"...simply teaching to utilitarian objectives, using environmentally sterile outcome based educational approaches (also lacking a heart and a clear humanistic direction) tend to increase the incidence of teacher burnout.  Children and youth notice little things like a teacher who, in the vernacular and vulgar, 'does not give a damn'...Teaching, being an intensely and overly prescribed social transaction (as Vygotsky and Paulo Freire described our profession), is more sensitive to the quality of people than to stand-alone ideas or a straight jacketed curriculum.   Case in point, both Christian and Islamic fundamentalist-irrational views are taught by passionate and 'caring' teachers who obviously succeed in creating new generations of haters.  Devils and gods can teach any curricula with equal persuasive impact...  A liberal arts education, on the other hand, with a curriculum that correctly identifies the formative elements that give rise to healthy normative psychology, one that transcends the local cultural selfish needs in the greater service of the harmonious integration of  human activity in synch with natural processes, should be the pedagogical target."

Excerpt 2:  Addressing the selfish needs of teachers, imposed curricula, school directors, and parents to educate perfectly behaved and compliant "drones"...

"...Curricula that is not flexible or open to the reflection and criticisms of teachers and learners is bad curricula.  The imposition of a pre-packaged, static, dumb down or restrictive curricula that did (does) not receive the creative input of the teacher-implementer, creates a learning situation where both the teacher and the learner are neither, and both are equally passive dialectical agents.   That is, as passive and uncreative teachers and learners, they share only partial consciousness. If so, how can partial consciousness remedy the foes of this world or challenge the status quo when this status quo demands automatic compliance to social conventions that are themselves rooted in partial consciousness?"

Excerpt 3:  Examples of discourse when administrators, un-willing teachers, or politicians dictate policies or make self-serving decisions...that is, lacking rational and child-centered arguments they choose rhetoric rather than dialectics, and intrigue rather than genuine collaboration...So in addition to not addressing serious questions and problems (and remaining silent for long periods of time) they present themselves as "above the fray" in order to imbue a false sense of dignity to their office, self, or post, or focus on banal things...

"...I refuse to get into polemics with you about this"
"...I think you are being too emotional, too serious about this issue, Ms. Malcontent-visonary"
"...we all have to give and take (but usually it is they or their favorite teacher who do all the 'taking')
"...you are not being a 'team player' "
"...sometimes the needs of children have to be sacrificed in order to insure institutional well-being" (A similar argument: "...sometimes little things like 'Freedom,' 'The Right to Privacy,' or 'Civil Liberties' have to be sacrificed in order to insure national stability and security")
"...the curriculum is the curriculum and that is that!  Little Julia has to conform to all this testing"
"...let's meet in my office, alone, and have a heart-to-heart conversation"
"...creativity has nothing to do with real life, Math scores do!"
"...creativity has nothing to do with real life, S-p-e-lli-gng good does!"
"...there is only enough money for boy's football, the girls will have to play with balloons and fake, paper tennis rackets"
"...we have to consider the needs of our community (code phrase for pleasing 'X' or 'Y' politician or corporate donor), that is why I am installing a soda-pop machine for our children"
"...let's all go to the bar and have a few Margaritas and everything will be better"
"...Mrs. secretary, scratch Teacher 'Malcontent-visonary's' comments off the minutes"
"...influence is mightier than the truth"
"...I think you need to wear a little more make-up and dress better ;)"
"...Do you know how much bicycle racks cost!?"
"...install a shower for teachers and students who want to run during their lunch, outrageous!"
"...no child in this school will grow potatoes in a school/community garden for as long as I am the..."
"...pass the punch...let's dance!"
"...what global climate warming issue?"

Excerpt 4:  About "Child Centered Education" (Equivalent or Related phrases: Learner Centered Education, Developmentally Relevant Education, Teaching For Diverse Cognitive-Cultural-Emotional-SocioEconomic Styles)...

"...If an educator cannot put himself/herself in the child's developmental, cultural, emotional and intellectual situation, and teach and love from that space, then they have no business in education.  Surely, and by definition, they are neither modern educators nor Montessorians.  It is a form of false advertisement "to sell" a school as such if these principles are not believed in and practiced wholeheartedly."

"...The child comes first." ("Child centered education".)  Lacking the professional training (modern pedagogy and child development), the personal commitment, or the patience to exercise this maxim, day-to-day, any other institutional changes will only be "surface" deep or merely cosmetic, "Team Building" included."

Excerpt 5:  From Whence The Authority Comes...

