Peter Reardon

Greetings: "It is very important that people take responsibility for their own lives and not simply accept authority in a way that reduces their own creativity and power." From: Healing Emotions: Conversations with the DALAI LAMA on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health. Edited: Daniel Goleman Peter

Greetings! More interesting perhaps would be for you to relate an experience from a past life .... Peter

Hi! I'm not clear on the role Learning Outside School (LOS) was/is meant to serve. Does LOS mean home schooling, education support in juvenile institutions, or something else that is institutional and non-conducive to learning? Perhaps LOS is more expansive and the concept might embrace the educator who doesn't fit neatly into the formal school system and who works with adult learners; these teachers(?) educators(?) facilitators(?) or ...? are sometimes just plain adult educators. It should be noted that while adult educators may be identified in industry wearing a suit and sporting a tie they would probably be called trainers. Whereas adult educators who are under contract with the military might not wear a suit but would wear a tie. However, the fashion statement of a tie is not recommended for educators in either male or female prisons. There is a distinguished history of educators in co-operative development, as in retail business: Rochdale; democracy with participation and even ownership. Co-operatives are not so fashionable now I find, although some readers may disagree strong enough to write and say why they believe that co-op ed. or any adult education programme is thriving. Local governance courses continue to be important in remote areas of some countries as does political education whether the educators are up their hips in snow in the arctic, or sweating their buns off under the African sun the short or longer term courses are offered. Home school, or adult education are of value. Learning Ouside School, or beyond school presents an opportunity to say why school works for some, often the relatively priviliged few, and why not (the) others. Peter.

David: Is the school mentioned in your bio. on Haverstock Hill, up the hill a little way from Chalk Farm tube? I tried two email messages from the Forum bio site but they bounced, hence this note. Regards, Peter.

My university training took place in Canada: Dip.Social Change [aka community development] Co-operative studies, business development, sociology, adult education... Coady International Institute of St, Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada BA. Goddard College, Vermont, USA. Teacher certification: Social Studies Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada Defended M.Ed. Adult Education and Curriculum Studies University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada From school in London, UK. I entered into a five year electrical apprenticeship programme speedily followed by an invitiation from a government official to serve two years of National Service in the armed forces. Trained in the Royal Signals and then volunteered for parachute training. I emigrated to Canada in January 1965. One of my early jobs was with Cree Indian people in the James Bay region of Quebec. This was my introduction to the world of marginalised people in North America and the daily influences of two major religions, the Hudson Bay company, and provincial government, in a very small island community. This experience was the catalyst for me wanting to acquire useful skills that could be adapted to the development need for social change of different communities. In 1968/69 I studied at The Coady Institute, and from there took my first Emergency Humanitarian Aid contract with a Non Goverment Organization (NGO) in the war zone of East Central State, Nigeria where, it was alleged oil revenues were benefiting foreign interests and not the local, Ibo, economy. Other humanitarian aid contracts in : Biafra (Nigeria); Bangladesh; Mozambique; Ethiopia; Bosnia; Thailand in two refugee camps. Teaching programmes in: Iran (evacuated during the revolution of 1979); Indonesia; Canada, including arctic region (North West Territories, and Nunuvut); England, Greater Manchester. Co-ordiantor of 12 month youth community programme in Canada & Malaysia Hired by aid agencies in: UK, Canada, Switzerland, United States, UNICEF. Peter.

An Alternative to Ritalin for Hyperactivity *'Hyperactivy is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Hyperactive children do not have enough norepinephrine, a neurotransmitter in the limbic system, the part of the brain that allows us to ignor unimportant events in our environment... These childrn are typically low in levels of calcium and magnesium. Drugs such as Ritalin, as we know, are meant to keep people quiet in schools and to warehouse them until they can be passed on to the next level of social services where yet more toxic chemical compounds will be prescribed. Sometimes a trigger to bad behaviour is poor nutrition. But the problem could be more complex than simply what a child had for breakfast, the most important meal of the day for a child. The first step is to solicit the help, or advice of a homeopathic doctor or visit a reputable Health Food Store for the nutititioanl supplements that can provide relief for the child, whether it is an emotional, nutritional, or physical condition. On line try: http://www.alive.com From the web site there is a access to a 34 issue set of Natural Healing Guides of which Hypertension is one title: Price per copy is US$9.95 My reference for the above information was: *Gursche, S and Rona, Z. (1997) 'Encyclopedia of Natural Healing:A Practical Self-Help Guide'. Alive Books, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. If I can be forward other information please e-mail Peter.

