Now, I’m wondering who that sort of faux patience, of condescension coupled with untroubled certainty of correctness, reminds me of?

I’m going to guess somewhere between second and fifth grade?

If the kids are any younger then that you’ve got to be pretty warped to not feel guilty playing with the heads like that and much older and their pride at being treated so disrespectfully is liable to kick in.

A nice case in point for the reason “pedantic” isn’t used in a complimentary fashion.

In honor of U.S. Independence Day, print out copies of the U.S. Constitution and all 27 Amendments (you can find some succinct, small font copies online with a Google search or two) to your classroom of K-12 or college students, regardless of what class you teach. Then ask them, “How many of you have already read this?” and see how many hands go up.

Then, tell your students that the copies were just for fun, and just for them to enjoy, no strings attached. When class is over, go into the bathroom and cry for our country. Repeat.

Allen, apparently you missed the bit where I said:

Most schools do try to teach their students how to read and write, thus giving the successful student access to other ideas, they expose them to intellectual ideas, they put forward some explanations of the world around them. My explanation of the phenomena that I see is that this process is enough to start some of the students thinking for themselves.

Oh, and the intentions of the founders of the American public education system, and every other public education system, most assuredly do matter.

Quite possibly. My argument was the limited one that, whatever the intentions of those who set up public education, public education is not effective at molding kids to do the state’s bidding. There are of course a million other ways in which the intentions of the founders could matter, I do not deny that.

You can cavalierly assert that what those old fogies did back then has no relevance today but that’d be a display of your own naiveté.

Jolly lucky for me I didn’t make such an assertion then, isn’t it? My claim was not that what those people did back then had no relevance today, my claim is a much narrower claim that public education is not effective at molding kids to do the state’s bidding.

What was decided back then is what’s largely in effect today …

And of course many of the cases I quoted of independent thinkers arising from schools are historical – for example the Civil Rights movement really took off in the 1950s (though there were movemeents before then), the gay rights movement started in the 1970s, the feminist movement came in two waves, the late 19th century/early 20th, and then the 1960s, the IT entrepreneurs started arising in the 1970s, etc. So if what was decided back then is what is largely in effect today then I would not be surprised to see a continual process of new independent thinkers arising from the public education system.

and you can prove it to yourself by boldly proclaiming a policy that the school board or administration thinks is within their area of responsibility.

I await, with interest, for you to explain the relevance of this statement. I don’t even see how it follows from the first half of your sentence. What’s the connection between what was put into effect in the past, and the power of the school board or administration today? I find it quite plausible that a school board or administration could have more power on what is put in place today than I have, and yet also be doing something very different to what was decided back at the foundation of the school system. Your proposed test does not strike me as a good one in support of your claim, nor does it strike me as very relevant to my argument.

Obviousness is not a good guide to reality.

All obvious examples to the contrary notwithstanding.

Yes, I should have added that in in the first place. It does not however alter my main point – just because something seems “obvious” doesn’t mean that it is right in reality.

Try not to injure yourself coming up with specious examples in support of the silly idea that the way to encourage independence of thought is by suppressing independence of thought.

Thank you for your concern about my state of health, I would prefer however if you devoted your kind thoughts to pointing out flaws in my actual arguments, if you can find any. My argument is that the process of education fails to suppress independence of thought, regardless of the intention of the educators. Your argument here appears to be one that is true merely by defintion, yes, if you suppress independence of thought then by definition you are doing the opposite of encouraging it. True, but why should I care? My argument is that public schooling, if it also teaches kids how to read and exposes them to ideas, encourages independence of thought, *despite* the intentions of the educator.

By the way, I’m still waiting for something besides repeated assertions that lengthy, childhood exposure to authoritarianism is the way to teach independence of thought. Not the occasional exception who manages to resist the crushing of independence by an institution for whom children are merely grist for the mill but the inculcation of habits of independent thinking bolstered by a decent education.

The Civil Rights Movement, the feminist movement, the gay rights movemement, the mass protests against Communism were not made up of simply occasional exceptions.

And the history of medieval monarchies implies that in the absence of an education system we get less independence of thought, implying that public education does not, en masse, crush independence.

