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Informal Learning
Learning through life is a permanent necessity and an inseparable aspect of citizenship is a conclusion in Plato's Republic. In the 1920's two professors, Basil Yeaxlee and Ed Lindenman, echoed Plato when it came to education.
They stressed "a comprehensive understanding of education as a continuing aspect of everyday life". Along with John Dewey these academicians believed that education is lifelong and that the whole of it is based on what we continue to learn. All of life is learning and from that comes wisdom. It is a self-directedness, an awareness that our students will come to understand.
Curriculum should be based on a student's needs and interests and not be blinded by subjects from a textbook.
Anyone in our technological age can master the subjects taught in traditional school but to master life, the economic and social aspects of living with others, as well as the behaviors and rules, is the reason for KMRIA.
Reading and mathematics are but two examples of traditional education that all schools, public and private in grades K-12, must teach.
We can "individualize" instruction tailored to the students needs and desires but we must be developing a social individual capable of contributing to the community.
We need to connect what happens in schools to wider opportunities for learning. Edgar Faure in his 1970 report to UNESCO talked about the economic poverty that comes from our failure to dream and settling for the ideas of others. This always leaves someone behind: the "drop-out", who cannot escape life on the streets, inability to read and do math, the loneliness, and the poverty.
No one is left behind with KMRIA and individual needs are met.
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