I heard a news story on the radio that I want to share with you. I will be paraphrasing. The main statement was this, "Watching television before the age of two years old has a negative impact on the brains of children, a disruption of learning pathways. This impact manifests as the inability to focus attention, interference with comprehension, and contributes to behavior problems which are often labeled as Attention Deficit Syndrome."

How many of today's adults were plopped in front of the television as a way to keep them quietly entertained? How many more children have been subjected to this electronic babysitter?

That any of us have a brain left at all after decades of watching the tube is a testament to the resilience of the human brain.

When I work with my adult students the complaint I hear most often is that their brain hurts. This in response to the requirement that they concentrate on a new language skill. Any new task requiring the brain to open new pathways causes headaches in these students.

In light of the radio news story, it makes perfect sense.

Whilst I sympathise with the concerns raised in the article, I am surprised at the objection of some commenters to the notion of reading "The Tempest" via a discussion of colonialism.

Indeed, Columbus had "discovered" (the very use of the word itself raising more questions than it answers) the "New World" (ditto) a hundred years before, but ships were sailing through the Caribbean and discovering all sorts of things that were new to European eyes. Shipwrecks were very real AND very scary, and it would be tempting to think that magical forces would be able to rescue one in such a situation. So "The Tempest" could quite easily have passed for a type of "magical realism", in that theatre audiences could be led to believe that such places, creatures, and events did really exist.

One of the results of the constrictive curricula is that while we are fed increasingly large amounts of "knowledge" we do not increase the amount of wisdom which will enable us to use the knowledge.

We have seen the development of more deadly weapons, and yet we do not have the wisdom which will render them unnecessary.
We have more and more consumer goods (in the rich countries, and yet we lack the wisdom to see that most of the goods are not necessities.

The lack of critical thinking has resulted in us being led by leaders who have no vision.

The thing is that you cant 'teach a child to think', you have to 'ask them to think'.

Schools only ask our children to memorise answers that they say are right for the tests. Asking questions is not encouraged as you dont need any more information than what they give you for the test! It stifles students and they dont use their brains and if you dont use it, you loose it.

Shorbe, my daugher is in a Selective High school in Year 10 and she said that the teacher asked whether anybody knew the role of the Ombudsman and my daughter said she was the only one who put her hand up to answer and who knew who he meant and the role of the Ombudsman. She was also the only one who knew who her local member was, who the Mayor was etc., and there wasn't too many who really understood anything about the different Ministers, let alone their names.

Its really is quite frightening how disconnected our youth are with the environment, society and their life.