Obsessing About Conspiracy

by **anon** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:25 pm

Too bad this has to end in a pissing contest. The quotes from Illich were not abstract. I think they speak to EVERYTHING that has been said here.

by **lilorphant** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:29 pm

Bravo! My experience was similar to yours. I went to a mixture of private and public schools growing up, and when I had children of my own, decided that public was the better alternative, but continued to look for creative solutions. The small community I lived in had very few, and were not quite what I had in mind, mostly attached to a religion or dogma that was not a good fit. I moved to a new state, and after a year at the public schools, I decided to become a home educator. It was the best decision I ever made. It was not taken well by my family, and there were many who were resistant and unsupportive, but I am not willing to allow MY children to be guinea pigs, and institutionalized for the sake of the power structure. The first couple of months of home-education opened my eyes to the harm we are doing to our children. My kids, as bright and inventive as I thought they were, had an enormous time adjusting to "civilian" life! They had a hard time with less rigid schedules, or creating their own goals, thinking without being told what to think, setting up independent projects, and working outside the box. The first couple of months, we had to work on de-institutionalizing them. They were encouraged to choose subject matter they were interested in. They were allowed to choose (within obvious frameworks) what and how much would be covered in a day. They set goals, determined priorities, and eventually became responsible for their own education. We worked as a small group, hooked up with neighbors, and groups, and broke them out of the rigid mindset that the local district enforces. A funny thing happened though, my children have become extremely popular locally, where they once were cogs in the wheel, other parents are eager to send their kids our way, and they are natural leaders among their peers. They have expanded their horizons independently, both excelling equaling in the arts and sciences. I would like to say I am solely responsible for teaching them, but they honestly did it themselves, I gave them the resources, provided guidance and discussion, but the hard work was all their own. In any case, my experience has been enlightening to myself, but also I think teachers are also shortchanged, they seem to be just as miserable as the kids are. It strikes me as similar as a prison guard job.

by **mother** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:05 pm

I thank God for my lefty, insanely creative parents with their bulging bookshelves, all the boozy political/cultural arguments, for getting me addicted to reading, for their militant resistance against The Dark Forces Who Would Control the World. For showing me how to find out what is right and to stand up to people who resort to trying to intellectually intimidate by using emotionally charged accusations such as "racist" or "elitist" or "right-winger". We're all onto something deep here. Like Dylan said, "we always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view" (so I just grew....tangled up in blue) I can't speak for other people's school experience, but here they are most definitely modeled after a juevenile psych facility. I know because some of my more severely abused kids have to go weekly to such an institution for state required therapy. And the one who was neurologically damaged by the vaccine would be forced to take psyche meds if he attended public school-not to mention that when this child was in a public special-ed preschool, it was required that the teacher come for supervisory visits at my own house. This is to check for "red flags" and signs of abuse. Hmm, what if they don't like your artwork or what you've got in your bookshelves, or what if your other kids start acting like psychos during the home visit? I also have found the de-programming difficult for my little ones, not to mention trying to teach difficult, man it's hard. But we are doing good work and my children are beginning to love learning again. Besides, the lame homework took about as long to force down their throats as the homeschool lessons. Plus, they can hang out with their really smart and interesting lefty grandparents, and learn Latin at the Mass.<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">

