Thank you for this entire post, especially the 2-hour leaning video. It is an astounding approach to education and, as you say, fixes many of the problems with K-12 education. Yes, it still didn’t address curriculum, particularly critical thinking. However, one can imagine that critical thinking skills and the Scientific Method can be quickly introduced in the AI teaching.
We’ve got to get this to the 500 state schools board members.
I think it's an improvement for sure on our current Marxist system. I also think kids need discipline, and memorizing things is a brain trainer. In college I had lists taped everywhere so I was constantly memorizing stuff. The brain is elastic, the more it's stretched, the more it can hold. Critical thinking is a great way to stretch the brain. Start these youngsters out with debate training, that's a great way to teach critical thinking to young developing minds. It also teaches them to be open minded. I also think science and religion can co-exist quite peacefully in this wondrous universe of ours.
SM: The Marxist part has more to do with academic content, than structure of a school day, right? MacKensie is proposing a radical change in HOW students are taught. The WHAT part is another matter that is not clear.
The videos are professionally done ..., almost too well done. I appreciate her excitement, but I felt it was a tad pushy. Most of my work career was in sales, and when I feel uneasy about what is being sold, my guard goes up. She sounds too Jeb Bushy to me; he's pro-Common Core, CASEL, tax-funded school choice, etc., etc., etc., as are his cohorts in crime, Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Koch, etc.!
education has been going on since Dewey in the early 1900s. It has been done surreptitiously and very gradually. The agenda is not to educate thinkers, but to indoctrinate workers for the globalists. Most people believe public schools are to educate their children because they are told that public schools are supposed to educate their children ..., not unlike we were told the injections were safe and effective. We need more parents questioning why so many public schools focus upon everything except education ..., and why taxpayers keep paying more in personal property taxes, while student scores keep plummeting.
There is more to this issue, but I wanted to respond to your question.
I don't want to be too hasty to disregard everything she says. That is why I asked questions before mentioning my concerns. We need beneficial change in public K-12, but just about everything being pushed delivers the exact opposite of beneficial change .. , which I believe is by design.
I didn't attend a public school until I attended college, but I have siblings who attended public school, and what they experienced was not what is happening in the same public school system. That public school system was highly touted in the 50s and 60s. Now, it is horrific. Not only does the school board gush over pushing D. E. I., but the board added "I." for Inclusion.
Compounding this issue is the fact that the parochial system I attended and my high school that is outside of the parochial system have adapted most of the public K-12 curriculum. I attempted to discuss this with our Archbishop, but he was unwilling to meet with me. I met with the Superintendent of the parochial on 8/08/14, but that was very disappointing. She drank the same Kool-aid that the Archbishop drank. I believe the Archbishop is more focused upon the money that comes with increased enrollment
I get-together with high school classmates on a quarterly basis and I haven't found anyone who realizes what is happening to their grandsons at our high school. I quit contributing to my high school because I can't support what is happening there I guess I never drank the Kool-aid to just go along to get along, when I know what is happening is detrimental to others.
Arthur: I have written about what Catholic K-1 2 schools should do. Those that are on the ball realize that: 1) to succeed they need to have close to max enrollment, and 2) the best way to do that is to contrast their curricula from the inadequate offerings in most public schools (like NGSS).
I believe the reason parochial and private schools embrace tax-funded school choice is to max out enrollment. They'll say they are for tax-funded school choice to give children a better opportunity, but when the government demands adherence to its curriculum, that will decimate any potential benefits. I believe they are focused on the $$$, not the children
Regarding #2, why in the world are parochial and private schools embracing the public curriculum, voluntarily? It is insanity!!! Satan knows how to manipulate people in authoritative positions, be it for education, healthcare, etc !
A lot of people have issues with Jesuit education. The high school I attended is a Jesuit High School. I guess I didn't drink the Jesuit Kool-aid!
I was thinking about the videos you shared. I'm guessing most people, including many parents, get excited when they hear the school has taken over for what parents are supposed to teach their child/ren. How would parents feel if they were forbidden from teaching their child/ren what the Alpha School is teaching its students?
If kids could just be instilled with a love of reading, that alone would lay the universe at their feet. Most graduates nowadays can't write or read very well at all. And get them outside! Connect them with nature. Bring back recess and outdoor time during school hours. Good old fashioned exercise and excellent nutrition are what kids thrive on. We need to give it to them, and teach relevant subject matter, just as you outlined.
