When You Take The Free Will Out

One Of The First Things A Family Tries To Teach Its Children Is The Difference Between Good And Evil, Right And Wrong. One Of The First Things Our Schools Do Is Destroy That Distinction.

I've Noticed A Fascinating Phenomenon In My Twenty-five Years Of Teaching - That Schools And Schooling Are Increasingly Irrelevant To The Great Enterprises Of The Planet. No One Believes Anymore That Scientists Are Trained In Science Classes Or Politicians In Civics Classes Or Poets In English Classes. The Truth Is That Schools Don't Really Teach Anything Except How To Obey Orders.

Close Reading Of Tough-minded Writing Is Still The Best, Cheapest, And Quickest Method Known For Learning To Think For Yourself... Reading, And Rigorous Discussion Of That Reading In A Way That Obliges You To Formulate A Position And Support It Against Objections, Is An Operational Definition Of Education... Reading, Analysis, And Discussion Is The Way We Develop Reliable Judgment, The Principle Way We Come To Penetrate Covert Movements Behind The Facade Of Public Appearances.

I've Concluded That Genius Is As Common As Dirt. We Suppress Genius Because We Haven't Yet Figured Out How To Manage A Population Of Educated Men And Women. The Solution, I Think, Is Simple And Glorious. Let Them Manage Themselves.

Government Schooling Made People Dumber, Not Brighter; Made Families Weaker; Ruined Formal Religion With Its Hard-sell Exclusion Of God; Set The Class Structure In Stone By Dividing Children Into Classes And Setting Them Against One Another; And Has Been Midwife To An Alarming Concentration Of Wealth And Power In The Hands Of A Fraction Of The National Community.