by **Starman** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:24 pm

Man, whatta LOTTA specious reasoning, duplicity, arrogant posturing and hostile judgmentalism by someone who presumes to defend the status-quo institution of Goal-Driven 'learning' -- which by his own admission he couldn't engage with as stifling his inherant curiousity and interest. Like, HuLLO? The adversarial position seems cleverly designed to reflect the nonsense and rigid conformism and busybody pretentiousness of a system that by design eliminates parental influence and trivializes their legitimate concerns. If I were a parent and knowing what I know I'd most probably be homeschooling or participating in a community-led alternative co-operative educational program encouraging my kids' interest and engagement with the world. By all means, concentrate on the basics K-6 and then provide the kids with the resources and time and encouragement to read and ask questions and make their own projects. Lilorphant: Way to go! Excellant observations and your experience confirms what I've seen and learned from noting other people's lives re: that our kids deserve a LOT better than pushing them off to the run-of-the-mill schools where they are programmed and conditioned to be good little cogs in the machine. I 'endured' public school, most of my learning after elementary school was on my own terms, extending from my cultivated love of reading -- despite my wicked and alcoholic stepmother's attempts to stifle my intellect and program me as a failure. Mother -- Hang in there! You sure have a challenge. God DAMN the bureaucracy that treats your children as victims. Your experience is far from unique. If that isn't an indictment of a system that chews people up for its own self-satisfied justification. Thank GOD you're aware and motivated to resist the stifling interference with creativity and spirit. I'm rooting for your family. More Info on critiqueing the stultifying dumbing-downprogram American education has been infcted with: Something is very, very wrong with what we've subjected our children to -- look at the present crisis of legitimacy and hypocrisy and official corruption and lack of accountability that is the direct consequence of indoctrinating kids and discouraging their critical-thinking and communication skills. Starman *** <a href="http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm">www.deliberatedumbingdown...s/book.htm</a> --excerpt by author Charlotte Iserbyt -- Orchestrated Consensus In retrospect, I had just found out that the United States was engaged in war. People write important books about war: books documenting the battles fought, the names of the generals involved, the names of those who fired the first shot. This book is simply a history book about another kind of war: * one fought using psychological methods; * a one-hundred-year war; * a different, more deadly war than any in which our country has ever been involved; * a war about which the average American hasn't the foggiest idea.. The reason Americans do not understand this war is because it has been fought in secret-in the schools of our nation, using our children who are captive in classrooms. The wagers of this war are using very sophisticated and effective tools: * Hegelian Dialectic (common ground, consensus and compromise) * Gradualism (two steps forward; one step backward) * Semantic deception (redefining terms to get agreement without understanding). The Hegelian Dialectic4 is a process formulated by the German philosopher Fredrich Hegel (1770-1831) and used by Karl Marx's in codifying revolutionary Communism as dialectical materialism. This process can be illustrated as: Synthesis (consensus) Thesis Antithesis The "Thesis" represents either an established practice or point of view which is pitted against the "Antithesis"-usually a crisis of opposition fabricated or created by change agents-causing the "Thesis" to compromise itself, incorporating some part of the "Antithesis" to produce the "Synthesis"-sometimes called consensus. This is the primary tool in the bag of tricks used by change agents who are trained to direct this process all over the country; much like the in-service training I received. A good example of this concept was voiced by T.H. Bell when he was Secretary of Education: "[We] need to create a crisis to get consensus in order to bring about change." (The reader might be reminded that it was under T.H. Bell's direction that the Department of Education implemented the changes "suggested" by A Nation at Risk-the alarm that was sounded in the early 1980's to announce the "crisis" in education.) Since we have been, as a nation, so relentlessly exposed to this Hegelian dialectical process (which is essential to the smooth operation of the "system") under the guise of "reaching consensus" in our involvement in parent-teacher organizations, on school boards, in legislatures, and even in goal setting in community service organizations and groups-including our churches-I want to explain clearly how it works in a practical application. A good example with which most of us can identify involves property taxes for local schools. Let us consider an example from Michigan: The internationalist change agents must abolish local control (the "Thesis") in order to restructure our schools from academics to global workforce training (the "Synthesis"). Funding of education with the property tax allows local control, but it also enables the change agents and teachers' unions to create higher and higher school budgets paid for with higher taxes, thus infuriating homeowners. Eventually, property owners accept the change agent's radical proposal (the "Anti- thesis") to reduce their property taxes by transferring education funding from the local property tax to the state income tax. Thus, the change agents accomplish their ultimate goal; the transfer of funding of education from the local level to the state level. When this transfer occurs it increases state/federal control and funding, leading to the federal/internationalist goal of implementing global workforce training through the schools (the "Synthesis").5 Regarding the power of gradualism, remember the story of the frog and how he didn't save himself because he didn't realize what was happening to him? He was thrown into cold water which, in turn, was gradually heated up until finally it reached the boiling point and he was dead. This is how "gradualism" works through a series of "created crises" which utilize Hegel's dialectical process, leading us to more radical change than we would ever otherwise accept. In the instance of "semantic deception"-do you remember your kindly principal telling you that the new decision-making program would help your child make better decisions? What good