It's not just critical thinking that needs to be presented, but all the aspects of thinking; for instance those detailed by Edward de Bono in his books.
President-elect Trump has expressed a position that is similar to many of John's readers: The establishment of the Department of Education and its subsequent record have been worse than abject failure. It has been unequivocally destructive. There is no Constitutional support for the existence of the Department of Education. Read the Tenth Amendment and then tell us which article and section justifies its existence. Don't cite the "General Welfare." Madison himself demolished this when he said it would be absurd to enumerate the powers, specify in the Tenth Amendment that those are all the powers, and then find another "and also do whatever you want" clause. The Department of Education should be abolished and the functions allegedly assigned to it returned to the states.
One can make an argument that there is also no Constitutional support for the Departments of Agriculture and Labor, and many subaltern bureaus and independent agencies. One example recently prominent in the news is the Rural Electrification Administration. Its title job was finished seventy years ago. It utterly failed in its two latest jobs — rural high-speed internet and rural EV chargers . Dissolve it and return whatever trivial residual functions it might have to the states.
I like her conclusions, but some of her examples are wrong, or maybe just reflect a different time from my experience. My schools, admittedly a very long time ago, had "ability grouping," not "one size fits all." Racists who claimed to be fighting racism said that was racist and abolished it. I was among the bored, so my principal promoted me from eighth grade to ninth grade in the middle of the year. Some of the topics she laments schools not teaching were taught in "traditional" schools, but that went out the window even before Jimmuh Cahtuh created the Department of education as a gift to the national teachers' union leaders. I think her definition of "traditional school" is "during the last fifty years." Before fifty years ago, schools were much better.
I attended John Muir High School in Pasadena, CA. With my dad's help, I mastered trigonometry and logarithms by reading two small books at home during Christmas break, so I was put into a calculus class in my junior year. I was allowed to commute to Pasadena City College for an Advanced Engineering Mathematics (differential equations) class in my senior year. I had a choice of Spanish, French, German, Latin, Russian, or Mandarin Chinese. All of the black kids in Pasadena attended that high school. The math curriculum at the all-white school across town ended with trigonometry. The language "department" offered Spanish and French. The parents of a white girl who attended the other school decided that my black classmates had inferior educational opportunities because they were all in the same school. The Supreme Court Agreed (Pasadena City Bd. of Educ v. Spangler | 427 U.S. 424 (1976)) and ordered busing. A Federal Judge named Manuel Real ran the entire Pasadena school system personally for twelve years and ruined what had been considered one of the best three in the nation. My chemistry teacher, a fine black man named Lee Franke Browne, was recruited away from my Alma Mater to be Director of Secondary Relations at Caltech. I don't know the situation today, but when my kids were getting ready for school thirty years ago, I noticed no Pasadena high schools (there were then three) offered calculus, Latin, Russian, or Mandarin Chinese. I moved to a different area. At least calculus is still offered in my local school system, but, alas, as far as I know, no public school in Los Angeles county offers Latin or Russian. Maybe some offer Mandarin Chinese.
VS: It sounds to me that MacKenzie is doing some key parts of what you are advocating — e.g., tailoring the academic materials to the individual student.
Children can't learn, if they don't eat nourishing food. Sugar causes hyperactivity...and children can't sit still. It also causes diabetes and other health problems. If true nutrition information was given children starting in first grade it would change everything. As a child I did not do well in school...I had little food and no energy. I fell asleep in class. Later on the wrong food limited my ability to remember what I studied. After I got into better nutrition and went back to college I got top grades. Good nutrition was the answer, but it is not what the Food Industry promotes. It gives its research to the nutrition schools it financially supports in America. We are at the bottom of the barrel health-wise.
Children today can't learn. They can't sit still. Then the schools tell parents to take them to their doctor for tranquilizers, which wipe out their minds and bodies. Without nutrition in the equation nothing else is going to work.. I learned this through experience..with my own son.. I changed his diet and he was able to learn.
Barbara, so MacKensie is only providing traditional education for 2 hours per day vs 6 hours, so the children can't sit still issue should be less of a problem. Further that allows her FOUR additional hours (per day) to cover other matters — like the importance of good nutrition!
Nutrition should come first. I learned a great deal in the last 63 years through personal experience. Children can't memorize or retain information if they don't have the right nutrients to feed their brains. Hyperactivity is created by excess sugar in their diets . It must be removed.
