[paimei01]

Confederacy of Dunces
John Taylor Gatto page
An Underground History of American Education

"Now dumb people aren't just ignorant; they're the victims of the non-thought of secondhand ideas. Dumb people are now well-informed about the opinions of Time magazine and CBS, The New York Times and the President; their job is to choose which pre-thought thoughts, which received opinions, they like best. The élite in this new empire of ignorance are those who know the most pre-thought thoughts.

Mass dumbness is vital to modem society. The dumb person is wonderfully flexible clay for psychological shaping by market research, government policymakers; public-opinion leaders, and any other interest group. The more pre-thought thoughts a person has memorized, the easier it is to predict what choices he or she will make. What dumb people cannot do is think for themselves or ever be alone for very long without feeling crazy. That is the whole point of national forced schooling; we aren't supposed to be able to think for ourselves because independent thinking gets in the way of "professional" think-ing, which is believed to follow rules of scientific precision."

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"The new dumbness - the non thought of received ideas - is much more dangerous than simple ignorance, because it's really about thought control. In school, a washing away of the innate power of individual mind takes place, a "cleansing" so comprehensive that original thinking becomes difficult. If you don't believe this development was part of the intentional design of schooling, you should read William Torrey Harris's The Philosophy of Education. Harris was the U.S. Commissioner of Education at the turn of the century and the man most influential in standardizing our schools. Listen to the man.

"Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred," writes Harris, "are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom." This is not all accident, Harris explains, but the "result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual." Scientific education subsumes the individual until his or her behavior becomes robotic. Those are the thoughts of the most influential U.S. Commissioner of Education we've had so far. "

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Also search for "Stanford Experiment". You can also see what "educated" people who were good citizens in their own country did at Abu Ghraib. There are thousands of other examples. The Nazis, the Milgram Experiment .

What people who were not given the chance develop themselves and think for themselves do, when they get some freedom from supervision, from law. They can't be what we call "good" people without authority. They never learned it - and this cannot be taught, it has to come from one's own experience. Experience which is denied to them as children. By everyone around them. Parents, teachers - the system. The system itself maintained by the same robots repeating what they have been told.

"Do not look at the finger or you will miss the Moon". A teacher can only point the way. Then let the student develop his own thinking. Modern schools fill people with information and do not create the environment for them to think for themselves. As free humans. Children waste their lives sitting in a room. Never really learning to be responsible for themselves.

Some videos :
YouTube - John Taylor Gatto: Schooling is not Education - Part 1
YouTube - John Taylor Gatto - State Controlled Consciousness

I am not against learning, I am against "formal education".
Children are not "antisocial" or "lazy". Our schools and society make them to be like that.

I remember as a child doing stuff - which now seems to be as a lot of "work". Building stuff, at one time I even liked solving math problems. But hated homework. Outside of school I did lots of things - but if any of these would have been "taught" at school suddenly they would have become very boring. Liked to read - but hated anything the school gave me to read.

Children like to experiment, to find out stuff . There are no "stupid children". That is a modern myth. Just bored to death by this "education".

I remember how excited I was at school when we entered the chemistry lab. But we only did experiments when the teacher allowed us to. And boredom ruled again. At least 8 years of a child's life spent in a room where he is always told what to do and never allowed even to move from his seat.

That is brainwashing. Conditioned to obey. Taught not to think for yourself. Because if you think - you say :"what am I doing here ?". But you can't leave. So you give up thinking. Accept the situation. Forget you are a free human - if you ever had the chance to know you are.

Milgram experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b] Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority

[essex]

Good stuff, as a teacher for 37 years teaching a wide range of subjects, I told our son to get out of school as fast as he could. He's 22 now and will complete his Masters of Fine Arts this year, after having worked last year in Korea. I taught him how to think. Pity the owners of this web site who are fanatical AGW believers weren't " taught" by Gatto.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'G')ood stuff, as a teacher for 37 years teaching a wide range of subjects, I told our son to get out of school as fast as he could. He's 22 now and will complete his Masters of Fine Arts this year, after having worked last year in Korea. I taught him how to think. Pity the owners of this web site who are fanatical AGW believers weren't " taught" by Gatto.