parent wouldn't want his or her child to learn how to make "good" decisions? Did you know that the decision-making program is the same controversial values clarification program recently rejected by your school board against which you may have given repeated testimony? As I've said before, the wagers of this intellectual social war have employed very effective weapons to implement their changes. This war has, in fact, become the war to end all wars. If citizens on this planet can be brainwashed or robotized, using dumbed-down Pavlovian/Skinnerian education, to accept what those in control want, there will be no more wars. If there are no rights or wrongs, there will be no one wanting to "right" a "wrong." Robots have no conscience. The only permissible conscience will be the United Nations or a global conscience. Whether an action is good or bad will be decided by a "Global Government's Global Conscience," as recommended by Dr. Brock Chisholm, Executive Secretary of the World Health Organization, Interim Commission, in 1947-and later in 1996 by current United States Secretary of State Madeline Albright. (See p. ___for quotes in entry under 1947.) You may protest, "But, no one has died in this war." Is that the only criteria we have with which to measure whether war is war? The tragedy is that many Americans have died in other wars to protect the freedoms being taken away in this one. This war which produces the death of intellect and freedom is not waged by a foreign enemy but by the silent enemy in the ivory towers, in our own government, and in tax-exempt foundations-the enemy whose every move I have tried to document in this book, usually in his/her/its own words. Ronald Havelock's change agent in-service training prepared me for what I would find in the U.S. Department of Education when I worked there from 1981-1982. The use of taxpayers' hard-earned money to fund Havelock's "Change Agent Manual" was only one out of hundreds of expensive U.S. Department of Education grants each year going everywhere, even overseas, to further the cause of internationalist "dumbing down" education (behavior modification) so necessary for the present introduction of global work force training. I was relieved of my duties after leaking an important technology grant (computer-assisted instruction proposal) to the press. Much of this book contains quotes from government documents detailing the real purposes of American education: * to use the schools to change America from a free, individual nation to a socialist, global "state," just one of many socialist states which will be subservient to the United Nations Charter, not the United States Constitution; * to brainwash our children, starting at birth, to reject individualism in favor of collectivism; * to reject high academic standards in favor of OBE/ISO 1400/90006 egalitarianism; * to reject truth and absolutes in favor of tolerance, situational ethics and consensus; * to reject American values in favor of internationalist values (globalism); * to reject freedom to choose one's career in favor of the totalitarian K-12 school-to-work/OBE process, aptly named "limited learning for lifelong labor,"7 coordinated through United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Only when all children in public, private and home schools are robotized-and believe as one-will World Government be acceptable to citizens and able to be implemented without firing a shot. The attractive-sounding "choice" proposals will enable the globalist elite to achieve their goal: the robotization (brainwashing) of all Americans in order to gain their acceptance of lifelong education and workforce training-part of the world management system to achieve a new global feudalism. The socialist/fascist global workforce training agenda is being implemented as I write this book. The report to the European Commission entitled "Transatlantic Co-operation in International Education: Projects of the Handswerkskammer Koblenz with Partners in the United States and in the European Union" by Karl-Jurgen Wilbert and Bernard Eckgold (May 1997) says in part: In June, 1994, with the support of the Handswerkskamer Koblenz, an American-German vocational education conference took place...at the University of Texas at Austin. The vocational education researchers and economic specialists...were in agreement that an economic and employment policy is necessary where a systematic vocational training is as equally important as an academic education, as a "career pathway."...The first practical steps along these lines, which are also significant from the point of view of the educational policy, were made with the vocational training of American apprentices in skilled craft companies, in the area of the Koblenz chamber. [emphasis added] Under section "e) Scientific Assistance for the Projects," one reads: The international projects ought to be scientifically assisted and analyzed both for the feedback to the transatlantic dialogue on educa- tional policy, and also for the assessment and qualitative improvement of the cross-border vocational education projects. As a result it should be made possible on the German side to set up a connection to other projects of German-American cooperation in vocational training; e.g., of the federal institute for vocational training for the project in the U.S. state of Maine. On the USA side an interlinking with other initiatives for vocational training-for example, through the Center for the Study of Human Resources at the University of Texas, Austin-would be desirable. This particular document discusses the history of apprenticeships-especially the role of medieval guilds-and attempts to make a case for nations which heretofore have cherished liberal economic ideas-i.e., individual economic freedom-to return to a system of cooperative economic solutions (the guild system used in the Middle Ages which accepted very young children from farms and cities and trained them in "necessary" skills). Another word for this is "serfdom." Had our elected officials at the federal, state, and local levels read this document, they could never have voted in favor of socialist/fascist legislation implementing workforce training to meet the needs of the global economy. Unless, of course, they happen to support such a totalitarian economic system. (This incredible document can be accessed at the following internet address: <a href="http://www.kwk-koblenz.de/ausland/trans-uk.doc">www.kwk-koblenz.de/ausland/trans-uk.doc</a> ) *** <a href="http://home.iae.nl/users/lightnet/world/awaken/dumbingdown.htm">home.iae.nl/users/lightne...ngdown.htm</a> The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt <a href="http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/">www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/</a> More Information The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America -- November 1999 Education Reporter <a href="http://eagleforum.org/educate/1999/nov99/dec99-book.html">eagleforum.org/educate/19...