We may want to reform education to encourage even more independent thinking, all I am responding to here is the implied argument of tim-10-ber that “Public education is about molding the kids to do the state’s bidding …. ” Molding kids to do the state’s bidding may be what public education is intended to do, but it’s not, as far as I can tell, what public education actually does.

All you’ve done so far is repeatedly assert that the public education system fosters independence of thought without giving any indication of how that miracle occurs.

Oh, and the intentions of the founders of the American public education system, and every other public education system, most assuredly do matter.

They set the foundation for the institution and it’s on that foundation that all subsequent developments are based. You can cavalierly assert that what those old fogies did back then has no relevance today but that’d be a display of your own naiveté. What was decided back then is what’s largely in effect today and you can prove it to yourself by boldly proclaiming a policy that the school board or administration thinks is within their area of responsibility. We’ll see who has the last word on that.

Obviousness is not a good guide to reality.

All obvious examples to the contrary notwithstanding.

Try not to injure yourself coming up with specious examples in support of the silly idea that the way to encourage independence of thought is by suppressing independence of thought. The resulting injury might be beyond the powers of medicine to put right.

By the way, I’m still waiting for something besides repeated assertions that lengthy, childhood exposure to authoritarianism is the way to teach independence of thought. Not the occasional exception who manages to resist the crushing of independence by an institution for whom children are merely grist for the mill but the inculcation of habits of independent thinking bolstered by a decent education.

That would be the type of education in which knowing where the Atlantic Ocean resides isn’t a tough question.

I have nothing to say about the motives of those who set up public education. All I am saying about is the *effects*.

If independence of thought arose from rigid regimentation then I’d have expected galley slaves to be literary lions and the gold mines at Kolima to have been the source of independent thought rather then the place independent thinkers were sent for the sin of independent thought.

Galleys and gold mines are very different from even the most brain-washing of schools. Most schools do try to teach their students how to read and write, thus giving the successful student access to other ideas, they expose them to intellectual ideas, they put forward some explanations of the world around them. My explanation of the phenomena that I see is that this process is enough to start some of the students thinking for themselves.

If the only people who can read, write …, have spent years in your schools then they’re liable to have a certain fondness, not to mention little recourse, to the organization responsible for their distinctly less distasteful life.

Perhaps, I do not have statistics to hand. But I will point out that Martin Luther, Jan Hus and John Wycliffe were educated by the Catholic church, yet set themseslves up against the Pope’s commands. Maybe people are liable to have a certain fondness for the way of life, but independent thinkers still arise, and they strike me as more commonly people with education.

I have no quarrel with your explanation of why the medieval monarchies did not have a public education system, all I was pointing out was that the medieval monarchies lasted for a long time without being overthrown by the peasants.

Of course independence of thought isn’t what those schools were established to encourage.

And I am not arguing with you over this either. All I am saying is that, regardless of the intention of the schools, they do churn out independent thinkers. Just because you intend something, that doesn’t mean that you get it.

By the way, I’m aware of the collapse of communism and I’ve never maintained that the indoctrination that’s the basis for public education results in certainty of the maintenance of the current regime, just that it’s an obvious thing to do when you’ve got political power; catch ‘em young and train ‘em right.

Obviousness is not a good guide to reality. It’s “obvious” that an object in motion needs to keep being pushed otherwise it will stop. It’s “obvious” that refrigerator mums cause autism. It’s “obvious” that a country’s people all needs to share exactly the same religion for social stability. I can believe that the intent of many people who were involved in setting up public education systems was to maintain the current regime, what I question is the effect.

That doesn’t change the economically inefficient nature of all authoritarian regimes which is why kings are now figureheads and communism is of interest to historians and tenured economics professors.

And the leaders of the movements that caused these change were, as far as I know, all educated.

To repeat myself, I do not dispute your claims about the intention of those who set up public education systems, all I am arguing here is about the effects.

Certainly the public education system doesn’t exemplify independence of thought in the way it’s structured nor the structure it enforces on its charges and employees. If independence of thought arose from rigid regimentation then I’d have expected galley slaves to be literary lions and the gold mines at Kolima to have been the source of independent thought rather then the place independent thinkers were sent for the sin of independent thought.