Self-esteem in a British school I'm hopeful that times have changed but my memories of school in London were of being slapped across the face by a a woman with a viscous temper, being bombarded with sarcasm by a math teacher for 2 years, having the cane used at least a couple of times a week with the admonition that when my name was entered into the book I will find it most difficult later in life to find a job. Well,I bacame a teacher. In the process I wrote a masters thesis on adult learners and their negative memories of school. My interest was to know if any adult with a less than happy past schooling felt inclined, or not, to attend courses as an adult student. Of the study group, thirteen (13) men and women about a third volunteered the information that not only did they not attend courses if they could help it but that the influence of violence in school perpetrated by the teaching staff "once they were in the classroom with the door shut" caused them such misery that as adults in the workplace they perceived their immediate supervisor in the same light as their past teachers and when asked to attend a meeting, or a one to one conversation they felt threatened and waited for the abuse that their teachers would dispense. Although children need to respect others they can't do it if the do not love themselves first; this is not an ego trip. The teacher might encourage three adjectives a week about how children in class feel about themselves. AND THEN ask children to write about other people. Teachers should be brave enoughto participate in the process too, unless their ego is too fragile of course. Peter

Cruelty and History: Relevance or Exaggeration The reality of barbaric cruelty in modern history is so often downplayed by the politcal personalities who were in some way instrumental in supporting violence. At the same time to reference leading supporters of violence in western politics is to be denounced as an extremist. Name calling being a common tactic to divert attention from a nasty social reality. Briefly my background in humanitarian aid has been in war zones in five or six locations from Bafria in 1969 to Bosnia in 1995. Let me take up the many comments that seemed like folk stories while I was in Bosnia. During 12 months in 2 contracts in village after remote village I would be told of the horrors of rape, torture, disfigurement from land-mines, homelessness of the refugees and the displaced, these were the everyday atrocities of violence on defencless women children and the elderly. There were the other horror, or folk stories. Muslim and Serb people told of activies by Croatian priests in World War II, there were allegedly families massacred because priests offered Nazi troops details of where they could find hidden Serb or Muslim families or individuals who, when found, would be summarily murdered. The Bosnian murders were, in part, revenge attacks on those individuals who were thought, or known to have been responsible for killings sixty years ago. I could not argue against these allegations of revenge, or past blame, in 1995 I didn't know, I was concerned with getting emergency support to the suffering without the so-called moral high ground of the conflict, that was a concern for the future, but I never forgot that stories told with emotion and in private. Forward to 2002 when I came across the book by: John Cornwall (1999) "Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII" Penguin Books, London. The Hollocaust is mentioned as an event deliberatly avoided by Vatican leaders. Silence and inaction was again the high level strategy employed in the Vatican when reports of atrocities by priests complicit in the slaughter of Yugoslavs at the hands of the Nazi troops. The subject of history in the context of fact does not find space in the curricula of young people. Nor are the activities of faceless foriegners reported who represent the shadowy influence of major impereal power seekers who continue to apply their destructive influence in country after country. Peter

Hi! I live in Victoria, British Columbia and have been in Canada since 1965 having defected from the UK, London. My early training in adult education was from community development and co-operative development. I have worked in the Canadan arctic with a co-op organization and in Africa with humanitarian organisations. In a couple of countries I used co-op volunteers from the underground co-operative system that was practically destroyed by war to move food and research medical needs of families unable to fend for themselves. A teaching contract in oil fields in Sumatra using my teachnical training as a former apprentice in London together with EFL curriculum was without was without any drama. On the other hand in Iran where I worked for an American US helicopter company to teach technical English to the Iranian Armed Forces the end of the contract was far form passive. That was in 1979 when the revolution took place and it wasn't useful being a foreigner in Iran just then and we were evacuated in a hurry. I entered the formal education system later in life as a social studies teacher but found that working to support adults was where I preferred to be and so returned to find contracts in both adult education and humanitarian support programmes providing food, medical and education goods and service to displaced people and refugees according to the local political mood. Now I am retired, and I'm working hard to expand co-operative thinking in my neighbourhood with a basic course for non-co-operative members "Introduction to Co-operative" to be given at the end of April if enough people show interest. I look forward to learning from this site in between checking out co-operative sites of interest and practicing Tsoaist t'ai chi. Peter