-book.html</a> Amazon.com buying info: The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America - A Chronological Paper Trail <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966707109/qid%3D980433808/107-6708808-6938960">www.amazon.com/exec/obido...08-6938960</a> Source: WorldNetDaily <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/">www.worldnetdaily.com/</a> Deliberately dumbing us down By Samuel L. Blumenfeld Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's new book, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," is without doubt one of the most important publishing events in the annals of American education in the last hundred years. John Dewey's "School and Society," published in 1899, set American education on its course to socialism. Rudolf Flesch's "Why Johnny Can't Read," published in 1955, informed American parents that there was something terribly wrong with the way the schools were teaching children to read, and my own book, "NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education," published in 1984, explained in great detail how and why the decline in public education was taking place. But Iserbyt has done what no one else wanted or could do. She has put together the most formidable and practical compilation of documentation describing the well-planned "deliberate dumbing down" of American children by their education system. Anyone who has had any lingering hope that what the educators have been doing is a result of error, accident, or stupidity will be shocked by the way American social engineers have systematically gone about destroying the intellect of millions of American children for the purpose of leading the American people into a socialist world government controlled by behavioral and social scientists. This mammoth book is the size of a large city phone book: 462 pages of documentation, 205 pages of appendices, and a 48-page Index. The documentation is "A Chronological Paper Trail" which starts with the Sowing of the Seeds in the late 18th and 19th centuries, proceeds to The Turning of the Tides, then to The Troubling Thirties, The Fomentation of the Forties and Fifties, The Sick Sixties, The Serious Seventies, The "Effective" Eighties, and finally, the Noxious Nineties. The educators and social engineers indict themselves with their own words. Iserbyt decided to compile this book because, as a "resister" to what is going on in American education, she was being constantly told that she was taking things out of context. The book, she writes, "was put together primarily to satisfy my own need to see the various components which led to the dumbing down of the United States of America assembled in chronological order -- in writing. Even I, who had observed these weird activities taking place at all levels of government, was reluctant to accept a malicious intent behind each individual, chronological activity or innovation, unless I could connect it with other, similar activities taking place at other times." And that is what this book does. It connects educators, social engineers, planners, government grants, federal and state agencies, billion-dollar foundations, think tanks, universities, research projects, policy organizations, etc., showing how they have worked together to advance an agenda that will change America from a free republic to a socialist state. What is so mind boggling is that all of this is being financed by the American people themselves through their own taxes. In other words, the American people are underwriting the destruction of their own freedom and way of life by lavishly financing through federal and state grants the very social scientists who are undermining our national sovereignty and preparing our children to become the dumbed-down vassals of the new world order. One of the interesting insights revealed by these documents is how the social engineers use a deliberately created education "crisis" to move their agenda forward by offering radical reforms that are sold to the public as fixing the crisis -- which they never do. The new reforms simply set the stage for the next crisis, which provides the pretext for the next move forward. This is the dialectical process at work, a process our behavioral engineers have learned to use very effectively. Its success depends on the ability of the "change agents" to continually deceive the public, which tends to believe any lie the experts tell them. Iserbyt's long journey to becoming a "resister," started in 1973 when her son, a fourth grader, brought home from school a purple ditto sheet, embellished with a smiley face, entitled, "All About Me." She writes, "The questions were highly personal; so much so that they encouraged my son to lie, since he didn't want to 'spill the beans' about his mother, father and brother. The purpose of such a questionnaire was to find out the student's state of mind, how he felt, what he liked and disliked, and what his values were. With this knowledge it would be easier for the government school to modify his values and behavior at will -- without, of course, the student's knowledge or his parents' consent." From that time on, Iserbyt became an activist in education. She became a member of a philosophy committee for a school, was elected as a school board member, co-founded Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM), and finally became senior policy advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education during President Reagan's first term of office. As a school board member she learned that in American education, the end justifies the means. "Our change agent superintendent," she writes, "was more at home with a lie than he was with the truth." Whatever good she accomplished while on the school board was tossed out two weeks after she left office. It was during her tenure in the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., where she had access to the grant proposals from change agents, that she came to the conclusion that what was happening in American education was the result of a concerted effort on the part of numerous individuals and organizations -- a globalist elite -- to bring about permanent changes in America's body politic. She was relieved of her duties after leaking an important technology grant -- a computer-assisted instruction proposal -- to the press. Another reason why Iserbyt decided to publish this book is because of the reluctance of Americans to face unpleasant truths about their government educators. She wants parents to have access to the kinds of documents that were only circulated among the change agent educators themselves. She wants parents to see for themselves what has been planned for their children and the kind of socialist-fascist world their children will have to live in if we do nothing to counter these plans. Therefore, getting this book into the hands of thousands of Americans ought to be a major project for lovers of liberty in the year 2000. It will do more to defeat the change agents than anything else I can think of. Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education, including "Is Public Education Necessary?" and "The Whole Language/OBE Fraud," published by The Paradigm Company, 208-322-4440. Amazon Review by 'medow': "(This book) ...invites readers to discover what has been happening to American education for the past 100 years -- all with quotes from those "change agents" who deliberately set out to have schools changed from individual excellence in becoming educated to groups being trained to think alike and, rather than following the personal goals for life, being readied to walk in lockstep with those who want a one-world government with compliant serfs." *** <a href="http://www.teslatech.info/ttstore/report/articles/v1n1art/dumb.htm">www.teslatech.info/ttstor...t/dumb.htm</a> If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. -- “A Nation at Risk” (U.S. Dept of Education, 1983) Reprinted from: Exotic Research Report (Volume 1, Issue 1; Jan/Feb/Mar 1996) A National Tragedy The 1983 A Nation at Risk report sparked off a frenzy among educators and politicians into creating new task forces, new comprehensive programs, and increasing taxes to improve the public educational system and their image. However, despite the overwhelming response and effort invested, David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute and editor of Liberating Schools: Education in the Inner City, reports that SAT scores dropped by 4 points in 1991. The US Department of Education revealed that for the first time in the history of the United States, American students educated in government run schools are graduating knowing less academically than their parents did when they graduated, and that in 1995 US students are still lagging behind other industrial countries in major subjects such as math, science and literacy. This crisis is affecting millions of American students and will affect the future of this country. It has been 12 years since the 1983 “A Nation At Risk” report and in spite of the millions of tax dollars poured into the government-run school system to improve it, public schools have gotten worse by most accounts. Many universities and colleges complain that too many graduates of high schools come unprepared for higher learning and must enroll in remedial classes wasting time and money. Lets not forget that high school graduates have spent 12 years in the public school “educational” system. Goals 2000 —The Elitist Solution As if this isn’t tragic enough, there is a movement by the “education elitists” of this country to implement a new program dubbed Goals 2000. Goals 2000 looks practical, worthwhile, and innocent on the surface, but as one studies the program it becomes clear that this is just another attempt by the liberal socialists to socialize this country through the educational system and undermine parental rights. There is a battle going on in America today. It is a battle over winning the minds and hearts of our youth. It appears there is a scheme to keep the masses uneducated and in poverty. We all know that the uneducated masses are easier to control. Could that be what the elitists in government hope to achieve? According to Sheldon Richman, author of Separating School and State, government-run schools are turning children into obedient creatures of the state. Vin Suprynowicz, a syndicated columnist, refers to public schools as government propaganda camps. Joseph Sobran another syndicated columnist, wrote: "the only cure for the evils of public education is to get the state out of the education business entirely." Many concerned Americans point to the monopoly the government has in America’s educational system. Many proclaim that the government has no business in education and that America’s arrogant and aggressive teachers’ unions have poisoned the public school system with their socialist indoctrination. In a commentary piece David Boaz wrote: Right now the United States actually has a more socialist school system than Sweden, Russia, or the Czech Republic, all of which have recently implemented voucher plans. ***** <a href="http://www.eurekareporter.com/Stories/op-03300505.htm">www.eurekareporter.com/St...300505.htm</a> 3/30/05 Substandard public education leads to ‘dumbing-down’ in schools by Jim Garvey Education in America is totally lacking on a number of fronts with regard to preparing our children for the future. We have powerful lobbying groups called “teachers unions,” which lobby strictly for their members’ welfare and not those of whom they have been entrusted to teach. We have untrained teachers in the classroom and uneducated teachers in the classroom – both doing a great deal of damage to young, open minds. We have a total breakdown of an educational system that is supposed to instill discipline in the way you approach a problem, and a total lack of respect toward those who are teaching by those who are being taught. The system has lost sight of the basic principles of teaching that ensure a bright outlook toward the future. That is evidenced by the number of students entering college and having to take basic remedial courses along with upper-level educational courses. Reading, writing and arithmetic have been replaced with inter-social-cultural studies. Geography has gone the way of the carrier pigeon. In its place we now have classes in teen pregnancy and “how to understand your neighbor’s cross-dressing child.” Educators’ basic goal today is not to educate but to generalize, so as not to offend any race, ethnic group, religion or culture, and at the same time demand more money to continue this exercise in secularism. