there is a book called "the great orators". it has Paracelsus and others in it. after studying lincoln i decided he was not a good role model. so i just stuck with the Odysee and such.
I quite agree that this is an existential crisis in America, but what do you believe is the solution to this problem? My sister, who was in education for many years, including being my high school Principal, always said that if you bring a problem forward, you should also bring a proposed solution. I have seen several videos about this on Prager U, and I love the fact that their videos which are so amazing are now a part of the curriculum in some red states. I recently saw an interview with the former Superintendent of Oklahoma, Ryan Walters and Marissa Streit, CEO, of Prager U addressing this problem which you may want to check out.
REPLY from: John Droz —
Penny: Ideally the various curricula need to be changed back from their progressive propaganda. Since that will be difficult and time consuming, a better solution is to teach the children to be Critical Thinkers. Then they will have the ability to sort out the wheat from the chaff — in K-12 AND the rest of their life.
No State currently does this. Their excuse was that there were no K-12 Standards for teaching Critical Thinking — which was correct. To address this I have recently developed the Standards to teach Critical Thinking.
The federal government is not a small player, at least not always. After President Bush instituted No Child Left Behind, cash-strapped districts that had to have federal dollars were forced to organize their curricula and classroom instruction around the test score improvement criteria mandated by the program.
In the district where I was a board member, we were always looking for ways to improve our students' scholastic performance. We had to set our plans aside and, in some instances found that NCLB did more harm than good. Case in point, we had to practice "teaching to the test," instead of teaching to educate.
We were relieved that the program did not outcast his term in office. The federal grants we needed had few strings attached, and we could once again focus our attention on issues we identified. One victory that came out of that was identifying and implementing a program that improved reading in our primary grades. We had no assurance it would and would not have taken the risk under NCLB.
David: You write "In the district where I was a board member, we were always looking for ways to improve our students' scholastic performance." Duh, shouldn't they be doing that?
By Federal law, the DOEd can NOT be directly involved with curricula.
That said, the NCLB is a good example of the Federal government having good intentions but being clueless.
However, the NCLB is a tiny part of the whole problem — e.g., the corruption of essentially EVERY K-12 curricula. Even though the federal government is a favorite whipping boy, 95% of the current problems are NOT the federal government's doing.
Just noticed notifications and your response to my comment. U
My point was that we did not need the Bush administration to motivate us to do so. NCLB presented us with a fresh set of obstacles that interfered with our efforts. The prohibition against direct involvement in curriculum was sorely tested by both Clinton's Common Core and by Bush's "teach to the test" NCLB.
Someone once said; common sense and magic don’t inhabit the same reality
I think that reality can only be described accurately by mathematics or physics (including chemistry).
I also think that common knowledge is the advantage humans gained when they evolved speech. Common knowledge has always been the actual curriculum and the Scottish Enlightenment and the American experiment removed the faith based narratives from the curriculum. Requiring sanity from both citizens and the political parties has been the main cause of the increase in human flourishing over the last 250 years
Mental competence requires the ability to reason from evidence known as the scientific method which is derived from common sense or empirical reasoning. The statement that reality can be understood by common sense is a scientific hypothesis that cannot be disproved physically, hence an accepted theory. Einstein accepted common sense as a corollary to relativity which is the basis of experimental physics.
Respect for ideologies and religion has a place but rational thought depends on verifiable evidence.
The American revolution was strongly influenced by reason as the world came out of the age of faith into the age of reason. Reason is the basis of rational governance and human rights.
First, i do agree with Nina. Lincoln trashed states rights. I suspect righteous Christian Southerners would have realized the error of slavery over time, but we will never know. And truly, abortion is worse. Evil has taken hold in our country.
Second, to your point, check out US Parents Involved in Education at USPIE.org. We are working to dismantle government schools & empower parents and local communities. For now, homeschooling or classical, Christian schools are the only way to protect children. Without government $$. Government funded school choice just makes ALL schooling government controlled.
Melanie: It is unfortunate that you agree with Nina.
Regarding States' Rights, that is one of the main reasons we are in a deplorable situation: we have 50 different K-12 mission statements, etc., and zero of them are competent. But people blame the federal government, which is a minor player in the scheme of things.
Apparently you disagree with our founding fathers. Actually, they designed that education was to be managed by each county in partnership with parents and that design served us well for many years. And the federal government has outsized control, they bought into every state with Common Core!
Melanie: Sorry, no. If States want to have 90% of control of the K-12 education system, they already have it.
If States want to have 90% of control of the K-12 education system, they should be providing a quality product. They are not — and no one is stopping them.
Nina: You have been victimized by propaganda. Further, please focus your comments on the subject of the commentary — which was not Lincoln. I've removed this and your subsequent comments as they continue to be off topic (besides being wrong), despite my polite request to stay on topic.
there is a book called "the great orators". it has Paracelsus and others in it. after studying lincoln i decided he was not a good role model. so i just stuck with the Odysee and such.
This is a comment that went to the wrong post...
