to collect in a mass

Dumbing Us Down: The American Tragedy

livejamie:

“40 Years of dumbing down is the only effective thing our educational system has accomplished! My kids are 21 and 17, and I basically ‘deprogrammed’ them every day after school, talking about the unbelievable things they were being taught! My kids were always one of only one or two ‘critical thinkers’ in each class, who actually questioned some of the things that were being taught. At Parent-Teacher conferences, I got one of two responses: ‘Your kids are disruptive in questioning my authority and interrupting’, or ‘I wish I had more kids like yours, who actually participate and THINK about the subjects!’ Too much of our educational system has been reduced to indocrination by rote memorization of ‘facts’, to the detriment of teaching basic critical thinking skills. Even if your kids are in public (or private!) school, many parents end up essentially home-schooling their kids, due to the dearth of REAL learning that goes on these days. When all they emphasize in school is Math and Science, as they do here in Michigan, all you get is the short shrift on all the other subjects. Also, Federal mandates force curriculums nationwide to follow narrow and sometimes illogically conflicting guidelines that confuse and bore the students, and tie the hands of truly gifted teachers who actually WANT to teach kids how to think. Instead they are reduced to teaching rote regurgitation of facts to build skills for mandated standardized tests. We reap what we sow, and we have been throwing the seeds of our futiure on barren fields, blown by the whirlwinds of ignorance…

- Digg User ‘Xtrabigg’ on Dumbing Us Down: The American Tragedy.

Before watching the video, I was going to suggest that if this subject interests you, you should read the works of John Taylor Gatto.  I decided to watch it, just in case he was mentioned, and he was, though only briefly.  I still suggest reading Gatto’s work if you intend on raising children or are  interested in education reform.  His wikipedia page has links to some of his work.  To get a general idea of where he stands, you might start with his acceptance speech for the New York City Teacher of the Year Award in 1990.  A number of his essays are also linked to from this page.  Pay attention to the author(s) of each essay on that page, as not all of them were written by him.