Why Are You So Docile When You

Looking Back On A 30-year Teaching Career Full Of Rewards And Prizes, Somehow I Can't Completely Believe That I Spent My Time On Earth Institutionalized; I Can't Believe That Centralized Schooling Is Allowed To Exist At All As A Gigantic Indoctrination And Sorting Machine, Robbing People Of Their Children. Did It Really Happen? Was This My Life? God Help Me.

Child Labor Becomes A Label Of Condemnation In Spite Of Its Ancient Function As The Quickest, Most Reliable Way To Human Independence

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.

God Was Pitched Out Of Forced Schooling On His Ear After Wwii. This Wasn't Because Of Any Constitutional Proscription-there Was None That Anyone Had Been Able To Find In Over A Century And A Half-but Because The Political State And Corporate Economy Considered The Western Spiritual Tradition Too Dangerous A Competitor. And It Is.

Is It Any Wonder That Socrates Was Outraged At The Accusation He Took Money To Teach? Even Then, Philosophers Saw Clearly The Inevitable Direction The Professionalization Of Teaching Would Take, That Of Pre-empting The Teaching Function, Which, In A Healthy Community, Belongs To Everyone.