Let me speak to you about dumbness because that is what schools teach best.
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CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES: THE TYRANNY OF COMPULSORY SCHOOLINGby John Taylor Gattosample quotes:
"Twelve years of arbitrary punishment and reward in the confinement of a classroom is ample time to condition any child to believe that he who wields red pen-power is the true parent, and they who control the buzzers must be gods ( Read more... )
CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES: THE TYRANNY OF COMPULSORY SCHOOLINGby John Taylor Gattosample quotes:
"Twelve years of arbitrary punishment and reward in the confinement of a classroom is ample time to condition any child to believe that he who wields red pen-power is the true parent, and they who control the buzzers must be gods ( Read more... )
this I mean. Heh.
Don't mean to be primarily defensive
about my parenting. Trying to
use it as the experience of
these ideas that I have had.
Hey I can't be objective where
you are concerned. Heh.
As usual I think Gatto only has
a piece of the picture (blind
men and elephant, eh?).
The compulsory education as indoctrination and
even harmful action. I believe he's
right about that. And it is an important
part of the elephant of the overall problem.
My take on that section you are looking at
is that he is saying we don't actually
have an educated class in the U.S.A.
We have an indoctrinated class.
And no "public" in the meaning of public
that Jefferson probably had in mind
with educate the people (public)
and they can govern themselves.
Gatto is committing the old
false dichotomy dance
to pit poor education against homelessness.
Good grief they are both problems.
FWIW I always understood that one
needed to clothe and feed someone
before they're going to have much
interest in imagination and learning.
So if one prioritizes, hungry, homeless
and sick people are more immediately
important in a triage sense.
I also think he has that Nazi thing
in the background: educated people go
stark raving mad
and create really evil actions.
"Improving the quality of life in
America" is too big a question for
me. Public discussion is so fucked up
and the education piece once again
is only part of it.
Whew!
"Evil Technology" and "entertainment
as the ultimate value" are hard on
the heels of "bad education" as far
destroying the idea of struggling
to be human.
Harper Lee recently commented
(in Oprah Magazine no less!)
"she has clung to books even
when others carry 'laptops,
cell phones, iPods and minds
like empty rooms.
Laptops, cell phones and ipods
don't have to be "like empty
rooms." But often they seem
to be.
Right now I am finding a great
deal of solace in technology
(internet, recording). But at
the same time I spend a good
amount of time with books.
My reading abilities are the
best they have ever been.
which means they have improved
and it is rewarding and helpful.
But so is the internet.
I do think that institutions
have their own set of problems
no matter what. It seems
that if we "start an institute"
(Paul Simon song), at the second
meeting we begin wondering
how to keep it going.
Pretty soon that's the
raison d'etre for the institution,
to perpetuate itself by any
means necessary:
to make more money,
to make more teachers and accredited students,
to make more christians,
you name it...
but to do these things in order
to keep the institution alive.
I don't know the answer of course.
But I guess I think it matters
how we live. However I have
little idea of how we should live
as a tribe of not so hairy apes.
(humanity).
This is getting deep. Heh.
far out, dude
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I guess what I object to is that Gatto's recommendation of being a saboteur just isn't helpful. Macho talk. (And typical of our society -- punished for not following the rules and then finally revered for bucking the system. I find that SO frustrating.) What the fuck am I suppose to do? Without his incredible charisma, how am I suppose to get my wife elected to the school board to punish my enemies? Maybe I should just live in the woods and go the library once a week?
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