In the one room country school where I started my education, the school completion certificate was still available at grade eight and sixteen years old although it was no longer accepted as university entry. Common sense was accepted as the realization that reality was Complex but orderly. This definition had led to the enlightenment realization that since there was no evidence of magic or divine intervention or revelation. Rational people were expected to believe that which was most evident.
The divine right of royalty and royalty’s bureaucracy was no longer an excuse for unlimited power since everyone had the same common sense and was best suited to make personal financial decisions. Einstein’s second proof of relativity, using experimentally derived ratios, gave scientific certainty to the traditional definition of common sense in that the physical reality is physically provable. The scientific or rational view was adopted by most of the civilized world although some nations disagreed on religious grounds. The common sense consensus among the rational was that since there was no evidence that any religion was superior to any other religion, that only physically provable information could be used in debate. As curricula is a tradition as old as speech, I believe that the sane rational and scientific curriculum is the best for the majority and proven to advance civilization more effectively than fantasy.
I think it is a band-aid for a mortal wound. Our system is built on rationality,in law and custom. The irrational belief that some extra human beings can understand reality better than those who live in it is counterintuitive and stupid
I learned that rationality,sanity and scientific meant the same thing when THHuxley said: an unscientific people will not survive in a scientific world.
Since the world is scientific allowing the metaphysical or religious fanatics to determine our common future seems to me like a terrible waste of civilization.
Henry: As a lifelong scientist I agree that much of our world is related to Science. That said it is absolutely not 100%. For example, a person's soul is not a scientific matter.
Isn’t that covered by Locke’s common sense consensus? When history was shown to be amenable to understanding by common sense (defined as complex but orderly) that disproved the supernatural’s influence on the physical world as well as the hypothesis of divine right of the elite and their minions. When Einstein disproved equal and opposite forces he also proved Socrates version of common sense. The special proof of relativity also proved the scientific method that the possible is provable (only reality is scientifically provable). If I may, why is a scientist not arguing against the belief in magic?
The last I heard virtue signalling, politically correct speech and Utopia were no more physically true than the greenhouse hypothesis.
I often hear that teaching how to think is far superior to teaching what to think. I generally agree with that wholeheartedly, but we must also avoid pitting one method of education against the other.
Memorizing addition and multiplication tables, or memorizing the periodic table are examples of teaching what to think and it is often necessary in order to teach and learn how to think. Just learning the alphabet and the spelling of words is a precursor to learning how to use words in sentences in order to communicate with one another. BOTH teaching and learning what to think AND teaching and learning how to think are imperative to a good education. But just as important, so is a teacher who clearly understands which to use for which lesson, especially if one of the teacher's goals is to create open minded pursuit of knowledge and understanding of that knowledge.
If it appeared that I was speaking against anything in either of those two videos, that was not my intent. Neither was it my intent to be redundant, so my apologies if either is how it appeared to you or to anyone else. I'm in FULL support of your efforts to clean up the education scene in the US for all kinds of reasons, one of which is that we in Canada have the same issues - in spades.
Russ: I am 100% in favor of genuinely teaching kids HOW to think. That does not mean that no WHAT's are included. Clearly math tables and similar are necessary basics. The question is where we go after instilling some fundamentals. I think what is presented in those two videos has some major merit worth considering.
I forgot that the spell check changes your name to Drop!
Regarding critical thinking in public K-12, the one thing that those who control governments from outside of government is to ensure those who attend public K-12 are not capable of thinking critically, analytically, or for themselves. Common Core, CASEL, CRT, DEI, etc., are designed to ensure there is little time to actually teach reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic (the 3 Rs). If one can think for him/herself, he/she will resist what is being and will be pushed upon him/her.
Arthur: I certainly agree with that. However, the point of this commentary is to discuss a new was to educate K-12 students. The idea would be to fix some of the current outcomes.
I appreciate your concerns and energy on a core aspect of the globalists' agenda to deliberately dumb down our children.
From my perspective, the federal government controls the curriculum of the states, via the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act). In the bold print, the ESSA allows a state to devise its own curriculum, but in the fine print, it allows for a state to devise its own curriculum only if it is willing to forfeit federal funding. To date, I am not aware of any state that has been willing to forfeit federal funding.