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, for 2002-2003 the total expenditure for education in this country was $250 billion dollars. It was an increase of 11 percent from the previous year. However, the national average enrollment was 47.6 million, which is a rate increase of 1 percent over the previous year. Figures for the 2004-2005 educational budget are expected to increase dramatically. *** <a href="http://www.spinninglobe.net/dumbing.htm">www.spinninglobe.net/dumbing.htm</a> Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Agenda of Compulsory Education by John Taylor Gatto Dumbing Us Down reveals the deadening heart of compulsory state schooling: assumptions and structures that stamp out the selfknowledge, curiosity, concentration and solitude essential to learning. Between schooling and television, our children have precious little time to learn for themselves about the community they live in, or the lives they might lead. Instead, they are schooled to merely obey orders and become smoothly functioning cogs in the industrial machine. . . . "John Gatto's splendid writings say exactly what needs to be said. I just hope people are listening." -- Christopher Lasch, author, The True and Only Heaven "These are moving and powerful pieces. I shall reread them many times." -- - Deborah W. Meier, Founder, Central Park East Secondary School, East Harlem Advance Praise for Dumbing Us Down: Ever since winning notice as the New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto has been offered opportunities to share his critique of compulsory education. People from all across North America responded so strongly to his talks and occasional articles, that we asked him to write the longer pieces collected here in Dumbing Us DowrL Here's some of what people are saying about John's work "Your words hit the nail on the head. Our schools leave no time for kids to be with parents and the community. The seeds of your ideas are here ready to sprout." -- Bonni McKeown, Capon Springs, WV "I heard you speak on the McNeill/Lehrer News Hour and am in complete agreement with you. When I first started teaching here, I was amazed to find everything the same as in New York City~the same insane assumptions, the same insane beliefs, the same insane way of doing things, the same lack of education." -- Ed Rauchut, NEH Teacher/Scholar for Nebraska, Omaha, NE "Your words very concisely captured all my frustrations and concerns of wanting to be an 'educator' in a society that schools well but fails to educate. Amen, Amen, Amen! is my response." -- Kathleen Trumbull, Teacher, Silver Bay, MN "I am not an educator, nor a parent, nor a concerned citizen. I am a product of the problems you describe. Although I had a passionate desire to learn, some excellent teachers and a diploma, I realized very soon how almost useless the whole experience had been for me. Parents, students, especially the students, need to know the things you talk about." -- Praya Desai, Philadelphia, PA "Anyone like John Gatto, with the courage and tenacity to go against the bureaucratic hierarchy, is looked upon as a troublemaker. But the principles that John espouses are really not new or radical, but fundamental to learning anything. The fact that that they seem controversial to current administrators shows how far they have strayed from the real purpose of their employment." -- Ron Hitchon, Intermodal East, Secaucus, NJ "Your analysis of the crisis in schooling, its difference from real education and the relation between schooling/television and the apathetic blindered world view so prevalent among Americans really gets to the root of our disintegrated society. " -- David Werner, The Hesperian Foundation, Palo Alto, CA "What you say is really happening on my island. It is very true that schooling is made for those people who are intended to be controlled and their lives predicted." -- Alfred T. Apatang, Rota, M.P. "You have enlightened as well as frightened me. I win think carefully about many many things but ever so carefully about bringing the human spirit back into my classroom to help my children see and feel the wholeness of their lives." -- Ruth Schmitt, Tuba City, AZ Publisher's Note The social philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote that, "The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any. "* If one were to poll our nation's leading educators about what the goal of our educational systems should be, I suspect one would come up with as many goals as educators. But I also imagine that the capacity to form one's own convictions independent of what was being taught in the classroom, the ability to think critically based upon one's own experience, would not rank high on many lists. In fact, the idea that the goal of education might have little to do with what goes on in the classroom would likely strike most educators, of whatever political stripe, as heresy. In the context of our culture, it is easy to see that critical thinking is a threat. As parents, we all want what is "best" for our children. Yet, by our own actions and lifestyles, and through the demands that we place on our educational institutions, it is clear that by "best" we all-too-often mean . most." This shift from the qualitative to the quantitative, fi7om thinking about what is best for the holistic development of the individual human being to thinking about which resources should be available to serni-monopoly governmental educational institutions certainly does not bear close scrutiny. Shouldn't we also ask ourselves what the consequences are of scrambling to provide the "most" of everything to our children in a world of fast-dwindling resources? What does the mad and often brutally competitive scramble for resources-for more pay for teachers, for more equipment, for more money for schools-teach our children about us? More crucially, what message does this mad scramble send to those children who, through no fault of their own, lose out in the competition? And what would be the cost to the social fabric if our children's convictions were based on their experience? (Perhaps we are already paying the cost of the development of such convictions, however poorly articulated, in the forms of violence, chemical dependency, teenage pregnancy, and a host of other social fils affecting today's young people?) Eclectic, engaging, and not readily pigeon-holed, John Taylor Gatto's thinking forces us to re-examine some of our most cherished assumptions in the light of his and his students'day-to-day experience. He provides few ready made solutions or optimistic answers for the future of our schools. What he does provide through the example of his twenty-six years of teaching is first a commitment to providing quality options to the poor and disadvantaged, who are most in need of them, and second conscienticization so that at least his students come to some critical understanding of what is being done to them in the name of "schooling." Gatto's vision of our social order may be bleak, but It also provides at least a ray of hope in the example and idea that free-thinking and critically aware indviduals, freely united in newly reconstructed communities can correct social Ills and lead us toward a future truly worth living in. Because we share the conviction that this is both desirable and possible, we at New Society Publishers are proud to publish Dumbing Us DowrL - David H. Albert for New Society Publishers 13 June 1991

