Class starts in March and I should earn my Master’s in September/October.

About the “Sprout Means Grow Edition“
All of these works are available free (legally) on the Internet. I’ve simply compiled – in addition to the main book, An Underground History of American Education – the articles and lectures below. They are not public domain but are distributed without charge on the condition they stay that way. I simply combined them into one PDF adding some snazzy navigation and designing the cover (because I couldn’t find a copy of the actual cover at an appropriate resolution).

• A Curriculum Beyond Money
• Invitation to an Open Conspiracy: The Bartleby Project. An excerpt from Weapons of Mass Instruction.
• Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids and Why. Harper’s, Sep 2003.
• Institutional Schooling Must Be Destroyed. Excerpt from Five Hundred Ways to Make America Better (George Magazine and Villard/Random House)
• Personal Solutions, Family Solutions from Natural Life Magazine, Sep/Oct 1995
• A Short, Angry History of American Forced Schooling. Speech to the Vermont Homeschooling Conference.
• The Six Lesson Schoolteacher from the Fall 1991 issue of Whole Earth Review.
• The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix a System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought? from the Diablo Valley School website
• The Tyranny of Compulsory Schooling. A speech, written August 26, 2005 and delivered at the University of Texas in Austin and reprinted in The Sun.
• What really Matters from Natural Life Magazine, November/December, 1994
• Why Schools Don’t Educate. Acceptance speech for the New York City Teacher of the Year on January 31, 1990.

About Sprout: Why I Assembled These Works
My undergraduate education was, for the most part, a miserable fifteen or so years. Working full time at day jobs that paid more than full-time night jobs meant I couldn’t take most of the interesting classes which meant I wouldn’t have an interesting major. My bittersweet graduation concluded one of those “finish your degree in a year” night-school programs populated (mostly) by adults more interested in a degree than an education. You “apply” (as if schools like this ever reject anyone) and choose from a list of mind-numbingly boring majors the one which sucks the least.

One of them was Education. I did not choose Education – despite harboring a lifelong dream of teaching – because everything I knew about education programs was toxic and I didn’t think I could suffer through the classes long enough to survive.

I am a teaching junkie, however and found that by evolving from a reporter to a technical writer, I could feed the teaching monkey on my back. I soon discovered fellow geeks scored their teaching fixes writing tutorials on the Internet and I lived happily for some time as a trainer and e-learning developer. Eventually, this led to a company specializing in developing online learning for universities (real schools with real campuses) with blended and online programs. The benefits, for the most part, are at least average with one in particular that stands above the rest – 100% tuition assistance (and 50% for books & materials). No restrictions on courses of study and grad school is included.

I felt suffering through a Master’s in Education was possible if I didn’t have to pay for the pain.

Required reading for my very first class included The End of Education by Neil Postman. This was, much to my pleasant surprise, not the sort of material I expected to endure. An equally enthusiastic classmate and kindred soul – also reeling from surprise and excitement – highly recommended John Taylor Gatto and the rest is … well, read for yourself.

Grad school still isn’t all sunshine and dandelions, but my hopes and dreams are renewed.

Finally, I can say again – I want be a teacher when I grow up.

Download it.

I finally did some reading on dream interpretation of symbols, themes, objects, types of people, etc. and found,

“To dream that you are in school signifies feelings of inadequacy and childhood insecurities that have never been resolved. It may relate to anxieties about your performance and abilities … Alternatively, the dream represents the passage of time. You need to look toward the future instead of reliving the past.” – Dream Moods

They don’t even need to be naked. They can be in uniform – military or prep school – and it’s still beautiful to imagine. As a teenage boy, anyway. As a 41-year-old man it’s just … *ahem* amusing … if I were to even think about it. Which I don’t. And didn’t.

This album is all but impossible to obtain legally and just as difficult to find an “illegal” copy (if out-of-print albums count as “illegal”) online – believe it or not. I did find an interview he gave to some talentless college “DJ” in which he promised to send free stuff to anyone who sent him an email. The interview was several years old but I took a shot. Not only did this genius email me back but kept his word and sent as much stuff as he could cram into a padded envelope.

Apparently, it arrived weeks ago and my wife never told me. She frequently opens my mail (irritating) and puts it somewhere without letting me know it arrived (even more irritating). I’m not complaining – I’m really surprised she didn’t throw it in the trash considering it was filled with pictures of naked women and devils (sometimes having sex with each other as they do on the flyer for the Satanic/Tantric Valentine Massacre of Love gig in San Francisco). I once ordered a Koran and Islam study guide from freekoran.com and she threw it right in the garbage.

What is this album like? It’s like The Church of the Subgenius’ weekly Hour of Slack but with less organization and planning and yet like Frank Zappa but more accessible and daring.

On the other end of the musical spectrum is the alterna-folk Christian Music® masterpiece Journey to the Center of the Earth by Nicholas Giaconia. He’s famous for making this one amazing album and then disappearing from the face of the Earth. After years of searching, I found him and he sent me a copy of his follow-up album recorded under a different name (Mattie Groves).

Let the school know if you’d be willing to bid on or buy stuff!

Other auction ideas:

• “Renting” a summer camp cabin
• Staying in the Howe Mansion during Alumni Weekend (or some other time)
• Attending class for a day with a cadet tour guide to learn about the “new” school
• Typewriters from typing class
• ancient computers from 80′s computer science class
• Furnishings from the auditorium if it were ever remodeled
• Old chairs from dorm rooms
• Bunk beds from dorm rooms

Maybe the YouTube channel is the Howe Webcast …

And even on Picasa …

I don’t know anything about it yet – but as soon as I do, I’ll tell you more.

Open Letter to Howe: A podcast (or several) is a cheap and awesome way to replace the radio station!

http://twitter.com/thehoweschool

I am in my fourth grad school class toward a Masters in Education.

Someday.

jmiller@thehoweschool.org

The Howe Herald Online looks fantastic! I was happy enough that it existed at all but was really pleased with the new look.

The new website – which I’m still thrilled about – is chock full o’ news as well and … AND … you can comment on the stories which is totally awesome.

Pictures of the tennis team especially made me smile because you can easily see the bright, new tennis courts.

If, like me, you missed that online, multi-media Board of Trustees webcast meeting thing from last Alumni Weekend … it’s all on a free DVD you can get by sending Mr. Reed your address and asking for The Howe School Board of Trustees Open Forum. I wonder if it comes with special features? Like with Grass Roots concert footage?

mreed@thehoweschool.org

Oh! and there’s this:

http://twitter.com/thehoweschool