[BruceDeitrickPrice]

Yes, there’s a wonderful bit of satire early in “To Kill A Mockingbird” where Scout goes off to her first day of school...only to find the teacher is horrified that this little girl can read. The nitwit teacher specifically says that Scout’s father has done a terrible thing and has made the teacher’s job much more difficult! Now, the teacher moans, she will have to undo all that bad teaching—and start over.

Harper Lee perfectly nailed the lunacy of Dewey’s education ideas.

[arthurus]

Back when Saxon Math first came out I got an Algebra 1 and my daughter taught herself algebra with it. I tried to help a neighbor kid with his public school algebra and could not make heads or tails of his textbook. Public school math texts are designed to be obfuscatory so that the teacher MUST be part of the process. I read the old Saxon higher math books and all of them were designed so that a moderately bright kid can learn the subject without the necessity of a "teacher." A local high school used Saxon for a year then discarded it because it made the teachers feel unnecessary.