Learn in Freedom

[AlanM]

Suspect we'll need 2 types of info. 1) Why Public Schools are bad 2) Alternatives

[AlanM]

Do you think we should create a website on this issue? Perhaps learninfreedom.com if it is available?

[Kat Kanning]

I put a lot of info here:

http://www.soulawakenings.com/underground/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Escape+the+Public+Schools

[AlanM]

That's great Kat! Thanks! 

[tracysaboe]

Kat,
I Suspect you have lots of sites in your Favorites. We should compile a list.
Here are a few:
http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/
http://strongbrains.com/
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/index.html

Actually, from my experience in internet marketing (and just in general) you really only want a few. Find two or three good sites. And let them browse.

You give people a huge list, and they won't even bother.

My picks would be.

I think Gatto.
Sepschool.org.
And that Christian one. (Get our kids, out, or whatever) would cover all the basis, and not cause information overload I don't think.

but I'm not sure it mattesr. Just settle on 3 good sites, that you think are the best. (4 if you absolutely must.) and just tell people about those.

Leave them wanting more.

If they want more -- you can give them more, later.

Tracy

[tracysaboe]

Do you think we should create a website on this issue? Perhaps learninfreedom.com if it is available?

I would say yes.

Simply having a 2nd piece of internet real estate that you can control and update, would a) give one more things for spiders, robots, and human directories to log. and b) give you more tools.

Then you can say "Here's our site."

As opposed to "This is the undergrounds's, site"

I think the more individual you make it, the better emotional responce you'll get.

It shows, you're a human being, an individual, and not just part of the machinery of "NH Underground."

If you know what I mean.

Tracy

[AlanM]

Here is the false belief we need to expose:

Every one of the most modern developments in technique and organization pioneered by steel was echoed in the new factory schools: increase in the size of the plant; integration of formerly independent educational factors like family, church, library, and recreational facility into a coalition dominated by professional schooling; the specialization of all pedagogical labor; and the standardization of curriculum, testing, and acceptable educational behavior. What confused the issue for the participant population is that parents and students still believed that efficiency in the development of various literacies was the goal of the school exercise. Indeed, they still do. But that had ceased to be the purpose in big cities as early as 1905. Schooling was about efficiency. Social efficiency meant standardizing human units.

[AlanM]

Oops! He spilled the beans.

"Surprisingly enough to those who expect that institutional thinking will reflect their own thought only on a larger scale, what is an asset to a mass production economy is frequently a liability to an individual or a family. Creating value in children for a mass production workplace through schooling meant degrading their intellectual growth and discouraging any premature utility to the larger society. Ellwood P. Cubberley inadvertently spilled the beans in his classic Public Education in the United States when he admitted compulsion schooling would not work as long as children were allowed to be useful to the real world. Ending that usefulness demanded legislation, inspectors, stiff penalties, and managed public opinion."

[AlanM]

From Gatto's book:

"In the emerging world of corporate Newspeak, education became schooling and schooling education. The positive philosophy freed business philosophers like Carnegie from the tyranny of feeling they had always to hire the best and brightest on their own independent terms for company operations. Let fools continue to walk that dead-end path. Science knew that obedient and faithful executives were superior to brilliant ones. Brains were needed, certainly, but like an excess of capsicum, too much of the mental stuff would ruin the national digestion. One of the main points of the dramatic shift to mass production and mass schooling was to turn Americans into a mass population."

[AlanM]

The Plan:

" A plan emerged piecemeal in these years to be slowly inserted into national schooling. Seen from a distance a century later, it is possible to discern the still shimmering outline of a powerful strategy drawing together at least ten elements:

Removal of the active literacies of writing and speaking which enable individuals to link up with and to persuade others.


Destruction of the narrative of American history connecting the arguments of the Founding Fathers to historical events, definingwhat makes Americans different from others besides wealth.


Substitution of a historical "social studies" catalogue of facts in place of historical narrative.


Radical dilution of the academic content of formal curriculum which familiarized students with serious literature, philosophy, theology, etc. This has the effect of curtailing any serious inquiries into economics, politics, or religion.


Replacement of academics with a balanced-diet concept of "humanities," physical education, counseling, etc., as substance of the school day.


Obfuscation or outright denial of the simple, code-cracking drills which allow fluency in reading to anyone.


The confinement of tractable and intractable students together in small rooms. In effect this is a leveling exercise with predictable (and pernicious) results. A deliberate contradiction of common-sense principles, rhetorically justified on the grounds of psychological and social necessity.


Enlargement of the school day and year to blot up outside opportunities to acquire useful knowledge leading to independent livelihoods; the insertion of misleading surrogates for this knowledge in the form of "shop" classes which actually teach little of skilled crafts.


Shifting of oversight from those who have the greatest personal stake in student development?parents, community leaders, and the students themselves?to a ladder of strangers progressively more remote from local reality. All school transactions to be ultimately monitored by an absolute abstraction, the "standardized" test, correlating with nothing real and very easily rigged to produce whatever results are called for.


Relentless low-level hostility toward religious interpretations of meaning. "

[Michael Fisher]

Imagine someone dressed in prisoner garb outside of a public school holding this sign:

"Learn in Freedom"

[AlanM]

Imagine someone dressed in prisoner garb outside of a public school holding this sign:

"Learn in Freedom"

Actually, IMO, the simpler we present our case, with reason, not theatrics, the more powerful the message will be. Just my opinion.

[Michael Fisher]

Imagine someone dressed in prisoner garb outside of a public school holding this sign:

"Learn in Freedom"

Actually, IMO, the simpler we present our case, with reason, not theatrics, the more powerful the message will be. Just my opinion.

Hmmm... okay, we'll avoid the prisoner clothes... for now.?

[Michael Fisher]

How much do you think this sort of thing will cost you, on a weekly basis?

The sign boards, stencils, and markers were $29 at Staples.   

If you'd like to donate to support the effort, please donate to the LSF or a local charitable cause instead. 

[AlanM]

Here is the handout I will use for the Learn in Freedom campaign:

Learn in Freedom

As more and more money is spent on Public Schools
The Curriculum gets progressively dumbed down.


This Is No Accident!
It is Planned!

? ? Public Schools are warehouses, not oasis? of learning. The goal of Public Schools is to give you a minimal education, not a meaningful one. Most teachers try desperately to teach their students, but are prevented from doing so by a system that is designed to thwart their efforts.

? ?Don?t want to believe it? Those who do believe it are taking their children out of Public Schools and into private schools, or are home schooling their children. Why do you think most elitist parents send their children to private schools? Because they want their children to receive a REAL education.

? ?For more information on the design of Public Education, please read John Taylor Gatto?s book ?Underground History of American Education?. It can be read (or ordered) on-line at http://www.johntaylorgatto.com? John Taylor Gatto was teacher of the Year in New York state, and spent many years researching education in America. Having once read it, you will never view American Public Schools in the same way again.

? ?What are the alternatives? They are many, and varied. For more information, go to:
http://www.soulawakenings.com/underground/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Escape+the+Public+Schools

? ?You can also help others escape the Public School morass by making a Donation to the Liberty Scholarship Fund, a fund created to help children escape the public schools either by attending the Private School of their choice, or by learning at home. Visit the Liberty Scholarship website at: http://www.lsfund.org


? ?You are invited to join the discussion forum at the NH Underground :
http://www.nhfree.com