Yez wrote:
> James M. Smith wrote on alt.california:
>
> > I started public school when I was six years old. That was in
> > 1941. By the middle of that first year all in the class were
> > reading about Dick and Jane and Spot and a ball.
>
> I could read before I started public school in Lawndale/Hawthorne
(So.
> Calif) I started kindergarten at four years old, that was in the
early
> 50's. My mom taught me to read and count money before my first day. I

> blame most of our social problems on parents that flat don't parent
> their kids for dink. I'm not saying all parents should teach their
kids
> to read but I am saying that parenting appears to be a dead art.
>
> 'rena


I recently read a fascinating book called Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden
Curriculum Of Compulsory Schooling By John Taylor Gatto. An excerpt
from a review of his book follows.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/bookstore/dumbdnlapp.htm

The publishers of Dumbing Us Down call Gatto's ideas about education
"not easily pigeon-holed," which is an accurate observation. Who
else would stand up and tell us that schooling, as we know it, is not
education, but a "twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the
only curriculum truly learned"?

According to Gatto's observations, the seven lessons taught in public
schools from Harlem to Hollywood Hills, are these:

   1. Confusion: The natural order of real life is violated by heaping
disconnected facts on students.

   2. Class Position: Children are locked together into categories
where the lesson is that "everyone has a proper place in the
pyramid."

   3. Indifference: Inflexible school regimens deprive children of
complete experiences.

   4. Emotional dependency: Kids are taught to surrender their
individuality to a "predestined chain of command."

   5. Intellectual dependency: One of the biggest lessons schools teach
is conformity rather than curiosity.

   6. Provisional self-esteem: "The lesson of report cards, grades,
and tests, is that children should not trust themselves or their
parents, but should instead rely on the evaluation of certified
officials."

   7. One can't hide: Schooling and homework assignments deny
children privacy and free time in which to learn from parents, from
exploration, or from community.

===

One of the things that really stuck with me from the book was Mr.
Gatto's comments on how the practice of focusing on building
"self-esteem" actually leads to less of it - that it's competence that
is the basis for self-esteem, not being praised just for showing up and
giving it your best - or your not-so-best shot.



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