: That is enough!

Question: More and more?

Answer: Yes.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 5/31/21

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“Why Homeschooling Is Booming” (Linkedin)


My new article on Linkedin “Why Homeschooling Is Booming”

Homeschooling has been on the rise in the US and all over the West for several decades now, but the years 2020-2021 brought with them a leap in the number of homeschooled children. As of March 2021, nearly 5 million K-12 children were learning at home, twice as many as in 2019, and almost 9 percent of school-age children in the US. In light of the dismal state of the education system, it is not surprising. If we want children to be happy when they go to school, we must revamp the entire paradigm of education.

An essay titled “Homeschooling: The Research,” published on July 01, 2021, proves that the phenomenon is not exclusive to a particular faith, race, ethnicity, income level, or even level of schooling. According to the essay, “A demographically wide variety of people homeschool – these are atheists, Christians, and Mormons; conservatives, libertarians, and liberals; low-, middle-, and high-income families; black, Hispanic, and white; parents with Ph.D.s, GEDs, and no high-school diplomas.”

Homeschooling has been gaining popularity not because people are so keen on teaching their children by themselves. Its expansion is first and foremost a testimony to the collapse of the existing paradigm. It is not surprising. If you force an education system that was designed during the Industrial Revolution, and whose initial goal was to teach basic literacy and how to operate a lathe, it is a recipe for disaster.

What’s more, the education system does not really educate. It provides some knowledge, but it does nothing in terms of cultivating children’s social skills and human relations. School children of all ages are easy targets to bullying, drug and substance abuse, violence and sexual predation at a place where they should be protected and cared for—at school. In such an atmosphere, they are unable to learn properly, and develop survival skills rather than educational skills. Many of their emotional problems stem not from the domestic environments or from their own personalities, but from the stressful and intimidating atmosphere they are subjected to at school.

For many parents, such stress on their children is unacceptable, and they are opting to relinquish part of their income and take their children’s education into their own hands. As the research shows, despite their lack of teaching experience, the results of their efforts exceed those of the system that was meant to be professional and superior to parents teaching their children.

When children feel imprisoned at school, they cannot flourish. At home, where they feel free, they can do much better even with less professional assistance.

Nevertheless, I do not believe that homeschooling is the ideal educational method. Children need to be among peers of their age group. Also, not all parents are suitable teachers, just as not all people are suitable for any expertise. People who excel in educating, and who are naturally disposed to it, should engage in it. However, the system must be one that caters to the needs of the children and not one that forces them into templates created centuries ago, and which do not fit how they think, feel, perceive the world, or match their aspirations.

In the absence of a system that provides minimal educational requisites and human relation skills, homeschooling is the lesser of two evils. However, as I said, it is not the right way to bring up children in the future.

Rearing children should be done in small groups, with boys and girls apart, as coed settings are certainly the cause of many problems. Additionally, there should be more connection between schools and parents, more discussions about what the children want, need, and where they are learning. Subsequently, children should learn according to their preferred course of learning, the one that suits them.

There is a saying in Hebrew: “Teach the child according to the child’s way.” It means that because each child has unique attributes and qualities, each child should learn according to those characteristics. In this way, children grow up feeling satisfied and fulfilled.

Last, but certainly not least, is the issue of social learning. Since we spend much of our time communicating with others, and since we learn from one another all the time, schools should dedicate much of the time and educational programs to teaching human relation skills. In order to become productive and confident adults, children must learn how to communicate positively and productively with one another. This will help them at work, at home, with their own children when they become parents, and wherever they communicate with people.
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“Look Beyond The Screens” (Linkedin)


My new article on Linkedin “Look Beyond the Screens”

The necessity to switch to virtual learning turned out to be a formidable challenge. The majority of teachers feel that teaching virtually is inefficient and harms both children and educators due to difficulties in communication and lack of physical contact. But is it really all that bad? When children are with each other, they’re in the screens. When they are alone, they’re still in the screens. Instead of speaking on the phone, they speak and chat at the same time through apps on their mobile phones and laptops. Are they really disconnected or do we simply not understand their connections?

