From a wide array of socially destructive interests affecting youth today, one stands out as the 500-pound gorilla: prisons for kids, AKA public schools. While I have some arguments with some of his sub-points, John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education is a book every American should read… those that are able to, that is. *sigh*
Why, in the face of readily, easily, available source information, free courseware (here and elsewhere, as well), tutorials, literature and direct interaction with Wise Men is the electorate of our democratic republic ever more stupidly uninformed (as can be inferred from the candidates it votes for)?
I think I can assuredly assert that at least a major part of the reason is our nation’s prisons for kids, AKA public schools.
Exactly what John Dewey heralded at the onset of the twentieth century has indeed happened. Our once highly individualized nation has evolved into a centrally managed village, an agora made up of huge special interests which regard individual voices as irrelevant. The masquerade is managed by having collective agencies speak through particular human beings. Dewey said this would mark a great advance in human affairs, but the net effect is to reduce men and women to the status of functions in whatever subsystem they are placed. Public opinion is turned on and off in laboratory fashion. All this in the name of social efficiency, one of the two main goals of forced schooling.
Gatto’s book, linked above, is available in full on the web. I’d like to reorganize his website to make it easier to read, but if you stick with it (and do open links on the TOC page in new tabs–that’ll help) and read the whole thing, you’ll soon be foirwarding the link to everyone you know… especially those in your addressbook who are teachers.
Don’t expect politicians to read the thing. They don’t have the time or inclination to read things that would tell ’em how to actually fix what they’ve broken (and the record shows they do not have to fear an electorate holding them accountable for the child abuse they encourage–and in cases outright dictate–in the classrooms across our country). You’ll have to read it, spread the word and build a grassroots groundswell of “take your damned hands off my kids!”
*heh*
Trackposted to Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, Woman Honor Thyself, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Leaning Straight Up, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
thankees for the linkage David…as u know I taught for a gazillion years myself but had to give it up due to the “System”, and the totally out of control kids who of course , couldnt respond to ANY disciplary measures whatsoever~!:)
emphasize the alternatives to public school/juvenile prison. She has a regular “fluff blog” and one that deals specifically with the politics of home schooling and the issues faced as public schools and government attempt to regulate family matters.
Don’t know what happened; but here is what it should have looked like when I hit “post”:
I enjoy reading Dana’s Home Schooling blog (Principled Discovery) because it tends to emphasize the alternatives to public school/juvenile prison. She has a regular “fluff blog” and one that deals specifically with the politics of home schooling and the issues faced as public schools and government attempt to regulate family matters.
Some people think all we have to do is keep throwing more money at the school system, and it will suddenly be perfect. It hasn’t worked all these years, why should we keep doing the same thing over and over with the same bad result?