Unfortunately, public K-12 schools are doing exactly what the federal government wants them to do. Part of the reason for deliberately dumbing down our children in public K-12 schools is to coerce parents to demand an alternative, a choice, a solution. Ironically, the more money pushed towards public K-12 education leads to ever decreasing scores ..., by design!
Every solution floated for finding a solution to what is happening in public K-12 schools ties tax-funding in some format to provide the alternative or "choice". Tax-funded school choice is a false flag!!! It is designed to steal all choice in K-12 schools. The goal is to coerce parents and private, parochial, and home schools to accept some form of tax-funding as a solution for everyone. What most fail to realize, in their rush to find a quick and financially beneficial "solution," is that whatever the government funds, it controls.
Eliminating the DofEd is also a false flag, if the ESSA is not eliminated, too. Those behind the global agenda know exactly what they are doing and how to push people's buttons. Distrust, then investigate is my motto with a heavy dose of distrust. The past four (4) years should have awakened the masses, but I don't believe the masses have awakened to the reality that the government is our enemy, manipulated by those who control governments from outside of government!
John,
Thank you for this entire post, especially the 2-hour leaning video. It is an astounding approach to education and, as you say, fixes many of the problems with K-12 education. Yes, it still didn’t address curriculum, particularly critical thinking. However, one can imagine that critical thinking skills and the Scientific Method can be quickly introduced in the AI teaching.
We’ve got to get this to the 500 state schools board members.
Don Runkle
Don: TY. It does seem that IF this is done right, it could solve some major problems.
I misspoke, when discussing the addition to D. E. I. The addition was "B." for "Belonging"!!! Those on the board are truly fruitloops!!!
I think it's an improvement for sure on our current Marxist system. I also think kids need discipline, and memorizing things is a brain trainer. In college I had lists taped everywhere so I was constantly memorizing stuff. The brain is elastic, the more it's stretched, the more it can hold. Critical thinking is a great way to stretch the brain. Start these youngsters out with debate training, that's a great way to teach critical thinking to young developing minds. It also teaches them to be open minded. I also think science and religion can co-exist quite peacefully in this wondrous universe of ours.
SM: The Marxist part has more to do with academic content, than structure of a school day, right? MacKensie is proposing a radical change in HOW students are taught. The WHAT part is another matter that is not clear.
John,
The videos are professionally done ..., almost too well done. I appreciate her excitement, but I felt it was a tad pushy. Most of my work career was in sales, and when I feel uneasy about what is being sold, my guard goes up. She sounds too Jeb Bushy to me; he's pro-Common Core, CASEL, tax-funded school choice, etc., etc., etc., as are his cohorts in crime, Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch, Koch, etc.!
I have questions and concerns about Alpha School.
• What children attend the school?
• How does a child qualify to attend the
school?
• How much does it cost for a child to
attend?
• Is there ANY form of government
funding for Alpha School?
• What curriculum is used, even if it is
only for 2 hours?
• We are told how much better the
students at Alpha School do compared
to other schools, but how do the
students at Alpha School compare to
traditional standards?
• I'm more of a above-the treeline
thinker, so I'm less focused upon
details, but if I remember correctly, for
my teacher friends, Benjamin Bloom is
not thought of too highly. I believe I
mentioned him in a column I posted on
Canada Free Press in May 2013, based
upon an opinion column in the Wall
Street Journal.
• Shouldn't much of what Alpha
"teaches" be taught at home? I realize
some children don't have parents and
need help in some areas, but it seems
to me that a hidden goal is to take over
what parents should do for their
children!
• Charlotte Iserbyt warned about
life-long learning (LLL). She is my
North Star on K-12 and many other
issues. Deliberatelydumbingdown.com!
• "Life skills" is buzz phrase of concern.
It is designed to limit learning to trades.
There is nothing wrong with trades;
many enjoy great careers in trade
employment, but what those atop K-12
education are wanting to do is prevent
critical and analytical thinking beyond
a trade.
The deliberate dumbing down of K-12
education has been going on since Dewey in the early 1900s. It has been done surreptitiously and very gradually. The agenda is not to educate thinkers, but to indoctrinate workers for the globalists. Most people believe public schools are to educate their children because they are told that public schools are supposed to educate their children ..., not unlike we were told the injections were safe and effective. We need more parents questioning why so many public schools focus upon everything except education ..., and why taxpayers keep paying more in personal property taxes, while student scores keep plummeting.
There is more to this issue, but I wanted to respond to your question.