I think it is we, dinosaurs, who are uncommunicative because we’re stuck in our old ways and can’t adapt to using virtual communication. Youngsters, on the other hand, use mobile phones and laptops as if they are parts of their own body. If we knew how to use the platforms they use, we wouldn’t think that they are uncommunicative or disconnected, but that they do it differently from us. We would realize that it is we, dinosaurs, who are the misfits.

It is true that many youngsters suffer from depression and other emotional issues. However, it is not because they don’t want to connect or that they can’t connect. It is because we are imposing on them a system of communication that is suitable for us but not for them. When they can’t handle it, we “diagnose” them as having ADHD and other dysfunctions. But it is mostly because we can’t offer them the platforms where they are happy to communicate and do it easily and gladly.

Instead of making them do things the way we think they should, we should tap into the means they are already using and teach them where they already like to be—the virtual realm. Just as there are plenty of online games for fun, and plenty of online courses and tutorials that are fun to learn, there can be plenty of educational programs that teach K12 children everything they need to know, and in a way they like to learn.

Additionally, since they already communicate via the internet, why not keep it that way and find more engaging ways to get them involved? The fact that Zoom was available when schools were forced to shift to virtual learning doesn’t mean that this should be the platform to be used going forward. Children know how to create personal relations and how to convey true feelings through virtual connections. Now educators need to learn how to convey knowledge, support, and guidance through the same channels.

Reality won’t reverse course; it moves only forward. We will all have to adapt; the only question is at what cost to our children. The faster we grow out of our obsolete habits and look beyond the screens at the young hearts pumping behind them, the happier our kids will be.

New Life 1317 – Educating For Global Awareness

New Life 1317 – Educating For Global Awareness
Dr. Michael Laitman in conversation with Oren Levi and NitzahMazoz

Children need to be encouraged to not harm anyone and that, if we preserve our environment and the integrality of nature, we will gain from it. We need to tell children the extent to which we are infinitely connected to nature and emphasize the unity between the forces of nature. We educate them by giving examples and then explaining.

We should first ruin as little as possible and then see how we can better our environment. We avoid doing unnecessary things and, by the mere fact that we don’t destroy anything, we already start building. Examining and determining my attitude to everything that happens in advance, from every angle, before we act, is what we need to learn from life.
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From KabTV’s “New Life 1317 – Educating For Global Awareness,” 8/29/21

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The Judicial System Needs To Be Destroyed

294.2

The Meaning of Ubuntu: “In certain regions of South Africa, when someone does something wrong, he/she is taken to the center of the village and for two days he/she is surrounded by his tribe, while they speak of all the good he/she has done. They believe that each person is good yet sometimes we make mistakes, which is really a cry for help. They unite in this ritual to encourage the person to reconnect with his true nature. The belief is that unity and affirmation have more power to change behavior than does shame and punishment. This is known as Ubuntu – humanity towards others.”

Question: How do you like this method of education?

Answer: This is a very powerful method. Imagine sitting for two days and listening to good things about yourself, knowing that they all know about what you did. It would be better if they beat you!

A man eats himself: “How could I do this?! This was their opinion of me! And what is their opinion of me now knowing what I have done?!” This is a double punishment.

Question: And why does humanity not adopt this? A practical primitive tribe, close to nature…

Answer: The primitive tribes were much higher than we are and they remain so.

They understand how a person can be encouraged and put in a good place, how to make him a normal member of society, and put him back in the right state. This is the only way, education by social influence.

Question: Why not adopt it? Give it a try.

Answer: We do not have such societies. Our society is purely egoistic; it is aimed only at censure, at suppression, even to the point of murder. Therefore, we cannot have such a thing.

Question: And how will the society of the future cope with this?

Answer: The society of the future is after correction! Of course, it will already have a different effect on people. But only through love, through the right communication, the right influence. To take a person inside yourself, to warm him inside, so that he feels the good influence of society.

Question: Are you talking about a criminal who has committed a crime?

Answer: Yes. And then he will feel what he can lose, and understand how others think well of him and want to place him among themselves, bail him out, and so on.

Question: But I don’t think well of him, do I? I hate him, is he a criminal?

Answer: No, then it will not work.

