How Our Schools create sheeple and Why most Americans

[Stew225]

are unable to perceive and protest America's slide into fascism.

>>snip

The question on the minds of many people with consciences who are so aghast at the sudden savagry of the new terror-based policies of the U.S. goverment is how has the American public so silently and willingly acquiesced to the dishonest and murderous attitudes of George W. Bush and his criminal oil cartel.

The reason Bush has been able to get away with lie after lie in his drive to obliterate our Constitution and install himself as dictator of the world is our public school system. What they did to all of us is directly related to what is happening now in the world.<<

The essay by John Kaminski goes on to reference Gatto, author of "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling".

I am obsessed with researching the ignorance of the American people especially relative to why Bush would have an acceptance rating in even double figures despite his blatant insanity. I found the article in a Yahoo search on the internet using the keyword "sheeple".

www.rense.com/general33/sheeple.htm

[teach1st]

1. Gatto makes some great points...

As always, Gatto makes great points. But not all schools are as bad as Gatto paints them.

I would love to see schooling's structure change, but in the meantime, creative and aware teachers can do much to ease the ills that Gatto writes about.

I can tell you with some confidence, that the kids I see aren't sheep and do think for themselves. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I think we have to go further than the schools.

[checks-n-balances]

4. As a public school teacher, I take issue with that point of view and I'm

suspicious of that type of criticism. I do believe that our culture has been dumbed down drastically for the past 25 years or so, but I don't think the public schools are any more to blame than the culture. My 2 beefs with public education are that:

1. They need to add critical thinking somewhere into the curriculum, and

2. They are drastically underfunded (not THEIR fault!)

I'm MUCH more alarmed at the sheeple who are being formed within the at the hands of fundamentalists who run their private schools and who home school their kids.

Lots of people are critical of public schools to sway public opinion to favor tax cuts and to justify the spending cuts that finance them.

[salvorhardin]

2. Open wide and swallow

This is a phrase one of my math teachers (also one of the best) in high school used over and over. "Don't think about this now, just open wide and swallow." While at the time I thought he meant that while none of the stuff he was teaching at the moment would make any sense, if we just learned the procedures we'd see later on how it all came together. That was his method of teaching. These days, I wonder if he didn't have another meaning in mind.

[Nite Owl]

3. I was a teacher and so was my husband and

you are right. Much of the typical school experience is rote learning and studying to score well on standardized tests. Little time can be given to letting the natural instincts of the child to explore and learn blossom. We homeschooled our sons at first for medical reasons but as teachers we saw things happening and knew that the school experience would crush the independent thought and creativity that was happening. The whole movement is now taken over by right wingers that do no more than try to imitate the worse parts of the system. Do a google on John Holt. Our sons are now both in college and though this was their first school experience they are doing very well. Their professors see that difference in them.

[LittleApple81]

5. Hmmmm I could not have homeschooled my children. You need

not only love but discipline and I don't have a lot of the latter. Our schools are not "great" by any means but we did compensate at home by having a family life, reading books, traveling and NOT HAVING A TV at all for 21 years (the best decision we ever made). My two kids (and you can tell I am so proud of them) are not cookie cutter: very involved, very smart, citizens of the world.

[Nite Owl]

7. No tv is a real biggie!

They watched public tv, Discover channel. For a while when they got older they were real upset at all the cartoons and stuff they missed. Past few years though the conversation goes to did you catch such and such on the History channel? School can be real good if parents are aware and are involved like you but most aren't. As teachers we got the line all the time from parents that they payed their taxes and teachers should take care the education. My husband even had a father refuse to let his son do any homework because it should all be done in school. (Upper middle class school district on LI.)

[camby]

6. The schools can't take all the blame for dumbing down

Part of it is a culture that looks upon intellectuals as "girlie" men (of course, intellectual women are useless, that goes without saying). Part of it is a cynicism about government that had its genesis in the Vietnam/Watergate era - this cynicism has led to apathy.

[oscar111]

8. "free enterprise" course - how nationwide?

Is it in every state?
I have only heard of it , did not sit in a class of it.

We had a different course back then, but same idea generally.

How many similar RW courses does the avg. student get ?

[bleedingheart]

11. agreed and part of it is the "get rich quick" theme

which basically throws any long term study out the window.

[MichiganVote]

9. If you think education is expensive

try ignorance. Public schools aren't supposed to do it all. If you want more for your kids or kids in general, teach them what you want them to learn yourself or volunteer time with them in other areas.

Research to determine a specified social outcome is a whole lot more complicated than pointing at one entity.

What you deem as ignorance, r.e. "why Bush would have an acceptance rating in even double figures despite his blatant insanity" I call denial. And denial cuts across all classes or conditions.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. When I used to be a substitute teacher, I'd go in and tell the kids not to

believe what was in their textbooks, to ask questions, to read other books, to find out what the school doesn't have time to tell them.

I don't think I could have gotten away with this approach to teaching were I tenured. Too many parents would have been up in arms with a teacher encouraging subversive, critical thinking.

[bleedingheart]

12. Guess what? Inquistive, Intelligent People actually continue

to educate themselves until they die.

Primary and Secondary schools are to some degree there just to give people the tools they need to teach themselves and discover the world. Just because you didn't learn a specific thing in school doesn't mean that the school is a failure, but if you the individual choose not to seek out more knowledge after school is finished...then you are hurting yourself.

[DFLforever]

13. The measure of education at all levels -

Is the student educated to move on by herself?

[bleedingheart]

15. agreed, but

part of an individual's educational experience comes from within. I also think that family plays a crucial role, if education is not valued within a family then the child's chances are greatly diminished. I have seen this personally in my own extended family. My cousin is raising three sons. One is a high school dropout with poor reading skills; another is in juvenile hall and also headed towards dropping out, and we are holding out hope that the last child through family intervention will finally break the mold. These kids went to the same schools I did along with my nephews and neices with the eldest nephew currently enrolled at CMU doing really well.

[leesa]

14. I think the teevee has far more to do with it.