While learning knowledge is important, some forms of learning are more akin to conditioning, such as the traditional didactic means forced upon us in public schooling. Didactic learning stunts our thinking, by telling us what to believe rather than allowing us to discover our beliefs for ourselves, and then modify them when warranted. Because of this, the didactic transmission of knowledge actually hinders our ability to discover self-knowledge, understanding, self-worth, and […] Read more »
Flowery Platitudes and Cliches
Beware of flowery platitudes that sound wise and spiritual, while actually articulating nothing at all. They are generalizations that lack context, and are meant to easily unite people together without the need to provide depth or substance. Spirituality is able to go intellectually, emotionally, and physically deeper, and does so through providing the proper context, it answers a myriad of key questions, and it promotes further questioning—thus spirituality furthers our […] Read more »
The Art of Asking Essential Questions
The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our thinking. The quality of our thinking, in turn, is determined by the quality of our questions, for questions are the engine, the driving force behind thinking. Without questions, we have nothing to think about. Without essential questions, we often fail to focus our thinking on the significant and substantive. When we ask essential questions, we deal with what […] Read more »
The Prussian Connection to American Schooling (Part 4), by John Taylor Gatto
Where did the American school system come from? And what are its true purposes? These are excerpts from John Taylor Gatto’s book, The Underground History of American Education Chapter Seven: The Prussian Connection, Section 93: “The Technology of Subjection” and Section 94: “The German/American Reichsbank” Get the book: http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf For Part 1, CLICK HERE. For Part 2, CLICK HERE. For Part 3, CLICK HERE. Read more »
Why Is it Important to Avoid Compromise?
Why should we avoid compromise and meeting in the middle as a means of solving our problems? We’ve all heard the adage that “we each have our own subjective truth”, and while this may be true, it does not negate the reality of an objective truth’s existence. There are gradients of truth, just as there are gradients of lies. Subjective truth and objective truth are very different, whereas subjective truth […] Read more »
The Prussian Connection to American Schooling (Part 3), by John Taylor Gatto
Where did the American school system come from? And what are its true purposes? This is an excerpt from John Taylor Gatto’s book, The Underground History of American Education Chapter Seven: The Prussian Connection, Section 90: “The Prussian Reform Movement” and Section 91: “Travels’ Reports” Get the book: http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf For Part 1, CLICK HERE. For Part 2, CLICK HERE. For Part 4, CLICK HERE. Read more »
The Prussian Connection to American Schooling (Part 2), by John Taylor Gatto
Where did the American school system come from? And what are its true purposes? This is an excerpt from John Taylor Gatto’s book, The Underground History of American Education Chapter Seven: The Prussian Connection, Section 89: “The Long Reach of the Teutonic Knights” The second installment in the second phase of the School Sucks Project’s Best of John Taylor Gatto series. For Part 1, CLICK HERE. For Part 3, CLICK […] Read more »
The Prussian Connection to American Schooling (Part 1), by John Taylor Gatto
Where did the American school system come from? And what are its true purposes? This is an excerpt is from John Taylor Gatto’s book, The Underground History of American Education Chapter Seven: The Prussian Connection, Section 88: “The Land of Frankenstein” The first installment in the second phase of the School Sucks Project’s Best of John Taylor Gatto series Get the book: http://mhkeehn.tripod.com/ughoae.pdf (the video looks like it was removed, […] Read more »
The New Dumbness, by John Taylor Gatto
Teaching is Like Crafting a Sculpture
“In theoretical, metaphorical terms, the idea I began to explore was this one: that teaching is nothing like the art of painting, where, by the addition of material to a surface, an image is synthetically produced, but more like the art of sculpture, where, by the subtraction of material, an image already locked in the stone is enabled to emerge. It is a crucial distinction. In other words, I dropped […] Read more »
Pronoun Magic! Tips For Aspiring Politicians/Criminals
“We” is a powerful and dangerous word. And peaceful people should avoid using it when talking about the actions of violent strangers. Imagine you lived in a neighborhood controlled by a violent gang… What if you started using first-person plural pronouns, like “we,” “us'” and “our” when discussing the gang and their activities, even though you were not in the gang, you didn’t know anyone in the gang, and no […] Read more »
John Gatto on the Prussian Education System
John Taylor Gatto (born December 15, 1935) is an American retired school teacher of 29 years and 8 months and author of several books on education. He is an activist critical of compulsory schooling and of what he characterizes as the hegemonic nature of discourse on education and the education professions. Gatto was born in the Pittsburgh-area steel town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. In his youth he attended public schools throughout […] Read more »
What is an Emotional Block?
What is an emotional / energetic block? Quite simply, it is a lack of understanding, which is connected to our emotions and logic. Our emotions, which serve as a type of logic / CPU in a computer, function as a bridge between our perceptions (input) and actions (output). Understanding (our unconscious mind / emotions / feelings) is the bridge between what we think (conscious mind) and what we do (subconscious […] Read more »
The Underlying Messages Sent to us Through Television Programs
It is okay to watch TV, as long as we are doing so with our critical thinking turned on (we use the Trivium), since most programs are meant to bypass our critical thinking and pull at our feelings, so that they can then condition our minds with their programs. Our critical thinking acts as a type of virus protection and firewall against the external programs that seek to make our […] Read more »
The Difficulties in Conveying a Sound Argument
One of the major hurdles we run into when conveying certain concepts to others is their inability to understand the logical implications and nuances of our message. Their thinking is clouded by their own self-deceptive logic, so much so, that they are unable to reconcile the facts of a situation when they are presented, and immediately go into denial, resistance, name calling, and argumentativeness; which they support with poor logic. […] Read more »