[essex]

Tut, tut, twilliam
maybe this clown is your mentor.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/image ... .10.09.pdf

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'T')ut, tut, twilliam
maybe this clown is your mentor.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/image ... .10.09.pdf

[essex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')william, that is good stuff from Gatto. I too have concluded that modern schooling is designed to create capital functionaries. Previously public school molded industrial assembly line and shift workers, and now it produces 'consumers.'

Essex, that we are destroying the planet's ability to sustain us should be obvious to any educated person. Whether you agree with GCC nor not, you must admit that extracting, burning, and using precious resources like there is no tomorrow is not a good thing. Correct?

[essex]

"I can't imagine how curbing such behavior could be any worse. I know I do my part already. Do you?"

That website to stop the destruction of a landscape, people's lives , a water supply and a nature reserve is mine. The project is touted as the answer to catastrophic global warming. It doesn't take a genius with a BS meter to lance the latter. The " rent seekers" and carbon traders are out in force and they are meeting stiff opposition. BTW NZ is experiencing its coldest winter in 20 years.

Next question.

[Windmills]

It didn't take much to derail this topic, did it?

As for education, I think Gatto waxes a little nutty now and again, but he's also not lacking for good points. However, it isn't always a grand conspiracy against intellect that destroys our educational system, sometimes it's just plain old greed. A good example of that is in teaching reading. What was once a simple process that took perhaps a year has, since the 1930s, somehow become a life-long endeavor. That's when phonics-based teaching was replaced by whole language methods, sight reading, or eclectic crap. The whole-language advocates are backed by publishers that promote such a reading system. The only reason is money. They make a lot of money selling huge piles of textbooks to schools, whereas phonics education doesn't require anywhere near as much in materials and costs. All the biggests proponents of whole language in our schools are on publishing company payrolls, not surprisingly. It's been clearly demonstrated repeatedly for perhaps 80 years straight that research based systematic phonics beats the crap out of whole language, but it's not about science. It's about the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. Hence, the decades-long dominance of a flawed reading system in our schools. I doubt this is the only example of making profits taking precendence over quality education.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', '[')color=#0000FF]"I can't imagine how curbing such behavior could be any worse. I know I do my part already. Do you?"[/color]

That website to stop the destruction of a landscape, people's lives , a water supply and a nature reserve is mine. The project is touted as the answer to catastrophic global warming. It doesn't take a genius with a BS meter to lance the latter. The " rent seekers" and carbon traders are out in force and they are meeting stiff opposition. BTW NZ is experiencing its coldest winter in 20 years.

Next question.

[essex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', '[')color=#0000FF]"I can't imagine how curbing such behavior could be any worse. I know I do my part already. Do you?"[/color]

That website to stop the destruction of a landscape, people's lives , a water supply and a nature reserve is mine. The project is touted as the answer to catastrophic global warming. It doesn't take a genius with a BS meter to lance the latter. The " rent seekers" and carbon traders are out in force and they are meeting stiff opposition. BTW NZ is experiencing its coldest winter in 20 years.

Next question.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', '[')color=#0000FF]"I can't imagine how curbing such behavior could be any worse. I know I do my part already. Do you?"[/color]

That website to stop the destruction of a landscape, people's lives , a water supply and a nature reserve is mine. The project is touted as the answer to catastrophic global warming. It doesn't take a genius with a BS meter to lance the latter. The " rent seekers" and carbon traders are out in force and they are meeting stiff opposition. BTW NZ is experiencing its coldest winter in 20 years.

Next question.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', 'H')owever, it isn't always a grand conspiracy against intellect that destroys our educational system, sometimes it's just plain old greed.

