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#55 is a great post.

One of the modern gurus is Dr. William Glasser. To Glasser and his cohorts absolutes and facts are bad. Glasser believes that learning core knowledge promotes individuality, which is bad. He prefers collaborative and cooperative project learning, team playing, whereas a better idea is to promote the collective man, which is a good thing.

This is Dewey's "New Education" philosophy, unfiltered. Dewey's teaching dates back to the Columbia Teachers College of the 1920s. Interestingly, Dewey promoted "whole word" reading instruction in order to prevent individuals from learning to read on their own. Dewey wanted students to learn to work collectively in guessing the meaning of words on the page.

I've always been a voracious reader, and the advent of the internet and world wide web hasn't helped matters ;)

Rote memorization of facts seems silly. But it is my experience having been lucky enough to live as long as I have, is that memorizing knowledge or filling up my "hard drive" as it were, only really pays off as one matures over the years and critical thinking skills are refined. Then those facts are able to be drawn upon, allowing good decisions as well as recognizing "old wine in new bottles". It's almost as if our educational elites don't WANT an informed citizenry, as the truly educated are much harder to brainwash.

I can't overemphasise the deviousness of the people entrusted to educate our children on the macro level. Our teachers and educators are in aggregate wonderful people, but I strongly encourage those with an interest in their children's welfare to follow this link about the "Delphi Technique", learn about what it is, how to recognize it in all its various forms. Know thy enemy, they certainly know us, have done their homework, and most despicable of all, take advantage of reasonable citizens willingness to compromise and their gullibility. They in fact depend on it. You may find yourself enraged when you discover how you have been manipulated.

http://www.iror.org/delphi.asp

"The Delphi Technique is a calculated method some administrators (such as school superintendents), committees (such as a school committee or school building committee), group facilitators and special interest groups (some ballot question groups and less-than-honorable architectural firms) use to achieve "consensus." Through the use of the Delphi Technique and the promotion of an "us" vs "them" mentality among the citizens of a community, dissenting voices are identifed, marginalized and discredited and the (often hidden) agendas of various groups and controlling individuals promoted."

Further suggested reading would be Saul Alinsky's "Reveille for Radicals" and "Rules for Radicals" (Hillary Clinton's mentor, btw); and it becomes apparent exactly how the will of the people has been hijacked. When you hear about the insanities in far away communities and think "It can't happen here, we are too smart, too good looking, too rich, etc, think again. These people play for keeps and they don't ever stop. Forewarned is forearmed. Get involved, because your enemies are very well organized and very well funded and they won't take no for an answer.