The Dangerous Child: Curricula Part II

In modern government education, students are meant to be receptacles of a consensual wisdom. They are meant to accept and conform to the consensual wisdom du jour, as communicated by designers of government school curricula.

Many children are destroyed by this approach, falling by the wayside without having achieved the correct credentials for a modern pigeon-holed success. Of those who "succeed" in government education, very few will have anything uniquely significant to contribute to the shaping of a better world or better society. The uniqueness and creativity of almost all those who pass through the system will have been processed out and disposed of.

Children who are too creative, who think "outside of the box," who ask too many questions that are difficult for factory trained teachers to answer -- these are very dangerous children. It is best for the system if they would simply drop out . . . .

More of the John David Garcia early childhood curriculum:

		Physical		Biological
Avg. Level	Avg. Age	Physical Theory	Physical Practice	Biological Theory	Biological Practice
4.00	6.00	The concept of the wheel; smelting metal from ore; making a simple calendar from astronomical observations; counting and use of Arabic numbers to 1,000 for calendar making, time-keeping, and other uses	Making a potter's wheel and using it; making an advanced bellows driven by a pedaled wheel to heat a charcoal, earth, and clay oven; making a spinning wheel, a sundial, a simple loom	Advanced gardening; the making of cloth from plant and animal fiber; advanced care and management of sheep and goats; gourmet cooking with spices and herbs using ovens; making more advanced permanent shelters of wood and stone	Spinning fiber; simple weaving of cloth with no loom; wheat and corn cultivation; making bread with & without yeast; breeding sheep and goats with seasons; training dogs; constructing small stone and wood huts
4.25	6.25	More advanced metallurgy; the saw and how to use it; how to cast bronze tools, nails, the chisel, and metal hammer; advanced use of wheels; simple arithmetic; adding and subtraction with Arabic numbers; simple geometry	Construction of wheeled push carts; construct bronze tools and show how inferior they are to steel tools; use steel tools in all construction; use pick and shovel and push cart to build small irrigation system and buildings; show how arithmetic and simple geometry help construct these projects	Group design of large irrigated garden, suitable for self-sufficiency of 16 persons; advanced looms and weaving; advanced animal husbandry and selective breeding of sheep and goats; care of chickens and cattle	Construct and plant garden; advanced cooking and preserving of food; fermentation to produce alcohol, distillation of alcohol with copper still
4.50	6.50	Advanced bronze-based metallurgy and smelting of other similar metals; identify related ores and other rocks; simple glass technology; building an oxcart from wood, leather, and bronze; simple multiplication with Arabic numbers; more simple geometry, right triangles, and the circle; advanced calendar-making & time-keeping; how to make a simple boat with sail and oars	Smelt and cast advanced bronzes and similar metals; make and cast glass sheets; make mirrors of metal and glass; build an oxcart; show how arithmetic and geometry are useful; use detailed astronomical observations to make a better calendar, and show how arithmetic and geometry help; build a small sailing and rowing boat	Show how to use a simple plow and fertilizer to prepare land; show how to make fertilizer from minerals and organic substances; show how to cross-pollinate and hybridize plants and trees; show how to use advanced fermentation techniques to produce wine and alcohol; discuss effects of alcohol as preservative and drug; storage and preservation of grain	Advanced agriculture and gardening projects; make fertilizers, crossbreed and hybridize plants; grow grain and grapes; ferment to alcohol, distill alcohol, use alcohol as a fuel and preservative, use as disinfectant; cultivation of yeasts, and advanced baking
4.75	6.75	More advanced arithmetic and geometry, division of numbers, simple fractions; creation of more advanced sailing craft, the ideas behind a horse-drawn war chariot, the compound bow with metal-tipped arrows, how to construct the two-person war chariot and its relationship to the oxcart; the Babylonian abacus theory	Show how arithmetic and geometry contribute to following technologies built by groups; build a more advanced sailing craft; build a war chariot using steel, wood, and leather; show how much more difficult it was with only bronze; build compound bow with bronze-tipped arrows; practice with bow until expert, and practice with war chariot	Domestication and use of the horse as a biological machine, special care and breeding required by horse, horse behavior and anatomy, equipment for controlling horse and how to make it	Horse training and use for farming and pulling chariots, speed comparisons, training horse for chariots and bareback riding