Arthur: OK, so your answer is that you did not like what MacKensie is suggesting as an alternative to traditional public schools.
John,
I don't want to be too hasty to disregard everything she says. That is why I asked questions before mentioning my concerns. We need beneficial change in public K-12, but just about everything being pushed delivers the exact opposite of beneficial change .. , which I believe is by design.
I didn't attend a public school until I attended college, but I have siblings who attended public school, and what they experienced was not what is happening in the same public school system. That public school system was highly touted in the 50s and 60s. Now, it is horrific. Not only does the school board gush over pushing D. E. I., but the board added "I." for Inclusion.
Compounding this issue is the fact that the parochial system I attended and my high school that is outside of the parochial system have adapted most of the public K-12 curriculum. I attempted to discuss this with our Archbishop, but he was unwilling to meet with me. I met with the Superintendent of the parochial on 8/08/14, but that was very disappointing. She drank the same Kool-aid that the Archbishop drank. I believe the Archbishop is more focused upon the money that comes with increased enrollment
I get-together with high school classmates on a quarterly basis and I haven't found anyone who realizes what is happening to their grandsons at our high school. I quit contributing to my high school because I can't support what is happening there I guess I never drank the Kool-aid to just go along to get along, when I know what is happening is detrimental to others.
Arthur: I have written about what Catholic K-1 2 schools should do. Those that are on the ball realize that: 1) to succeed they need to have close to max enrollment, and 2) the best way to do that is to contrast their curricula from the inadequate offerings in most public schools (like NGSS).
John,
I believe the reason parochial and private schools embrace tax-funded school choice is to max out enrollment. They'll say they are for tax-funded school choice to give children a better opportunity, but when the government demands adherence to its curriculum, that will decimate any potential benefits. I believe they are focused on the $$$, not the children
Regarding #2, why in the world are parochial and private schools embracing the public curriculum, voluntarily? It is insanity!!! Satan knows how to manipulate people in authoritative positions, be it for education, healthcare, etc !
Re #2, they are not attuned to what results in max enrollment, and/or they are too lazy to have a more classical curricula.
A lot of people have issues with Jesuit education. The high school I attended is a Jesuit High School. I guess I didn't drink the Jesuit Kool-aid!
I was thinking about the videos you shared. I'm guessing most people, including many parents, get excited when they hear the school has taken over for what parents are supposed to teach their child/ren. How would parents feel if they were forbidden from teaching their child/ren what the Alpha School is teaching its students?
If kids could just be instilled with a love of reading, that alone would lay the universe at their feet. Most graduates nowadays can't write or read very well at all. And get them outside! Connect them with nature. Bring back recess and outdoor time during school hours. Good old fashioned exercise and excellent nutrition are what kids thrive on. We need to give it to them, and teach relevant subject matter, just as you outlined.
SM: TY. So what did you think of what MacKenzie Price is offering?
It's not just critical thinking that needs to be presented, but all the aspects of thinking; for instance those detailed by Edward de Bono in his books.
John: TY. So what did you think of what MacKenzie Price is offering?
President-elect Trump has expressed a position that is similar to many of John's readers: The establishment of the Department of Education and its subsequent record have been worse than abject failure. It has been unequivocally destructive. There is no Constitutional support for the existence of the Department of Education. Read the Tenth Amendment and then tell us which article and section justifies its existence. Don't cite the "General Welfare." Madison himself demolished this when he said it would be absurd to enumerate the powers, specify in the Tenth Amendment that those are all the powers, and then find another "and also do whatever you want" clause. The Department of Education should be abolished and the functions allegedly assigned to it returned to the states.
One can make an argument that there is also no Constitutional support for the Departments of Agriculture and Labor, and many subaltern bureaus and independent agencies. One example recently prominent in the news is the Rural Electrification Administration. Its title job was finished seventy years ago. It utterly failed in its two latest jobs — rural high-speed internet and rural EV chargers . Dissolve it and return whatever trivial residual functions it might have to the states.
Van S: TY. So what did you think of what MacKenzie Price is offering?
I like her conclusions, but some of her examples are wrong, or maybe just reflect a different time from my experience. My schools, admittedly a very long time ago, had "ability grouping," not "one size fits all." Racists who claimed to be fighting racism said that was racist and abolished it. I was among the bored, so my principal promoted me from eighth grade to ninth grade in the middle of the year. Some of the topics she laments schools not teaching were taught in "traditional" schools, but that went out the window even before Jimmuh Cahtuh created the Department of education as a gift to the national teachers' union leaders. I think her definition of "traditional school" is "during the last fifty years." Before fifty years ago, schools were much better.