Penny Lynn Michalko —
I quite agree that this is an existential crisis in America, but what do you believe is the solution to this problem? My sister, who was in education for many years, including being my high school Principal, always said that if you bring a problem forward, you should also bring a proposed solution. I have seen several videos about this on Prager U, and I love the fact that their videos which are so amazing are now a part of the curriculum in some red states. I recently saw an interview with the former Superintendent of Oklahoma, Ryan Walters and Marissa Streit, CEO, of Prager U addressing this problem which you may want to check out.
REPLY from: John Droz —
Penny: Ideally the various curricula need to be changed back from their progressive propaganda. Since that will be difficult and time consuming, a better solution is to teach the children to be Critical Thinkers. Then they will have the ability to sort out the wheat from the chaff — in K-12 AND the rest of their life.
No State currently does this. Their excuse was that there were no K-12 Standards for teaching Critical Thinking — which was correct. To address this I have recently developed the Standards to teach Critical Thinking.
Subscribers: my apologies, it seems like the Comment button for this post is directed to a prior commentary (<https://criticallythinking.substack.com/p/an-insightful-perspective-on-the>). It is fixed now...
The federal government is not a small player, at least not always. After President Bush instituted No Child Left Behind, cash-strapped districts that had to have federal dollars were forced to organize their curricula and classroom instruction around the test score improvement criteria mandated by the program.
In the district where I was a board member, we were always looking for ways to improve our students' scholastic performance. We had to set our plans aside and, in some instances found that NCLB did more harm than good. Case in point, we had to practice "teaching to the test," instead of teaching to educate.
We were relieved that the program did not outcast his term in office. The federal grants we needed had few strings attached, and we could once again focus our attention on issues we identified. One victory that came out of that was identifying and implementing a program that improved reading in our primary grades. We had no assurance it would and would not have taken the risk under NCLB.
David: You write "In the district where I was a board member, we were always looking for ways to improve our students' scholastic performance." Duh, shouldn't they be doing that?
By Federal law, the DOEd can NOT be directly involved with curricula.
That said, the NCLB is a good example of the Federal government having good intentions but being clueless.
However, the NCLB is a tiny part of the whole problem — e.g., the corruption of essentially EVERY K-12 curricula. Even though the federal government is a favorite whipping boy, 95% of the current problems are NOT the federal government's doing.
Just noticed notifications and your response to my comment. U
My point was that we did not need the Bush administration to motivate us to do so. NCLB presented us with a fresh set of obstacles that interfered with our efforts. The prohibition against direct involvement in curriculum was sorely tested by both Clinton's Common Core and by Bush's "teach to the test" NCLB.
David: I agree with the premise that the Federal DOEd has been misguided and wrong.
That said, the States are MUCH worse, and they have done almost ALL of the damage.
I agree with your opinions …👍🏆 good stuff. I think it’s called common sense.
Ferg: Thank you. It also shows again how Common Sense is becoming endangered.
Someone once said; common sense and magic don’t inhabit the same reality
I think that reality can only be described accurately by mathematics or physics (including chemistry).
I also think that common knowledge is the advantage humans gained when they evolved speech. Common knowledge has always been the actual curriculum and the Scottish Enlightenment and the American experiment removed the faith based narratives from the curriculum. Requiring sanity from both citizens and the political parties has been the main cause of the increase in human flourishing over the last 250 years
Henry: Not sure what your point is here...
Mental competence requires the ability to reason from evidence known as the scientific method which is derived from common sense or empirical reasoning. The statement that reality can be understood by common sense is a scientific hypothesis that cannot be disproved physically, hence an accepted theory. Einstein accepted common sense as a corollary to relativity which is the basis of experimental physics.
Respect for ideologies and religion has a place but rational thought depends on verifiable evidence.
The American revolution was strongly influenced by reason as the world came out of the age of faith into the age of reason. Reason is the basis of rational governance and human rights.
Nothing but the truth👍🏆💯
First, i do agree with Nina. Lincoln trashed states rights. I suspect righteous Christian Southerners would have realized the error of slavery over time, but we will never know. And truly, abortion is worse. Evil has taken hold in our country.
Second, to your point, check out US Parents Involved in Education at USPIE.org. We are working to dismantle government schools & empower parents and local communities. For now, homeschooling or classical, Christian schools are the only way to protect children. Without government $$. Government funded school choice just makes ALL schooling government controlled.
Melanie: It is unfortunate that you agree with Nina.
Regarding States' Rights, that is one of the main reasons we are in a deplorable situation: we have 50 different K-12 mission statements, etc., and zero of them are competent. But people blame the federal government, which is a minor player in the scheme of things.
Apparently you disagree with our founding fathers. Actually, they designed that education was to be managed by each county in partnership with parents and that design served us well for many years. And the federal government has outsized control, they bought into every state with Common Core!
Melanie: Sorry, no. If States want to have 90% of control of the K-12 education system, they already have it.
If States want to have 90% of control of the K-12 education system, they should be providing a quality product. They are not — and no one is stopping them.
Nina: You have been victimized by propaganda. Further, please focus your comments on the subject of the commentary — which was not Lincoln. I've removed this and your subsequent comments as they continue to be off topic (besides being wrong), despite my polite request to stay on topic.