by **rain** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 3:58 pm

Nice find. Thank you. and can I just say. I'm not an American, but that very much reflects the process that happened here (Australia). Globalisation indeed.

by **timboucher** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:13 pm

Is it just me, or is anybody else tired of the constant arguing over stuff that goes on not only here on this board, but pretty much everywhere we try to talk about hard issues? I mean, I'm 100% as guilty of it as anybody else, but I'm really trying to scale back on it, cause it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. It feels like everybody's just hurling arguments into the wind. Is there another way to do this besides: Attack/Defend/Counter-Attack? It just seems to go on and on. I'm not saying let's not talk about stuff, but it seems like every time I come over to check out this board, everybody is going nuts, screaming at the top of their lungs. Nobody seems to recognize that we're all emotionally charged, we're all deeply concerned and involved. And that's what matters - not that we agree on the specifics, but that we're having the conversation in the first place. Anyway, I don't mean to be preachy, and I'm sure somebody will try to "flame" me for even saying any of this. But I mean, I can't even bring myself to sit here and read through everybody's arguments as they just get more and more shrill.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:15 pm

You asked "How would you propose to plug the leaky bucket?" My use of that metaphor directly relates to the conditions prevailing under the Zero Tolerance Drug Prohibition War. My answer is quite direct, and the only method that will work- legalizing and regulating the trade. It wan't a statement directed at the public education system, but by the social-legal milieu in which it's presently forced to operate. "As for "easy money", there is no doubt there will be drug dealers so long as drugs are illegal and there is a demand for them, but smart, targeted funding could eventually reduce their numbers by eliminating some of the despair that leads people to use drugs." Sunny, I don't want to harsh on you, but that's liberal claptrap. "Smart, targeted funding"? I've witnessed the Federal budget for the War On Drugs grow from around $200 million annually to over $18 billion annually, over the last 35 years or so. That's a 90-fold increase. The conservatives want to punish everyone out of their behavior; the liberals want to "treat" "the despair that leads people to use drugs." But most people don't use illegal drugs because of "despair"! That's a false premise that leads to an unproductive cycle of reasoning. Most people don't drink alcohol because of despair, either. They don't gamble out of despair. They don't eat chocolate cake out of despair. They don't buy fast speedboats and jump waves out of despair. They do these things because they want to, as a result of a personal decision. It's rewarding behavior, for them. Some people get into trouble with drugs and alcohol and gambling- and overeating, for that matter. I'd like to help such people out, but there are practical limits to what State power or Government funding can do in that regard. And the absolute worst thing the State can do in that regard is criminalizing the behavior, and creating an illegal market. "Caveat: I know my outlook is rather "sunny";unfortunately,the things I propose in this thread simply represent my fondest wishes, and I don't have much hope these things will actually come to pass." That's a common predicament in regard to this issue. It's what decent people are left with as long as they persist in thinkng inside the box of perpetuating the illegal drug economy by maintaining the status quo of the Drug War. The cliche that often keeps liberal mnds thinking inside of that box is the dire admonition that "legalizing drugs would be genocide in poor communities." Nonsense, patronizing and ignorant to boot. Study after study has shown that drug use and abuse varies much less between ethnicities and classes than is generally supposed. Using the broad criteria of ethnicity, class, and age-what's the population with the highest rate of drug use? White, middle class baby boomers. More specifically, the population with the perhaps the highest rates of illegal drug usage: Medical students. "Despair." Yeah, right. The most pernicious effect of illegal drugs in impoverished communities is not illegal drug USAGE. It is the existence of the illegal drug MARKETS- in particular, the organized street retail trade. And that's a problem that will never be solved with little frilly half-measures. Repeal of Zero Tolerance Prohibition and repleacement with rational drug reform will be the only thing that works. I "don't have much hope that these things will come to pass" in the near term, myself. But I'm not caught in a dither, looking for lost keys in the same places over and over. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/27/05 2:24 pm

by **robertdreed** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:17 pm

You asked "How would you propose to plug the leaky bucket?" My use of that metaphor directly relates to the conditions prevailing under the Zero Tolerance Drug Prohibition War. My answer is quite direct, and the only method that will work- legalizing and regulating the trade. It wan't a statement directed at the public education system, but by the social-legal milieu in which it's presently forced to operate. "As for "easy money", there is no doubt there will be drug dealers so long as drugs are illegal and there is a demand for them, but smart, targeted funding could eventually reduce their numbers by eliminating some of the despair that leads people to use drugs." Sunny, I don't want to harsh on you, but that's liberal claptrap. "Smart, targeted funding"? I've witnessed the Federal budget for the War On Drugs grow from around $200 million annually to over $18 billion annually, over the last 35 years or so. That's a 90-fold increase. The conservatives want to punish everyone out of their behavior; the liberals want to "treat" "the despair that leads people to use drugs." But most people don't use illegal drugs because of "despair"! That's a false premise that leads to an unproductive cycle of reasoning. Most people don't drink alcohol because of despair, either. They don't gamble out of despair. They don't eat chocolate cake out of despair. They don't buy fast speedboats and jump waves out of despair. They do these things because they want to, as a result of a personal decision. It's rewarding behavior, for them. Some people get into trouble with drugs and alcohol and gambling- and overeating, for that matter. I'd like to help such people out, but there are practical limits to what State power or Government funding can do in that regard. And the absolute worst thing the State can do in that regard is criminalizing the behavior, and creating an illegal market. "Caveat: I know my outlook is rather "sunny";unfortunately,the things I propose in this thread simply represent my fondest wishes, and I don't have much hope these things will actually come to pass." That's a common predicament in regard to this issue. It's what decent people are left with as long as they persist in thinkng inside the box of perpetuating the illegal drug economy by maintaining the status quo of the Drug War. The cliche that often keeps liberal mnds thinking inside of that box is the dire admonition that "legalizing drugs would be genocide in poor communities." Nonsense, patronizing and ignorant to boot. Study after study has shown that drug use and abuse varies much less between ethnicities and classes than is generally supposed. Using the broad criteria of ethnicity, class, and age-what's the population with the highest rate of drug use? White, middle class baby boomers. More specifically, the populations with the perhaps the highest rates of illegal drug usage: Medical students. "Despair." Yeah, right. The most pernicious effect of illegal drugs in impoverished communities is not illegal drug USAGE. It is the existence of the illegal drug MARKETS- in particular, the organized street retail trade. And that's a problem that will never be solved with little frilly half-measures. Repeal of Zero Tolerance Prohibition and replacement with rational drug reform will be the only thing that works. I "don't have much hope that these things will come to pass" in the near term, myself. But I'm not caught in a dither, looking for lost keys in the same old places over and over, while things continue to slide.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:20 pm

please delete one of my posts above, it's entirely too lengthy for a repeat.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:25 pm