"...we are all valuable and equal contributors of an agreed upon pedagogical program that we adhere to child centered principles.  A school's hierarchy begins and ends with the student and her needs."

"...Teachers who consider themselves "cultural workers" do not belong to "teams".  Rather, they choose to work in schools that, like themselves, work for children, the betterment of societies, and for the future of our planet.  If we are on that team, we don't have to play bridge or drink Margaritas in order to be effective and excited about what we do each day.   The latter are examples of bonding with all the wrong things."

"...teachers as cultural workers do not submit to ineffectual authority nor teach children to be submissive of inadequate psychologies or bad social policies.  Teachers as cultural workers first protect children/youth from dysfunctional forces and then empower them to challenge and heal these tendencies."

"...Education should not follow corporate/political-ideological organizational models or aims because their aims and procedures are seldom the same.  Corporations sell products, whereas schools are entrusted with helping to shape nobility and increase knowledge, understanding in individuals so they can challenge, for example, the very idea of 'corporations'.  Corporations often adhere to an economical "bottom line" that is detrimental to humanistic, spiritual, or environmentalist ideals.  Schools and learning are not products .  A human being is not a product.  Education, by definition, has been a vehicle for social dissent and critique when societies have failed to live up to the highest human ideals.  Teachers do not belong to corporate "teams".

Excerpt 6:  Main Points and Recommendations For Establishing an Environmental/Liberal Arts, Normative Psychological Educational Setting

by Cynthia Conesa-Brunold*
*Adapted from MEIPN Teacher training materials ©

* COMMUNICATE FACTUALLY...(rumors kill...the spirit)
   Discourage/penalize ineffective, defensive, defective, deficient, not factual, and unproductive modes of discourse

* BE CIVIL AND PROFESSIONAL...(be yourself, be assertive, but in a civil way)
   Discourage/penalize unprofessional and/or not civil interpersonal communication and exchanges

* KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN...(train and re-train--lifelong learning)
  Agree on clear, contemporary, scientific-based, Child Centered pedagogical and psychological guidelines

* APPLY WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN...(despite all obstacles)
   Consistently implement (enforce/reinforce) Child Centered pedagogical and psychological guidelines

* TEACH IN THE 21ST CENTURY...(against antiquated and obsolete/absolutist "preformationism")
   It is not clear that Child Centered pedagogy is practiced by all educators/administrators/staff consistently

* TEACH IN THE 21ST CENTURY...(against antiquated and obsolete/absolutist "preformationism")
   It is not clear that all educators/administrators/staff/parent share a commitment to Child Centered pedagogy

* GOOD FENCES MAKE FOR GOOD NEIGHBORS...(ALL adhere to the same rules, ALL rules can be revised according to credible data)
Meeting minutes should be taken.  Meeting minutes should be given back to all participants with the opportunity to modify statements.  This practice reduces hearsay, gossip, and characterizations that attempt, unduly, to put a person in an undesirable light.   Robert's Rules of Order or similar meeting protocols should be studied and used.

* ACT FROM JOY AND FAIRNESS, NOT FROM GUILT OR FROM INTRIGUE...(Nothing equals the empowering of education)
   Administration should be proactive with a clear and humane developmental vision that is Child Centered

* BE FACTUAL, BE FAIR, CONSIDER THE CHILDREN...(If you don't belong in credible, modern education, get out!)
Administration should aim to examine real, root causes for challenges and problems and determine credible courses of action and correction based on developmentally sound and empirically confirmable facts, not personal reasons.  For example, to the extent that alcoholism is suspected and then confirmed, the teacher/staff/administrator should be removed from supervisory duties regardless of their present or past contributions...consider the children first...(Useful link about signs of alcohol abuse affecting responsible/civil/professional behavior in the workplace...LINK)

All school personnel are equally responsible for the welfare of children and for adhering by (extending/exporting) Child Centered pedagogy and psychology outside the confines of the physical school.  Adjunct, docent, and volunteered help must adhere by these principles.  The mantra to be repeated, over and over, is the following:

IT IS NOT MY SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT THE DIRECTOR'S SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT THE VICE PRINCIPAL'S SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT OUR SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT THE COUNTY'S SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT THE STATE'S SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT THE COUNTRY'S SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT THE PARENTS' SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT PHILIP MORRIS' OR AUTODESK'S SCHOOL, 'TIS THE CHILDREN'S
IT IS NOT...,THEY ARE AT THE CENTER, ALWAYS!