		Psychosocial		Integration
Avg. Level	Avg. Age	Psychosocial Theory	Pyschosocial Practice	Integrative Theory	Integrative Practice
4.00	6.00	Reading stories in personal terms about the possible prehistory of the Sumerian people; vocabulary development and the practical use of grammar	Write stories of fiction and personal activity using only alphabet; show how convenient it is to know when a sentence starts and ends, and how punctuation prevents misunderstanding	The ethics of larger groups; how it is possible for several octets to cooperate if they have common rules and objectives; how ancient civilizations were slave-based and ruled by priestly bureaucracies	Students construct rules and goals of cooperative behavior in order to build large-scale projects, buildings, irrigation systems to benefit hundreds of persons
4.25	6.25	Realistic but fictionalized history of the founding of Sumer and how Sumerians created their culture up to the time of the invention of writing; show how the religion and its ritual became overwhelmingly important, and how by controlling food the priests controlled people, warriors, and kings	Write stories of fiction and personal activity; write essays on behavioral ethics; use proper punctuation for clarity of ideas and teach correct punctuation for students; have students ethically analyze in writing the history of Sumer and show what might be wrong	The ethics of individual rights; show that taking rights away from individuals for a larger group damages the group it is supposed to help; show how creativity is important to progress and how liberty is important for creativity	Students study Sumerian art and try to express their own feeling about Sumer in ceramic figurines similar to the Sumerians; stone sculpture project; reproduction of Sumerian relics and artifacts
4.50	6.50	Read a simple non-fictional history of Sumer, show their writing and accounting systems and note their defects; show how clay as prime resource led to cuneiform; endurance of clay records; read full accounts of Sumerian myths, including Garden of Eden; Gilgamesh, and Noah	Write an analysis of Sumerians' history and their collapse; write an analysis of their myths and what they mean; write your own myths to communicate the same ideas as the Sumerian myths; write a creative story of your own choosing	Ethical analysis of the rise and fall of Sumer, the ethical nature of the conquerors of Sumer, their strengths and weaknesses, the weakness of theocracy and hereditary aristocracy, why these entropic systems went on for so long	Creative synthesis; high Sumerian art compared to art of conquerors; artistic group project to communicate the rise and fall of Sumer through music, painting, sculpture, and dance
4.75	6.75	Read a simple world history of the Ecumene from the fall of Sumer to 600 BC; show how little progress and creativity there was until then; show how Aryans spread Sumerian civilization to the entire old world and possibly to the Americas; read literary examples of each major culture	Write an ethical analysis of each major culture and why they could not significantly improve on Sumerian civilization; write an analysis and interpretation of their literary works; write your own story to express what you feel about this period of history	An ethical analysis of the Sumerian religion and those that followed; show how ethical vitality in primitive cultures can lead to conquest of more advanced civilizations; show how religions that seek reward for ethical behavior are destructive; show how it was necessary to invent morality	The art forms of Babylon, Egypt, Crete, pre-Confucianist China, and India; make your own version of these art styles; improvise music on the instruments of these times; do a group art project on this period of history

Source__John David Garcia

The main thrust of Garcia's curriculum is the instilling of both creativity and ethics. There is a great deal of practical, didactic, and theoretical substance as well. But the thrust of the program is the training of children who can think and do for themselves within a careful ethical framework.

Of course, the ethical framework that Garcia taught is not the same ethical framework that is dominant in the government school systems, in higher academia, in popular culture, in the mainstream media, or in society in general.

As a result of its uniqueness, one would not expect children who are trained with the Garcia approach to adopt the helpless, irresponsible, lifelong adolescent posture of so many who graduate from the government system. These children would be different. And they would be dangerous to the dominant powers of the established thoughtways.