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August 2001 - June 2017

The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

If you want to write about your experiences in school, you can write on our blog.

To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. My contact details are here.

Please do not make a mirror copy of the forums in their current state - things will still change, and some people have requested to be able to edit or delete some of their personal info.


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Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course
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xcriteria Offline
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Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course

Join us for Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2)

"It’s not (just) a course, but a community for educators, designers, and researchers.

LCL2 will start on March 18 with six weeks of discussions and activities, followed by a few weeks to work on projects, leading to a creative-learning exhibition in May. There will be online sessions on Tuesdays from 1:00-2:00pm Boston time.

LCL2 will focus on key aspects of the Media Lab approach to learning: Projects, Peers, Passion, and Play. We invite you to apply these ideas to your own teaching and learning experiences. Together, we can reimagine and reinvent education."


However, the forums are already open: LCL2 forums -- I just posted an intro post referencing School Survival... I encourage others to do the same. This is an opportunity to let educators, MIT education researchers, and others to learn about how many people remain stuck in schools that are light-years away from the interest-based, passion-driven approaches these courses keep talking about.

Here's one of the sessions from the first iteration of LCL, a year ago, featuring Joi Ito, director of MIT's Media Lab (who also didn't learn well in school, and dropped out of college), and his sister Mimi Ito, who studies cultural anthropology and interest-based learning:



Watch on YouTube

There's a lot of good points in this video... what's missing is to tie them back around to the reality of people stuck in stifling learning environments, and have a credibility-backed discussion to help more parents and educators understand both the problems, and the reality that there are better ways to do education.

Who's in?

Peter Gray & allies launching the Alliance for Self-directed Education

ASDE Newsletters: #1 Announcement | #2 History of ASDE | #6 Education Liberation


School Survival & Catalyst Learning Network featured on AlternativestoSchool's blog
“Mom, Dad, can I stop going to school?”

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when the Stakes are High

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03-08-2014 07:13 AM
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xcriteria Offline
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RE: Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course

Has anyone checked this out? Thoughts?

I think this is a great opportunity to get our voices heard, and stories discussed. The forums are open ahead of the course starting, which means a chance to influence the conversation.

I can't do this alone... I've tried many times linking to School Survival threads in other places, but it's going to take you guys explaining your stories in your own words to really get people to engage.

This course is affiliated with MIT, it's completely open and free, and it's something you'll be able to show your parents and teachers.

If you're not interested, feedback on why
can help us address your concerns and/or find other ways to get much-needed conversations to occur. Smile

Peter Gray & allies launching the Alliance for Self-directed Education

ASDE Newsletters: #1 Announcement | #2 History of ASDE | #6 Education Liberation


School Survival & Catalyst Learning Network featured on AlternativestoSchool's blog
“Mom, Dad, can I stop going to school?”

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when the Stakes are High

Hidden stuff:
03-09-2014 11:52 AM
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craxyguy562 Offline
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RE: Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course

I did.

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Gwedin Wrote:  Dat feel when you get home, realise it's Friday, and itch your buttcrack.
03-11-2014 11:09 AM
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James Comey Away
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Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course

I want to check it out but right now I'm feeling tired....

RIP GWEDIN
RIP URITIYOGI
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RIP WES/THEWAKE
RIP USERNAME

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Stop jerking off to porn and whining and do something about it

Make School Survival Great Again - MSSGA

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03-11-2014 11:27 AM
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Trar Away
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Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course

I want to. I've got a lot to do on any given day, though. I've put it on the top of an education resource list I've compiled.

I'm sure it's great stuff, too.
03-14-2014 05:39 AM
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xcriteria Offline
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RE: Learning Creative Learning 2 (LCL2) - MIT open course

My suggestion is not to think of these edu-MOOCs as "classes" with lots of "great content," but instead as opportunities to connect with people, raise awareness of Cognitive Refugees, and gain allies who also care about changing things.

The world has a lot of people who I think are open to hearing about and sympathizing with the School Survival perspective on education, but they're having their conversations in their echo chambers, and School Survival is in many ways its own echo chamber.

It's hard to draw people into unfamiliar worlds. It's hard to get people to click on links into SS, let alone register, reply, and stick around. Likewise, it's hard to get those who are unhappy with school to jump into a pool of educators, however sympathetic they may be.

But this is how things will change... getting a critical mass of educators who realize there are active situations where people are stuck, churning in uncomfortable, unhelpful educational and life scenarios.

I don't know what the exact chain of events will be for change, but I think something needs to.

In this case, I also need to push myself into this course, engage, get to know people, and try to explain my perspective. It's not easy, given time constraints, internal resistance, and just uncertainty over what the outcome will be.

Whether it's in LCL2, or printing books, designing a web site, or building a game, there's the question of how to get others interested in the problem of the factory model, and life in a post-factory world. What content will capture people's attention, and how can reasonably large numbers of people be introduced to what we make?

Then, what will they do, beyond saying "that's interesting" and going back to their existing routine?

Will their eyes be opened to a new world, beyond what they've known before?

Will they contribute money, change how they do things in their lives, give different advice than they've done before?

And what will lead to that? What content, experiences, and moments of decision will lead to the change?

On that note... anyone who's following these thread might also be interested in a current G+ thread based on brainiac's recent post (link) -- we got to talking about games, possible books, and so on. How might some hybrid format make for a more interesting experience than MOOCs people are hesitant to sign up for?

In other words, if not LCL2, why not build our own open, interactive experience?

Peter Gray & allies launching the Alliance for Self-directed Education

ASDE Newsletters: #1 Announcement | #2 History of ASDE | #6 Education Liberation


School Survival & Catalyst Learning Network featured on AlternativestoSchool's blog
“Mom, Dad, can I stop going to school?”

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when the Stakes are High

Hidden stuff:
03-14-2014 08:06 AM
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