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Unschooling the Mind: An Introduction

Welcome to the first post of Unschooling the Mind series of posts. The notion of publishing a series of posts to share with you my experience in a world where education and schooling  has been lingering in my mind for a long time, but I was hindered by two main factors. The first is that my thinking and convictions, as with all people who reflect, are in a ceaseless development, so what I thought of last year and believed in might differ from what I believe now, as I gain more knowledge and endeavor to unravel truth. As Emerson once said, "Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today".  Therefore, this makes it hard for me to share one thing that I might contradict in a year. I soon, however, realized that such development of the intellect is natural, and all I can do is write what I believe now in "hard words", and reflect on what I believed back then. I hope such a clarification at the outset of this series would help you understand my stance if I should mend my convictions down the road. What you will read is the essence of my thinking at this moment in my life. The second, is of course my  life commitments. Work and family have taken the major sections of my daily life. You will later know how  and why I do my best to spend a substantial time with my family (my wife and two kids) because of my convictions. On the other hand, I work really hard  smart to help those who come within the compass of my work. You will later know how I have climbed the ladder of my professional life, and how my thinking about what I do and why I am doing it has been reshaped over and over. 

What Is Unschooling the Mind Exactly about? 

By immersing you in my life experiences (as a child, an adolescent, an educator, a father, and a husband), I will take you through a voyage that tries to answer the overarching question : What education for what world? and all the sub-questions that come with it. You might feel however at the first instance that the question is answerable and if there were any challenges in education, they can be addressed. The problem is, sadly,  too ingrained in us that we do not recognize it. The main culprit,the antagonist, is the mass schooling system that all/most of you and me are a product. 

In the process, I will also use facts, studies, and insights from experts/people that might give a second dimension to the discourse. I will use anecdotes from people I know as well as from people I heard about. I will also use findings from studies in education, cognitive neuroscience, and psychology. I will use insights from educators who knew the truth and tried to change but had little impact for reasons you will know later. 

You will also note that I will walk you through my life experiences chronologically,but will halt at points to offer some insights or commentary on things I feel are important to clarify. You will detect that the discussion become longer as I draw you near my later years, in particular the last 10 years or so, when I chose teaching as my profession. This is because first, reconstructing events from memory is really hard to do if one wants to shed light on all aspects of those events, and second my experiences as an educator are more crystallized in the concept of Unschooling the Mind than before. 

How Can I Follow the Posts as They Are Published?

If you are reading this on a pc you will see that you can subscribe to this blog updates via email. Or you can simply click this link to subscribe. You will also see all posts on Unschooling the Mind on the sidebar. I will also add a special page that aggregates all posts for you convenience. 
I will publish at least one post every week.
 You are  welcome to add your comments on every post. I would love to know what you think!!

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