It's a must read for every patriotic American!

the deliberate dumbing down of america

FREE PDF
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.pdf

Must be them liberal edumacated dummies!

736 pages??
Anybody got the Cliff Notes version?

(And yes. I realize the irony here...)

no shit, I saved it and started reading it

Are you talking about no time and the signing of the "unpatriotic acts" ?

Libraries & the USA Patriot Act

ALA | USA PATRIOT Act and Intellectual Freedom

EPIC USA PATRIOT Act Page

digg - The Patriot Act is 100's of pages.Voted on 5 minutes after presented!!

Okay, after reading most of it (minus appendixes and such), allow me to review it a bit.

First of all, I think the author's premise of a dumbing down of the United States is quite true and Iserbyt does point out the inherent flaws of our education system and their philosophers. But my main problem with the book is that Iserbyt's connections couldn't be more flawed. Likewise I think as literature in of itself, it is quite a horrible production needing a lot of editing. Further there are many self-conflicting arguments which only discredit the author and the premise of her thesis.

First of all, she equates state power somehow to federal power. She says there is a shift of power over the country's educational system from localities to the state governments and then therefore (illogically) to the federal government that would only further an evil plan of "robotization" of the American populace. Although, it is a consolidation of education laws over a larger form of authority, she fails to account for such examples of state-education and even foreign examples of national education that have been even more successful than that of the American education system; such as those in Japan or Europe.

She likens federal and state authority to having an innate nature of evil. It is true that power corrupts, and perhaps her thesis works but only in the world's most powerful nation. But there is still no evidence that privatized education is better than having state education; in fact the evidence points to the contrary. This is why places with such systems like in Japan or in Europe are producing larger amounts of scientists and just overall graduates than in the United States.

But what makes the United States different from those other nations? Other nations, that indeed have a democracy and even constitutional perimeters whereby the people's inalienable rights are protected by the rule of law; as much like our own. In fact, most western European countries are even more democratic than our own; as their governments are more closely in line with the will of the people as well as a political system of many, not two, political parties. The author basically is saying that the innate difference is one of immorality. In other words, she's attempting to connect the indeed concerning issue of a dumbing-down in this country, to an argument of anti-humanism, anti-socialism, and a dangerous anti-intellectualism.

Although what she has to say (for the most part) on our education system is true, I think she needs to learn about political science. She repeatedly uses the term socialist/fascist to refer to both the educational philosophies and the general teaching body of America's public education system. I hope that she realizes that such a term is quite literally an oxymoron. This, again, only further discredits her premise of her thesis, and only makes her look as someone only disgruntled with the education system perhaps because she failed to pass. I know it's false, but she is making the impression by her rather radical and unsubstantiated claims against both the left and the right of America (but mostly her skewed interpretation of socialism).

The connection of her book is perhaps a talking point taken out of the mouth of maybe Rush Limbaugh (and indeed she even used Limbaugh's show as a source a couple of times to make a point) or even more likely that of a Christian evangelist. She attempts to describe America's public education philosophies of one that attempts to instill atheism. She also attempts to liken the problem of the dumbing down of America to a byproduct of humanism. Her thesis takes an opposition to humanism, which she claims instills in children that morality is relative and that there should be no moral perimeters. Her argument falls apart when she says she opposes humanism, and that she thinks schools should exist to instill a sense of Christian morality.

At one point in her book she even says all schools should have the Ten Commandments posted up on schools' walls. Perhaps this is why she is opposed to public education. Whereby Congress is not allowed to pass legislation respecting an establishment of religion, and whereby the bill of rights apply to the states as conferred in the 14th Amendment, the Supreme Court has ruled that the separation of church and state must be respected even in public schools. Perhaps this is why she wants to privatize America's school systems completely.

It is quite interesting, she complains about an education system that is not conducive to an environment that teaches children to be individuals and think on their own but rather fall in line with conformity; but that is exactly what her plan of a "moral-instilling" education system does! For the very premise of an education system that instills a certain set of morals is directly contrary to a system that would help children form as educated and free-thinking individuals.

It's quite annoying at some times. She rejects the validity of America's education system, and educators, yet she uses studies and works that derive from that very system. She says she wants the schools to teach a broad base of literature and philosophy, yet she viciously detests the philosophies of certain aesthetic philosophers and their works. Likewise, the dangerous territory of anti-intellectualism puts her in a position where she may reject the studies and opinions of intellectuals in educator positions as "socialist/fascist" tripe, yet she quotes and uses as references other educators that help her thesis. It seems as if the education system works if it only conforms to her beliefs!

Further I think she fails to recognize the true causes of the dumbing-down of children and the failure of our education system. She is definitely correct in saying that our school systems are gearing more toward occupational perpetration rather than the teaching of intellect or literature. However, she likens the problem to one of an attempt of the federal government to bid control over the populace. This is simply ridiculous. Especially because she considers such presidencies as Reagan, who preached of small government, to be a part of the problem. She states that our education system is one like the systems in Nazi Germany and communism etc., however, she fails to realize that unlike those systems, the populace will be going to work for private companies! NOT the government!

Which brings us to the true culprits, I believe, of the dumbing-down of America; and that lies with free-market fundamentalists. I don't think it is quite a conscious effort as much as the author proposes. But I think it's more of a part of a free-market fundamentalist philosophy that griped America and its corporations. I think the true dumbing-down happens from sources outside of school (and such outside sources make their appearances in schools), and subsequently, the education system is a reflection of this changing mood. Over the 20th Century, and now at it's peak in the beginning of the 21st century, there was a growing philosophy of free-market fundamentalism and materialism. "Machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people", as Martin Luther King Jr put it, and he couldn't be more right in his conclusion that once that happens, "the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered." Thus, the epitome of such materialism is a corporatist, fascist, and globalist society where its education system is only a means by which the people are controlled. So the author was almost right, but unfortunately her conservative and Christian fundamentalist bias clouded her judgment; because as the opposition to such globalization, socialism is the (an) answer to the problem, and not the cause.

This can also help explain the sharp decrease in the numbers of American voters, and thus an increase in apathy. Because the people are more interested in superficiality and materialism rather than the ingenuity of human imagination, or an individual free-thinker. In fact, such materialism and anti-individualism is the premise by which laissez-faire (free-market fundamentalism) works.

You should submit your response to the Articles page of this site Katczinsky.

John Taylor Gatto, once Teacher of the Year in New York, also writes about dumbing us down. John Taylor Gatto - Challenging the Myths of Modern Schooling has links to his books as well. This is one of the reasons I'm homeschooling two of my grandchildren.