I attended John Muir High School in Pasadena, CA. With my dad's help, I mastered trigonometry and logarithms by reading two small books at home during Christmas break, so I was put into a calculus class in my junior year. I was allowed to commute to Pasadena City College for an Advanced Engineering Mathematics (differential equations) class in my senior year. I had a choice of Spanish, French, German, Latin, Russian, or Mandarin Chinese. All of the black kids in Pasadena attended that high school. The math curriculum at the all-white school across town ended with trigonometry. The language "department" offered Spanish and French. The parents of a white girl who attended the other school decided that my black classmates had inferior educational opportunities because they were all in the same school. The Supreme Court Agreed (Pasadena City Bd. of Educ v. Spangler | 427 U.S. 424 (1976)) and ordered busing. A Federal Judge named Manuel Real ran the entire Pasadena school system personally for twelve years and ruined what had been considered one of the best three in the nation. My chemistry teacher, a fine black man named Lee Franke Browne, was recruited away from my Alma Mater to be Director of Secondary Relations at Caltech. I don't know the situation today, but when my kids were getting ready for school thirty years ago, I noticed no Pasadena high schools (there were then three) offered calculus, Latin, Russian, or Mandarin Chinese. I moved to a different area. At least calculus is still offered in my local school system, but, alas, as far as I know, no public school in Los Angeles county offers Latin or Russian. Maybe some offer Mandarin Chinese.
VS: It sounds to me that MacKenzie is doing some key parts of what you are advocating — e.g., tailoring the academic materials to the individual student.
Children can't learn, if they don't eat nourishing food. Sugar causes hyperactivity...and children can't sit still. It also causes diabetes and other health problems. If true nutrition information was given children starting in first grade it would change everything. As a child I did not do well in school...I had little food and no energy. I fell asleep in class. Later on the wrong food limited my ability to remember what I studied. After I got into better nutrition and went back to college I got top grades. Good nutrition was the answer, but it is not what the Food Industry promotes. It gives its research to the nutrition schools it financially supports in America. We are at the bottom of the barrel health-wise.
Barbara: I'm sure that good nutrition would help children do better in school. So what did you think of what MacKenzie Price is offering?
Children today can't learn. They can't sit still. Then the schools tell parents to take them to their doctor for tranquilizers, which wipe out their minds and bodies. Without nutrition in the equation nothing else is going to work.. I learned this through experience..with my own son.. I changed his diet and he was able to learn.
Barbara, so MacKensie is only providing traditional education for 2 hours per day vs 6 hours, so the children can't sit still issue should be less of a problem. Further that allows her FOUR additional hours (per day) to cover other matters — like the importance of good nutrition!
Nutrition should come first. I learned a great deal in the last 63 years through personal experience. Children can't memorize or retain information if they don't have the right nutrients to feed their brains. Hyperactivity is created by excess sugar in their diets . It must be removed.
In the one room country school where I started my education, the school completion certificate was still available at grade eight and sixteen years old although it was no longer accepted as university entry. Common sense was accepted as the realization that reality was Complex but orderly. This definition had led to the enlightenment realization that since there was no evidence of magic or divine intervention or revelation. Rational people were expected to believe that which was most evident.
The divine right of royalty and royalty’s bureaucracy was no longer an excuse for unlimited power since everyone had the same common sense and was best suited to make personal financial decisions. Einstein’s second proof of relativity, using experimentally derived ratios, gave scientific certainty to the traditional definition of common sense in that the physical reality is physically provable. The scientific or rational view was adopted by most of the civilized world although some nations disagreed on religious grounds. The common sense consensus among the rational was that since there was no evidence that any religion was superior to any other religion, that only physically provable information could be used in debate. As curricula is a tradition as old as speech, I believe that the sane rational and scientific curriculum is the best for the majority and proven to advance civilization more effectively than fantasy.
Henry: TY. So what did you think of what MacKenzie Price is offering?
I think it is a band-aid for a mortal wound. Our system is built on rationality,in law and custom. The irrational belief that some extra human beings can understand reality better than those who live in it is counterintuitive and stupid
Henry: I apologize for not understandint what you have been saying. What is the "mortal wound" you are referring to?