[paimei01]

Making children sit in a chair - under threat is evil. "Discipline" ? What is that ? Tribal children - never beaten, educate, forced to do anything, how come they don't all become lazy or "antisocial" ? Because their nature is not "lazy" or "antisocial" and they do not need "discipline". They need freedom to develop, to test the world around by themselves.

Read "The Continuum Concept". The author describes some tribe in Venezuela - a child age 11 was free to decide for himself where to go, to stay with her and the crew or whatever. Even if that meant going some 3 days alone with them, nobody forced his will on him. His destiny was his own. That's how you build self trust - by having the freedom to do things on your own. As a child. That's how I know I gained self trust. Later as an "educated", molded, broken , brainwashed adult is much harder. You need psychotherapy and stuff.



How school should be : you have the teacher (who knows something from everything, only at college level you have separate teachers). Children go to school and sit where they like. Nobody says anything if they go outside and play. (A playground somewhere in nature would be best).

But children are curious. So at first the teacher will tell them stories, even teaching them history and stuff about our world - but in the form of a story. Then he can show them other stuff, to read, to calculate, and let them freely experiment with it. They stay at school as long as they like. And I am sure they would want to stay there They will make friends there, they can play or do interesting stuff. Free. (By free I mean free to come and go as they chose) . All their friends will be at "School" playing - learning new stuff, I am sure the social and curious nature of children will make them want to be there.

Then the teacher starts telling them about everything : math, biology, chemistry and so on. Gives them books to read. Let's them chose what they like.
No grades, no tests, no schedule. Children can compete among themselves - only if they want to.

How long does school last ? As long as a child wants to. Then there will be "college" , after a child has chosen (if he has chosen) something he likes, and after he read some books about it, he goes to the university he wants. Here things are much more specialized - but he has the same freedom. Yes - simple freedom to sit anywhere, go anywhere, and come and go as he pleases. In the middle of the class. This is freedom. This forms character, to be able to decide for yourself. Not freedom like "sit here or there, but sit, do not dare to say you leave !". That is molding, and it's evil. To make the child feel he is too stupid to decide such a simple thing on his own. To make him doubt himself and make him ready to accept whatever he is told by "the smarter people above"

In the end this "education" will produce anything but the worker consumer of today. Will probably produce a modern tribe, and a gift economy , no boss - servant relations, but that's something else.

[Cloud9]

Guys look at the history of public education. It was by design to produce good citizens. The intent was to grab the scruffy street urchins and turn them into productive citizens. The goal was the same whether you were in Pittsburg or Petersburg.

[paimei01]

"Good citizens" = good slaves. Because the society is a slave society so you can only be a good slave no matter how good you are at fitting in this.

"Street people" = people who did not fit in. In a non slave society there are no people that can't "fit in". There is nothing to fit in. Except the natural stuff : don't start killing people around you.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('paimei01', '&')quot;Good citizens" = good slaves. Because the society is a slave society so you can only be a good slave no matter how good you are at fitting in this.

"Street people" = people who did not fit in. In a non slave society there are no people that can't "fit in". There is nothing to fit in. Except the natural stuff : don't start killing people around you.

[paimei01]

How do I "miss the plot" ? I see where it all starts. Was not always this way. The top of the pyramid has a gift economy, cares nothing about formal laws - and does not allow the bottom to adopt these things. It is true that if all laws and police would disappear we would be more like Somalia than the Sioux. So there is kind of nothing to do except inform people.

[AgentR]

Addressing the original post here...

I don't watch most youtubes posted here, but from what you've quoted, it appears to me that Gatto has also placed artificial constraints upon what a free mind might choose or not choose. Namely, an assumption that anyone with a free mind would choose to reject the current, prevalent social structure. I think this is in serious error. A free mind, by definition, may choose whatever purposes and desires it might wish; and those purposes and desires may be very well served by the existing social structure. A free mind may prefer physical comfort over boisterous protest. A free mind may prefer working with concrete to working with words or art. In essence, what you quote seems to indicate that Gatto would reference someone as an example of a free mind, only if they "freely" choose to pursue the style of life that Gatto would prefer them to choose.