Comment: We are talking about a serious step for humanity. We should arrange expeditions there, to this society.

My Response: We won’t understand! Today’s society is not able to correctly perceive such an attitude of people to one another.

Question: What, then, is the future of our judicial system?

Answer: Our judicial system can take the only right step; it is to bury itself. I say this absolutely clearly, calmly, and steadily. This is not a judicial system. There is nothing worse in our society than judges and everything they have done.

Question: So they have ruined their own destinies, and the destinies of other people?

Answer: Absolutely everything!

Question: How can humanity get out of this?

Answer: Only by the correction that we are talking about. Put judges through the training and correction system, so that they do not think that if they have some book in their hands that was written by all sorts of clever people, then this book is infallible, and if they adhere to it, they can judge everyone.

Question: By what law should the corrected judges work?

Answer: The Torah is at the heart of the trial, the charter, and the legal provisions. And so we need to take it in its true form, try to understand it and start following it. Otherwise, nothing will work.

Question: When you say “Torah,” everyone pictures the book of Torah. What do you mean when you say the Torah is the basis?

Answer: Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the main law. And everything else comes from that.

Question: So this principle should be at the forefront of all of law for everyone?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Is it possible?

Answer: We will have to do it anyway. Only when? This is already a problem.

Question: And when, what do you think?

Answer: When we can understand what judges should be like. And we will not agree with the view that they represent today.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 3/8/21

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Education According To Leo Tolstoy

566.01

“The fame of Tolstoy the novelist has to some extent obscured his writings on education, which were based on first-hand experience. Tolstoy’s ideas on education caused considerable controversy, which continues to rage to this day. …

“Tolstoy, at the age of 21, having opened a school on his ancestral estate at Yasnaya Polyana, made an attempt to begin teaching peasant children.

“Reading Tolstoy’s educational writings, one has an almost physical perception of a living child, presented not in a frozen photographic pose but in the manifestation and development of its individual characteristics, the unfolding of its personality and in mental states which fluctuate in accordance with the many and varied influences to which he or she is subject. …

“Tolstoy said that a child is by nature a perfect and innocent creature whose free development should not be hindered.” (“Leo Tolstoy,” Semion Filippovitch Yegorov, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education)

My Response: I do not agree. What is Individuality? Egoistic. It must be shaped correctly. Give the little person an appropriate form—altruistic. And leave the inner content.

Question: Does the little man have a personality?

Answer: Yes. We need to show him how to realize his individuality. To channel the talents given to him toward altruism.

Question: What is altruism for you when you speak about a small child?

Answer: When I do everything for the benefit of humanity. For the benefit of others.

“Leo Tolstoy,” Semion Filippovitch Yegorov: “The children were punished neither for their behaviour nor for poor progress. The requirement that the personality of pupils should be treated with respect presupposed that, without punishment or coercion on the part of the adults, they would move towards a recognition of the need to submit to the order on which success at school depended.”

My Response: As for the unlearned lessons, this does not interest me. And as for punishment is forbidden, if a person does not know the reward and punishment, then he will not correct himself, he will not straighten up.

He must see himself existing between reward and punishment. Nature was created in such a way and in such a way it controls us on the still, vegetative, and animate levels. And it should be so at the human level.

When I do not work for myself and act not for myself but for the sake of others, then I should receive a certain reward, which will first encourage me egoistically, and on the other hand, it will have to instill a desire in me to correct myself even beyond my comprehension.

Question: So you set this goal: life for the sake of others and work for the sake of others above everything?

Answer: For sure. And then from his actions, he will begin to understand that this is really the goal designed by nature, and so on.

Question: If this little man realizes that he is not moving toward this goal, then some kind of punishment should come?

Answer: He should at least feel that he is not encouraged.

“Writings on Education,” Introduction To Tolstoy’s Writings by Ernest J Simmons: “Tolstoy believed that all education should be free and voluntary. He supported the desire of the masses for education, but he denied that the government or any other authority had the right to force it upon them. The logic of things, and his study of the operation of compulsory education abroad, convinced him that in this form it was an evil. Pupils should come to learn of their own accord, for if education were a good, it would be found as necessary as the air they breathed. If people were antagonistic, then the will of the people should become the guiding factor. Tolstoy’s faith in the ‘will of the people,’ even though the people might oppose commonly accepted notions of progress, contained the seeds of his later anarchism, and was a direct slap at radical reformers who would uplift the masses against their will.”

