An Englishman in New England

Can we talk about education? Specifically, let's talk about high school. I think it'd be pretty accurate to say that high school for you, and my english equivalent 4th, 5th and 6th form, was a significantly traumatic soul-crushing experience. Each of us thought it was just us, that we didn't fit in, that we weren't cool enough to hang with the popular crowd, and wondered why so much importance was placed on numbing assignments. "If you don't get a good grade, you won't go to college, and you'll fail in life" - sound familiar?

Well get a load of this guy.

What a fascinating and lucid article. This teacher, Mr. John Taylor Gatto, lays out for the reader six lessons that high school is really designed to impart, including 'Know Your Place', and 'Do Not Rock the Boat'. Having become sickened as an accomplice to this subjugation of the masses, he quit, and now tours the lecture circuit advocating his 'Guerilla Curriculum', which emphasizes critical thinking, self-directed study, and community service, a la the teachings of Plato and Socrates.

Of particular interest to me: "A future is rushing down upon our culture which will insist that all of us learn the wisdom of non-material experience; this future will demand, as the price of survival, that we follow a pace of natural life economical in material cost. These lessons cannot be learned in schools as they are."

Now goto http://www.johntitor.com. Read that entire damn site - I don't care how long it takes you. Coincidence? Or perhaps the dwindling alert among us are seeing the concequences of our lifestyle that we are yet to encounter.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to read his book "Dumbing Us Down". Ask me about it in a few weeks. . .