I like it. I think it's groovy. In retrospect, I think that one of the worst parts of my public high school education was the flabby way that people were expected to debate- go into a clinch, get separated into neutral corners, end debate, forget about it. The fact that both sides were too young to grasp the issues didn't help, of course. I think the Internet is a peerless forum for intellectual dispute, because records are kept. Every well-articulated point is on display. So is every employment of logical fallacy. I love simply to lurk and note how things develop. Often, the results are very clear-cut. Above all, no one can use a six-gun to beat four aces. Notwithstanding all the complaints I've heard on various forums about the "harshness" of Internet debate... Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/27/05 2:45 pm

by **Avalon** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:45 pm

I don't like it, and I don't think it's groovy. Some people here have stated this is debate. A pissing contest. Somebody wins, somebody loses, you try to show your side has better ideas than the other side. Other people are here for dialogue. For the opportunity to exchange information, opinion, and experiences with other posters, in the hopes that we all come away with new ideas that will help us deal with the issues that confront us in the wider world. It's a real old story -- loud and angry always trumps respectful and thoughtful on the Internet. No way thoughtful conversation can stand up to someone determined to keep stirring up shit and pushing buttons. Lot of people are shut out of the conversation when social darwinism is the rule. Forum owners always have to make that choice, and either choice will garner criticism. Do they want unfettered "free" speech, at the cost of losing the posters who don't want to come down to the lowest common denominator? Or do they make some decisions about what kinds of personal attacks and expressed bigotry are unacceptable on the forum?

by **sunny** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:55 pm

we're all emotionally charged, we're all deeply concerned and involved. And that's what matters - not that we agree on the specifics, but that we're having the conversation in the first place. I think it's groovy, too, and don't mean to come across as shrill, not at all! I am deeply grateful to be able to talk with people who think about the same issues as I do- something I am rarely able to do here in "actual reality", given where I live and all.  The most pernicious effect of illegal drugs in impoverished communities is not illegal drug USAGE. It is the existence of the illegal drug MARKETS Well, good grief, Robert, aren't drug MARKETS full of drug USERS? And good old common sense tells us that despair is a big part of why inner city youth use drugs, given the condition of their lives- it's the medical students, surburban middle class kids, etc. who are using out of choice. Having said that, the drug war is a disgrace and a disaster perpetrated on us in order to neutralize "undesirables" in our society by rendering them dysfunctional and then incarcerating them. In fact, I am enough of a libertarian to propose legalizing all drugs and defanging this monstrosity. So there! P.S.- When I'm depressed, chocolate cake is pretty fucking good!

by **heath7** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:57 pm

Their both fun, but brain-storming/discussion is the only way toward furthering understanding of the broader picture. Debate is rarely worth more than the inherent theatrics.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 4:58 pm

"It's a real old story -- loud and angry always trumps respectful and thoughtful on the Internet." Always? No, it doesn't. "No way thoughtful conversation can stand up to someone determined to keep stirring up shit and pushing buttons. " Sure it can. simply ignore, and work around the problem. I'll concede that some formats are friendlier than others, in this regard. I'm a partisan for WebEx, which has a page format rather than endless scrolling, as well as a search function. But under no circumstances have I ever felt that I've been trapped by someone screaming a tirade at me. After all, I have a scroll mouse. "Lot of people are shut out of the conversation when social darwinism is the rule. " I'm not sure what to make of this. Compared to "Crossfire", or a political "debate" in a bar? The format of the Internet is inherently egalitarian, not "Social Darwinist." Every last poster has as much space as they need to make their argument. It's functionally impossible to literally interrupt someone in the midst of presenting one of their posts. Compared to face-to-face argument, the likelihood of physical confrontation and intimidation is nil. Trolls and people devoid of intelligent argument and commentary give themselves away on the Internet. They can't hide.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Jul 27, 2005 5:04 pm

"Debate is rarely worth more than the inherent theatrics." I don't see how anyone gets to the "brainstorming/discussion" part without winnowing the chaff. Putting up with nonsense is intellectually weak. Pretending to put up with nonsense for the sake of some imagined "consensus" is morally weak. I want to make special note here that my opening comment in this topic wasn't disputatious in the slightest degree. I honestly didn't plan to say more, until my comment was challenged. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 7/27/05 3:10 pm

Obsessing About Conspiracy

Piss or Illich

re: chiming in

Obsessing About Conspiracy

re: chiming in ...

Starman does it again.

into the wind

sunny...

Re: sunny...

Jeff...

Dispute and heated commentary on the Internet

works for some, shuts out others

Re: sunny...

Re: works for some, shuts out others

I disagree

Re: I disagree

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