Medieval monarchies didn’t have a public education system because A) they were too poor, being hardly more then subsistence agriculture economies poorer then which there are hardly any and thus lacking the wealth to forgo all that convenient child labor and the labor of adults to teach the children something and B) they didn’t need them. The intellectual demands of subsistence agriculture aren’t such that a formal, and distinct, education is required. Everything that one needs to know can be acquired on the job, so too write.

Once you’ve got some spare money though a public education system starts to make all sorts of sense.

If the only people who can read, write and do anything more complex then staring at the rear end of an ox most of the day, have spent years in your schools then they’re liable to have a certain fondness, not to mention little recourse, to the organization responsible for their distinctly less distasteful life. Of course independence of thought isn’t what those schools were established to encourage. If, from time to time some disagreeable sort managed to make it through those schools without having their independence of thought pounded out of their heads well, that’s a problem for another day.

By the way, I’m aware of the collapse of communism and I’ve never maintained that the indoctrination that’s the basis for public education results in certainty of the maintenance of the current regime, just that it’s an obvious thing to do when you’ve got political power; catch ‘em young and train ‘em right.

That doesn’t change the economically inefficient nature of all authoritarian regimes which is why kings are now figureheads and communism is of interest to historians and tenured economics professors.

I have several relatives of the class of 1998-2004 era, with advanced degrees. They are IGNORANT. No idea of history, economics, use intuition instead of critical analysis.
Voted for Obama, too. Not surprising.

My wife is a high school Spanish teacher. We noticed that in one textbook map the publishing company had mislaid a major mountain chain. I wrote them a letter and got no reply.

Where would our polity be if the American Government classes inculcated–seriously–the fact that the government has no money but what it takes from you? You’d almost think they wanted it to be a secret.

Nope – groups. For example, the farmers that provide the food that we eat are not self-sufficient. They buy in tools, expertise such as vetinary, resources such as fertilisers, tractors, etc. Back before we had such resources farming was a much more labour-intensive and even more obviously cooperative system.
Gatherers work together, in groups spotting the best places to find resources. Fishers work together with nets, hunters often work together, eg combining to drive animals into nets, developing traps, speicalising in making knifes or arrows.

No one says that these individuals have to be loners; but the intelligence of the herd is dependent on the intelligence of the individuals.

To quote Newton: “If I have seen further than others it is because I have stood on the shoulders of others.” The intelligence of individuals is dependent on the intelligence of other individuals – we take what others have learnt and apply it in our own lives, rather than trying to work everything out from scratch ourselves.

Look at it this way, if you had a brain wipe, how much of your modern knowledge do you think you would be able to recreate? The Ancient Greeks didn’t have long division, is that an evidence of their stupidity, or is our having long division an evidence of the slow accumulation of knowledge over the centuries?

They need to be able to communicate with others – not in txt slang, but in standard English, which, for those who care about these things, all those new immigrants will be working to learn.

And this of course is particularly important if they’re not going to be self-sufficient. I mean, if you’re going to be self-sufficient you can get away with communicating in grunts, but if you’re ever going to get pregnant being able to communicate with other people things like “the baby’s coming!” become much more important.

As for the rest of your points, I don’t see the relevance.

Allen: I’d say it’s more likely that those leaders emerged both diminished and leaders despite the most strenuous efforts of the public education system to render them ignorant and incapable of independent thought.

Quite possibly. My argument is that public education systems, whatever the intentions of their funders, are associated with independent thinkers. For example, medieval monarchies had no public education systems, and maintained themselves in power for centuries. The Peasant Revolt in England was ended when the leaders of the revolt believed the king’s promises (and once they’d laid down their weapons were promptly executed). Cromwell, whatever else you think of him, did not make that mistake. Meanwhile, the Eastern European communist countries had an education system designed amongst other things to maintain the Communist system in power, and yet still their political systems collapsed.

This is rather scanty evidence, I admit, there are many ways in which medieval states varied from Communist ones, but I see no evidence to support the hypothesis that education systems do mold their students to do the state’s bidding, and neither tim-10-ber or you have provided such evidence.