-=> Quoting Ron McDermott to Michael Martinez <=-
 SK> I disagree with the following three remarks:
 
 MM> Now, most people in our country learn all they need to know from
 MM> they're own lives, not from school.
 
 MM>Yes, but why do you disagree with it?
 RM> Because we do not consider it to be true, but instead to be
 RM> a generalization which is based upon nothing more than your
 RM> personal conjecture..
 
That doesn't answer the question, Ron.  You have only said the same
thing in different words. 
 MM>Tell me something that you absolutely must learn in school, in order 
 MM>to survive in our world.
 RM> First of all, THAT isn't the statement with which she is
 RM> taking issue.... "Survival" is too vague a term....
 
What's vague about survival?  It's clear-cut.  It means whatever you need
to do to function as a normal human being:  live and raise a family and
pass on your way of living life to your kids.
 MM> Schools aren't institutions of _learning_.   They are institutions
 MM> that weed out and groom various degrees of people to serve various
 MM> functions in society.
 
 MM>Please explain why you don't agree with this statement.
 RM> Because the statement is not one of objective fact; it is
 RM> a personal point of view based on a biased perspective...
 
 MM>In college, you don't learn to _distrust_ the current way of doing
 MM>things, the current laws, the current scientific system, you learn
 MM>to trust it, to believe in it, to agree with it.
 RM> Huh?!?  Why is it, do you suppose, that history has shown 
 RM> the educational community, the "intelligentia", to be the 
 RM> most visible target of totalitarian governments?  The 
 RM> college campuses are ALWAYS centers of political and social 
 RM> unrest.  This statement is simply incorrect...
College campuses are centers of _controlled_ dissent.  Governments
don't target these people because they are on the right track, they
do it as a standard course of action to make a point.  It doesn't
matter who they do it to, as long as they do it once in a while.  Left,
right, liberal, it doesn't matter.
 
 MM>Abolishing our educational system, and letting people set up their 
 MM>own autonomous places of learning, will do wonders you can't
 MM>even concieve of.  It will allow teachers to find their own niches and
 MM>teach what they want.  It will allow people to easily access what they
 MM>want to learn. 
 RM> You sound so sincere that I want to believe you, and so very
 RM> sure that this will happen... May I ask why you're so sure?
 RM> Has this ever been tested?  When?  Where?
Ron, the current system has inherent flaws in it which we cannot
solve from within the system.  It requires complete abandonment and
starting from scratch.  The system that I would like to see is 
guaranteed to be better because of one thing: it gives people freedom.
It doesn't market education as if it's a commodity to be bought and
sold.
 
 SK> I would bet that without obligatory schooling, the number of 
 SK> children out learning "street life" would increase dramatically, 
 SK> to the detriment of not only those children themselves, but all 
 SK> of society.
 
 MM>I don't think so.
 RM> Yes, and Illich doesn't think so, but do either of you KNOW
How many people are saved from the streets right NOW?  Can you say
it's not none?  If you're from an upper-class or sheltered life,
then you don't have any experience of this.  But where I'm from,
there's a lot of kids who are out on the streets, school or no school.
Do you realize that school has no positive effect on this statistic 
at all?
-michael
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 [NR]
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