Education Revolution and the

Power of Catalyst

Did you know that after World War II it was discovered that if the British had added a couple grams of different metals to their bombs they could have increased their power tenfold? Ten fold!! That's like having ten times as many bombs from using less effort that it would have taken to make one bomb? Well that's the power of a catalyst. It's like a golden key or a cheat code in a game that opens a the doorway that were previously closed. (Okay so after extensive research to try to find a link to this info online, I've given up. I originally saw it I believe in a Ripley's Believe It or Not section in the Evening News so I'm sure of it. Therefore for my first prize, $50 TT to the first person who can find a verifiable Internet Source for this info)

I've been looking for a golden key myself, one that might create a domino effect that reveals other golden keys and propel Trinidad and Tobago to a more enviable position in the world.

I think the big key might be education or rather a specific change in education that might create the waves of geniuses that we know kids can become. I've read many an article saying how amazing kids can be and how a six year old asks 50 questions a day compared to a college student who asks maybe 12 a week for example. It's not to say that college students are so smart that they don't have to ask as many questions as a six year old though, its that they've been trained by our entire system that asking questions is bad and not worthwhile it keeps the class back apparently.

I've had the opportunity to been in classes for many years and tutor and teach in a number of instances and I know that children and people will nod their heads in agreement and remain silent whenever you ask "Any questions" knowing full well they have no clue what you are talking about.

Real understanding and learning is probably stifled more than it is fostered in a modern class room.

Most of the people and kids don't want to be there and take the first opportunity to leave early or cut classes.
Adults just want the piece of paper they hope will give them a better job and a better life.
It is very difficult almost impossible to manage the different rates of learning of students.
Everyone of us know that the system is a failure but we keep trudging along because its the only thing we know.

I think I've found the solution that can take us there.

Obviously the question isn't about throwing more money at the situation.
More teachers can help but isn't the curriculum part of the problem too?
What if we could get a teacher for every child? That would help but is it really feasible?

I believe Mr. Art Robinson has found the solution. He has raised and home schooled six significantly above average intelligence children with minimal effort on his part and his efforts are to a degree similar to my own upbringing in significant respects but first his story.

Mr. Robinson is a well-known chemistry scientist who worked for many years with double Nobel prize winner Linus Pauling. Funny enough my research of him began with an attempt on my part to discredit a theory my mother had shown me in the newspaper from Linus Pauling which was that mega high doses of vitamin C are healthy. In my research I found out that Art Robinson had beaten me to the punch and many years ago his research for Dr. Pauling had already disproved that theory.

In reading the same article about Robinson I read how after his wife died he had raised his six children alone and not only had they prospered but without so much as the barest minimum of tutoring they were achieving phenomenal results. I read about the books that he espoused in their education and about how effective they were in improving the academic scores of schools across America and I realised that I had found it, the key I've been looking for. The only question is now is how to convince other people and schools to use it.

The situation reminds me of how Japan recovered in spades after WWII. They embraced a philosophy that America had discarded, the work of Richard Demming and it took them and thrust them in many ways ahead of America. The test is to see if we can do the same :|

Art's method of education actually overlapped with mine though not as much as I would have liked but I think where it did has helped me be what I am today. My mother is a teacher but she didn't sit with us regularly helping us with any form of school work. Actually I'm being generous so she won't be upset with me if she reads this. My mom's method of help actually "scared" my sister and I into trying to find out things on our own. Any requests to my mother for help always seemed to take more effort in explaining the request several times, giving the context, breaking down a word into its various parts etc, etc far more trouble than just going to a dictionary or reading something over. The gifts my mom and extended family gave me was not allowing me to run wild like I wanted to and giving me a library card from at least 9 yrs old. Piano lessons helped even though I couldn't complete them properly.

The only real claim to fame I have academically before University and aside from what I hold as bogus A'level scores (B,B,C,C) is what Mr. Robinson uses for his children, a SAT score. Mine was 1390 in '94 or '95 which put me in the top 10% of college bound American seniors.

My point is that Art Robinson's method has worked with all six of his children, it has worked with me to the degree that I see it and it will work across Trinidad in an unprecedented way we just have to give it a chance.