I learned that rationality,sanity and scientific meant the same thing when THHuxley said: an unscientific people will not survive in a scientific world.
Since the world is scientific allowing the metaphysical or religious fanatics to determine our common future seems to me like a terrible waste of civilization.
Henry: As a lifelong scientist I agree that much of our world is related to Science. That said it is absolutely not 100%. For example, a person's soul is not a scientific matter.
Isn’t that covered by Locke’s common sense consensus? When history was shown to be amenable to understanding by common sense (defined as complex but orderly) that disproved the supernatural’s influence on the physical world as well as the hypothesis of divine right of the elite and their minions. When Einstein disproved equal and opposite forces he also proved Socrates version of common sense. The special proof of relativity also proved the scientific method that the possible is provable (only reality is scientifically provable). If I may, why is a scientist not arguing against the belief in magic?
The last I heard virtue signalling, politically correct speech and Utopia were no more physically true than the greenhouse hypothesis.
I often hear that teaching how to think is far superior to teaching what to think. I generally agree with that wholeheartedly, but we must also avoid pitting one method of education against the other.
Memorizing addition and multiplication tables, or memorizing the periodic table are examples of teaching what to think and it is often necessary in order to teach and learn how to think. Just learning the alphabet and the spelling of words is a precursor to learning how to use words in sentences in order to communicate with one another. BOTH teaching and learning what to think AND teaching and learning how to think are imperative to a good education. But just as important, so is a teacher who clearly understands which to use for which lesson, especially if one of the teacher's goals is to create open minded pursuit of knowledge and understanding of that knowledge.
Russ: TY for your comments. Did you carefully watch both videos?
Yes I did, John.
If it appeared that I was speaking against anything in either of those two videos, that was not my intent. Neither was it my intent to be redundant, so my apologies if either is how it appeared to you or to anyone else. I'm in FULL support of your efforts to clean up the education scene in the US for all kinds of reasons, one of which is that we in Canada have the same issues - in spades.
Russ: I am 100% in favor of genuinely teaching kids HOW to think. That does not mean that no WHAT's are included. Clearly math tables and similar are necessary basics. The question is where we go after instilling some fundamentals. I think what is presented in those two videos has some major merit worth considering.
Mr. Droz,
I forgot that the spell check changes your name to Drop!
Regarding critical thinking in public K-12, the one thing that those who control governments from outside of government is to ensure those who attend public K-12 are not capable of thinking critically, analytically, or for themselves. Common Core, CASEL, CRT, DEI, etc., are designed to ensure there is little time to actually teach reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic (the 3 Rs). If one can think for him/herself, he/she will resist what is being and will be pushed upon him/her.
Arthur: I certainly agree with that. However, the point of this commentary is to discuss a new was to educate K-12 students. The idea would be to fix some of the current outcomes.
Mr. Drop,
I appreciate your concerns and energy on a core aspect of the globalists' agenda to deliberately dumb down our children.
From my perspective, the federal government controls the curriculum of the states, via the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act). In the bold print, the ESSA allows a state to devise its own curriculum, but in the fine print, it allows for a state to devise its own curriculum only if it is willing to forfeit federal funding. To date, I am not aware of any state that has been willing to forfeit federal funding.
Unfortunately, public K-12 schools are doing exactly what the federal government wants them to do. Part of the reason for deliberately dumbing down our children in public K-12 schools is to coerce parents to demand an alternative, a choice, a solution. Ironically, the more money pushed towards public K-12 education leads to ever decreasing scores ..., by design!
Every solution floated for finding a solution to what is happening in public K-12 schools ties tax-funding in some format to provide the alternative or "choice". Tax-funded school choice is a false flag!!! It is designed to steal all choice in K-12 schools. The goal is to coerce parents and private, parochial, and home schools to accept some form of tax-funding as a solution for everyone. What most fail to realize, in their rush to find a quick and financially beneficial "solution," is that whatever the government funds, it controls.
Eliminating the DofEd is also a false flag, if the ESSA is not eliminated, too. Those behind the global agenda know exactly what they are doing and how to push people's buttons. Distrust, then investigate is my motto with a heavy dose of distrust. The past four (4) years should have awakened the masses, but I don't believe the masses have awakened to the reality that the government is our enemy, manipulated by those who control governments from outside of government!
Arthur: OK, but what did you think of what MacKenzie Price is offering?