Articles

"How to Be the Most Effective Preschool Teacher in the World" by Mary Jane Glassman, director of Morning Star Neohumanist Preschool, Denver, Colorado, USA. Workshop presentation at the Neohumanist Education Seminar, April 15, 2014 in Caracas, Venezuela.

For a number of years scientific researchers in the U.S. have been studying the effects of high quality preschool (2½ to 5 year old children) education. Some of these results are surprising. They have found that while in kindergarten and first grade, those who have attended preschool may be ahead of others who have not received the benefit of pre-academic studies, by third grade this advantage ‘evens out’ and is not sustainable. So what is the value of quality education for young children?

These research findings indicate that adults who have experienced high quality preschool education are more likely to:

Complete higher levels of education,

Take home a bigger paycheck,

Be in better health,

Have more stable relationships,

And are less likely to commit a crime or be incarcerated.

“Sadvipras: Prout’s vision of enlightened leaders” by Jody Wright (Acharya Devanistha) (USA), Prout activist for 35 years, studied under P.R. Sarkar Listen to the audio here.

[Published in Gurukula Network]

By Viirabrata, Krsna and Mahaviira

Viirabrata and son Mahaviira teaching kids organic gardening

A framework to be happy

The educational process is a holistic phenomenon, where external objectivity is transformed into internal subjectivity. It goes beyond the school walls, or the family environment, or any other human relations. It goes even beyond that, straight into our own beings; it involves the universe around us and the way our souls interact with it. It does not depend on a particular school approach either, it simply happens as life does.

The Neohumanist Education framework and its learning methods encompass this holistic vision – physical, mental and spiritual – and aim for the liberation of all from exploitation sentiments (such as geo-sentiment and socio-sentiment) in order to achieve a free human society, in harmony and love within our environment.

by Dada Maheshvarananda From an impoverished family, Hugo Chávez joined the army for a chance to play baseball, but soon came to love the service that gave the opportunity for advancement to anyone based on hard work and performance. Disgusted by the corruption, censorship and human rights abuses of the Venezuelan government, the young officer started a secret organization in the military, the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement-200 (MBR-200), to overthrow the dictatorship. As one of the most popular teachers in the Venezuelan Military Academy, he recruited young officers for ten years. Caught red-handed twice and brought before a tribunal for subversion, Chávez managed to brazenly talk his way out of the charges both times. He was so successful that by the time he led a coup d’état in 1992 to overthrow President Carlos Andrés Pérez, he had 130 officers and nearly 900 soldiers under his command, approximately ten percent of the Venezuelan military.

Though the rebels came within a few meters of capturing Pérez, they failed. The military high command arrested Chávez and ordered him to tell the rest of his men to lay down their arms. Wearing his military uniform and red paratrooper beret, this unknown lieutenant-colonel was put in front of live television cameras for 72 seconds so that he could order all his men to surrender. What he said electrified the nation. Invoking the liberation hero Simón Bolívar, Chávez assumed full responsibility for the failure, which almost no Venezuelan leader had ever done before. Then he said that the objectives of this movement were not achieved "for now". As he went to prison, he had suddenly become a national hero to millions who realized that these soldiers were not hungry for power, rather they were risking their lives to save their country. A group of 62 retired generals ran full-page advertisements in newspapers attacking the government and supporting the coup leaders. In his cell Chávez began receiving hundreds of letters a week from supporters.

Panel 4, “Ethics for Personal and Social Transformation” Translation of questions and answers. Facilitator: Nieves Pino, economist, social worker. July 8, 2011. Listen to the audio file in English or audio file in Spanish. - Read the Spanish text.

Panel 2: “Consciousness, leadership and will: preserving our environment”: Questions and answers, July 8 2011, Facilitator: Leopoldo Cook. Listen to the audio file in Spanish. – Read the original Spanish presentation.

On April 2, 2015 PRIVEN Volunteer Sélène Viallard and I gave a one-hour interview about Prout and Venezuela via telephone from Caracas on independent community radio station KGNU in Boulder, Colorado, USA. The show was "It's The Economy", with brilliant host Liz Lane. At this link you can download the file or stream it mp3.