My Response: In general, they should be encouraged to do this. But it is quite possible that there is a certain necessary knowledge that you just need to teach even by force.

After all, we consist of two levels, animate and human. What is required for the animate level to fulfill the correct existence in our world, we must teach by force.

Drive the necessary basic rules of behavior and communication skills into the new generation.

Question: Simple human communication in order not to offend another person, not to humiliate him? Are you hinting that this is the same thing and that it leads to connection?

Answer: Yes, of course to connection.

Question: You are not talking about nuclear science?

Answer: No, it doesn’t matter. This does not apply to upbringing.

“Leo Tolstoy,” Semion Filippovitch Yegorov: “In Tolstoy’s view, freedom in education was a gnoseological and moral principle that had to be put into practice; it was the antithesis of authoritarian teaching, and essential for a humane attitude to the pupil and respect for his or her dignity as a human being. Freedom in education was a principle that stemmed from the internal laws of cognitive activity. Cognition could not be other than free. In the absence of that condition, activity, initiative, consistency, system and all the other tenets of traditional, classical education were of no use, lacking meaning and purpose. The more firmly education was based on that law, the more successful and fruitful it was. Knowledge that had been assimilated could not simply be transmitted and could certainly not be thrust on pupils if they did not want it. Pupils had to apply their own efforts and engage in independent cognitive activity. This they could do best of all by not being forced by a teacher but guided by their own free will.”

Answer: This, of course, he dreamed up.

Fostering independence is necessary after a person realizes that he is obliged to exist together with others. Then it is already possible to continue thinking about giving them the makings of intelligent development.

Question: When he espoused not forcing children to obey strict rules,  do you disagree? In England, for example, it is different.

Answer: No, why? It depends on the level. Egoism must understand its limitations.

A child must understand that in these, these, and these cases I am in restriction and cannot afford to do what I want. Because I exist in society and I am obliged to comply with such and such rules, guidelines. This is a must.

Comment: Another principle of Tolstoy’s education pedagogy is to allow dissatisfaction. such that students can express their point of view and even criticize teachers.

My Response: I think this is absolutely wrong. Nowhere, in any system except the modern one, if you can call it a system, is there such a provision and it never has been in the entire history of mankind.

Question: Would you allow this kind of democracy?

Answer: This is not democracy. Democracy is when the opinion of the majority is really evaluated, brought into the system, and used by everyone because the possibly deeper layer of governance is in the awareness of the masses. But this is not the kind of democracy that we are talking about here.

“Leo Tolstoy,” Semion Filippovitch Yegorov: “Leo Tolstoy and the teachers at his school encouraged the pupils’ independence, developed their creative abilities and succeeded in getting the children to assimilate knowledge consciously and actively. With this aim in view, they frequently set compositions, particularly on topics of the pupil’s own choice which the children liked very much. In this, Tolstoy’s school saw one way of cultivating a creative personality, able subsequently to establish new forms of social relationship worthy of a civilized person.”

My Response: It depends on what technique we take. Will it be something that he invents and writes about or what we say in Kabbalah: teach according to the clear method of Kabbalah in order to come faster to creating a real person out of himself and to understanding of the entire system in which we exist, and so on.

Question: Does a clear-cut method already exist and should we follow it? Must a person follow this higher method?

Answer: He is required to do so. We have suffered enough already! Look back at our history and that is it! What is there to talk about?!

Comment: Another principle attributed to Tolstoy’s education system it to make your teaching clear. Instead of pure scientific terminology present the children with impressions.

My Response: It is possible that this should be done. You just need to understand how to tune yourself and them to one common feeling so that it is as if we were playing the same instrument together.

Comment: And another element is to live a good life yourself because children understand the world through the behavior of their parents and loved ones.

My Response: Show children by your own example how correct it is when one is constantly improving himself.

Question: And for the children to see it?

Answer: Yes, that is very important.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 10/8/20

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