Sometimes I take procrastination and forgetfulness to new heights. (In case you didn’t get it, this is one of those times.)

In June 2007, I wrote a post called Thinking differently about schooling, which was actually a post about a movie called Voices from the New American Schoolhouse. Somehow, the person who made the film, a very nice man named Danny Mydlack, read my blog and offered to send me a DVD of the movie. Really.

And he did send the DVD, which I received in March 2008. (Long story.) I watched the DVD a couple of weeks later and I intended to blog about it. Clearly, in my case, intention does not translate to action quickly.

Moving on to the documentary, it was an eye-opener. For those that didn’t read the earlier post, the movie’s about Fairhaven, a school in Maryland. (You can read about Fairhaven’s philosophy on their website.)

What’s unusual about this school is that it’s student-driven and it’s democratic. The students decide which classes they want to take, they vote on various school decisions, they are on a “judicial committee” to settle disputes, etc. The school doesn’t restrict students from classes based on their ages, so you can have a youngish student taking “advanced” maths classes. The students essentially can learn what they want to learn.

What makes the DVD endearing is that the narration is done by the students of the school and it’s really interesting to hear the students, of varying ages, speak about their school. You can sense the passion that they have for their school.

A couple of the students stood out for me. One was a teenager who spoke about how, every morning, he read The Guardian for left-leaning news and Fox News for news with a right-wing perspective to get a balanced perspective on the news. Seriously, teenager. The other was a young girl who spoke about her passion for maths (algebra and polynomials if you must know) and how she was taking classes with older students.

One thing that I hadn’t realised was that the documentary was created over a two-year period, which is a lot of effort. It’s worth it because the end-product is terrific — informative and more importantly, inspiring. It really shows how children can be educated differently and how they can thrive in a democratic educational environment. It really makes you think about how we are educating children and whether the route that everyone takes is the right one for children.

If you have any interest in education, teaching, or schooling, this really is a DVD you should not miss. Who knows, it could even inspire you to do something along similar lines. A big thank you to Danny Mydlack, the filmmaker, for his generosity in sending me the DVD and for creating an exceptional documentary.

P.S. 1: When I read about Fairhaven and saw the documentary, I remembered that Ricardo Semler is trying to do similar stuff with his school Lumiar. Semler’s company, Semco, is run like a democracy and it seems that schools like Fairhaven are “doing democracy” in their schools.

P.S. 2: I found out later that Fairhaven is a Sudbury school. Apparently, there are a few schools like Fairhaven in the US.

I’ve been meaning to write about this topic and the Delhi High Court’s judgement decriminalizing homosexuality provides the perfect backdrop. (This is a huge ruling for the LGBT community in India and hopefully a first step that will lead to them being treated on par with everyone else.)

But this post is not about that bit of news. It’s about the argument that you tend to hear from people who have objections to alternate sexuality. That argument is: It is against nature. Alternatively, people say, It is unnatural, it is not natural…blah, blah.

My question to them would be this: Where in nature would you find any of the following?

• Blood transfusions (I am Draculya, I vant your blood.)
• Organ transplants (Dr. Frankenstein I presume.)
• Caesarean births
• Vaccines
• X-rays, MRIs, and other diagnostic tests

The stuff that I’ve listed is restricted only to the field of medicine. There are numerous examples of things that we do that are not found in nature or not “natural”. Let’s look at the meaning of natural for a second (via the Free Dictionary (first 3 entries)):

1. Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.
2. Of, relating to, or concerning nature: a natural environment.
3. Conforming to the usual or ordinary course of nature: a natural death.

So, for the “nature lovers”, here’s something I quoted (emphasis mine) in a post I wrote about a book called The Human Story.

The Japanese field workers who undertook the first studies of wild bonobos in the Congo Basin in the 1970s were astonished and bemused to find that sex seemed to be the sole preoccupation of these unusual apes. They were, quite literally, at it all the time, and in all possible combinations– males with females, females with females, even occasionally males with males.

Them wild bonobos must not be familiar with nature then or the “nature peoples” may not be familiar with these apes. And why just the apes? Here’s a recent Wired article about animal homosexuality (emphasis mine).

Sure, it’s widely recognized that the animal kingdom is full of male-on-male and female-on-female action, from fruit flies on up to bottlenose dolphins and, of course, Homo sapiens.

…

(A few particularly arresting examples: male dung flies are believed to mate with other males simply to occupy their time, thus denying them a chance to reproduce; small male Goodeid fishes camouflage themselves as female, and mate with females while males pursue them. And young fruit flies seem to do better at heterosexual mating once they’ve had some same-sex practice.)

Such explanations are sometimes useful, but only to a point. In the Laysan albatross, for example, where monogamy is common but females outnumber males, nearly one-third of all couples are female-female pairs. They’re better at rearing chicks than single females, and their coupling reduces the likelihood of single females luring married men from the nest.

But, enough of that already, we’re much more evolved than apes, the “nature peoples” might say.

And that is precisely why we should respect scientific evidence and tell the “natural peoples” to shove their arguments where the sun don’t shine. (And, yes, the irony of that last statement is not lost on me.)

I think the last time I really paid attention to the music that Michael Jackson had created was when he released the Dangerous album. I wasn’t as impressed by that album like I was by his earlier music.

When I was in school, I remember really being into Jackson Five (greatest hits is the album I had I think), listening to Thriller and Bad but the interest in his music somewhat died down after that. At that period in my life, he was unquestionably my favourite musician / singer.

It’s sad to realize that he was at his peak so many years ago and that the celebrity aspect of his life dominated over the music aspect. But, whatever his legacy later on in his life, the early years were simply brilliant. He was a magnificient singer and dancer and essentially one of the great pop stars.

When I think about the Michael Jackson who gave us songs like Beat It, Thriller, Man in the Mirror, Billy Jean, to name a few, I feel sad that he’s gone.

When I think about Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the first thing that comes to mind is the character Maria Elena and the way she speaks and acts — and it makes me smile. Maria Elena, played by Penelope Cruz, stays with you long after the movie’s over. Though we meet her close to the movie’s half-way mark, she still manages to make an impact. Cruz is excellent as the super-talented, yet extremely fragile Maria Elena and I’m guessing that’s why they gave her an Oscar.

VCB is about two friends, Vicky and Cristina, who make a summer trip to Barcelona. Vicky is the woman who knows what she wants — she’s engaged, she’s in graduate school — and seems the more conventional of the two. Cristina is a dilettante and sort of a free spirit. They meet a painter, Juan Antonio, who then takes them on a trip. When Juan Antonio’s ex-wife, Maria Elena, things get really complicated and even more interesting.

When you recall the movie later, you realize that VCB is about challenging the assumptions that we have about love and romantic relationships and about how we think that it should be this way or that. VCB is funny but it’s also insightful and quirky, which is I guess a hallmark of Woody Allen movies. (I’ve watched only a couple, so I don’t know if I am qualified to make such a judgement.)

However you analyze the movie, the main thing is that it’s funny and enjoyable to watch. Those are good enough reasons to watch any movie.

The Hoot has an excellent editorial on whether bloggers are entitled to anonymity. The piece quotes the story of a recent case in the UK where a newspaper “outed” a police officer who was an anonymous blogger. The whole piece (link again) is worth reading but the crux is this:

Bloggers are nothing if not vociferous about their rights and freedoms. In deciding where anonymity should be an entitlement for all bloggers the Hoot’s view is that the relevant question to ask, is are all blogs in the public interest? Perhaps there should be different rules for those that are and those that are simply platforms for opinions and views, often sweeping and abusive ones.

Zigackly!