Last Post for a While

Dear readers,

When I started this blog several months ago, I hoped to be able to fit it into my schedule even though I was a full time student. Regrettably, my school has taken more time than expected and this blog has had to realize its lower place on the priority list. It is still my deep desire that people be exposed to The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt. The book contains such important information about today's education system. I have been thinking also, that a blog may not be the best way to do what I am trying to do i.e., expose people to this book and give them a glimpse into it. In light of this and the other demands on my time, I have decided to place this blog on hold. I am not going to remove/delete it. There just won't be any more posts. After I have graduated, probably sometime this summer, I will consider restarting it. I hope what I have posted so far will give you a feel for the book as well as peak your interest in learning the truth about this subject. If it has done that, then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.  Thank you for viewing my blog.  Tiras Charlton

John Dewey Enters The Scene

   
     One of the biggest forces early in the education reform movement was John Dewey. Let's look at what he believed about education and where he thought it should go. 

"Psychology by John Dewey, the father of "Progressive Education," was Published (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1896). This was the first American textbook on the “revised” subject of education. Psychology would become the most widely-read and quoted textbook used in schools of education in this country. Just prior to the publication of his landmark book, Dewey had joined the faculty of the Rockefeller-endowed University of Chicago as head of the combined departments of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy (teaching). In that same year,
1895, the university allocated $1,000 to establish a  laboratory in which Dewey could apply psychological principles and experimental techniques to the study of learning. The laboratory opened in January 1896 as the Dewey School, later to become known as The University of
Chicago Laboratory School.
     "Dewey thought of the school as a place where his theories of education could be put into practice, tested, and scientifically evaluated….
     "…Dewey… sought to apply the doctrines of experience and experiment to everyday life and, hence, to education... seeking via this model institution to pave the way for the “schools of the future.” There he had put into actual practice three of the revolutionary beliefs he had culled from the new psychology: that to put the child in

Children--Trained As Animals

"EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE was born August 31, 1874 in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. Thorndike was trained in the new psychology by the first generation of Wilhelm Wundt’s protegés.… He went to graduate school at Harvard and studied under psychologist William James. While at Harvard, Thorndike surprised James by doing research with chickens, testing their behavior, and pioneering what later became known as “animal psychology.” As briefly stated by Thorndike himself, psychology was the “science of the intellect, character, and behavior of animals, including man.
"To further excerpt The Leipzig Connection’s excellent treatment of

No Room for The Soul in Psychology!

"Wilhelm Wundt, founder of experimental psychology and the force behind its dissemination throughout the Western world, was born in 1832 in Neckarau, southern Germany. The following excerpts concerning Wundt’s contribution to modern education are taken from The Leipzig Connection: The Systematic Destruction of American Education by Paolo Lionni and Lance J. Klass (Heron Books: Portland, Ore., 1980):

'To Wundt, a thing made sense and was worth pursuing if it could be measured, quantified, and scientifically demonstrated. Seeing no way to do this with the human soul, he proposed that psychology concern itself solely with experience. As Wundt put it... Karl Marx injected Hegel’s theories with economics and sociology, developing a “philosophy of dialectical materialism.”… (p. 8)

From Wundt’s work it was only a short step to the later redefinition of education. Originally, education meant drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc.—the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve. To the experimental psychologist, however, education became the process of exposing the student to “meaningful” experiences so as to ensure desired reactions: (Refer to the second definition of education in my previous post to see this quote.)

If one assumes (as did Wundt) that there is nothing there to begin with but a body, a brain, a nervous system, then one must try to educate by inducing sensations in that nervous system. Through these experiences, the individual will learn to respond to any given stimulus, with the “correct” response. The child is not, for example, thought capable of volitional control over his actions, or of deciding whether he will act or not act in a certain way; his actions are thought to be preconditioned and beyond his control, he is a stimulus response mechanism. According to this thinking, he is his reactions. Wundt’s thesis laid the philosophical basis for the principles of conditioning later developed by Pavlov (who studied physiology in Leipzig in 1884, five years after Wundt had inaugurated his laboratory there) and American behavioral psychologists such as Watson and Skinner; for laboratories and electroconvulsive therapy; for schools oriented more toward socialization of the child than toward the development of intellect; and for the emergence of a society more and more blatantly devoted to the gratification of sensory desire at the expense of responsibility and achievement. (pp. 14–15)' "

(Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, 2-3; ch 1)

What Does "Education" Really Mean?

In this post, I would like to look at an excerpt from the introduction to chapter one of DDDoA (The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America). This entire book is about education. But, what does the word "education" really mean? We must always keep in mind what words mean. You will remember from a previous post that a tool used by those trying to bring about change, is the redefining of words. The first definition of "education" that Iserbyt shares with us, in the first chapter, is taken from The New Century Dictionary of the English Language (Appleton, Century, Crofts: New York, 1927):

"'Education: The drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc.—the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve.'

A quantum leap was taken from the above definition to the new, dehumanizing definition used by the experimental psychologists found in An Outline of Educational Psychology (Barnes & Noble: New York, 1934, rev. ed.) by Rudolph Pintner et al. That truly revolutionary definition claims that

'learning is the result of modifiability in the paths of neural conduction. Explanations of even such forms of learning as abstraction and generalization demand of the neurones only growth, excitability, conductivity, and modifiability. The mind is the connection-system of man; and learning is the process of connecting. The situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurones, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences.'

An in-depth understanding of the deplorable situation found in our nation’s schools today is impossible without an understanding of the redefinition in the above statements. Education in the twenty-first century will, for the majority of youth, be workforce training. Thus, the need for Pavlovian/Skinnerian methodology based on operant conditioning which, in essence, is at the heart of the above dehumanizing definition of education. This “sowing of the seeds” through redefinition will reap the death of traditional, liberal arts education through the advent of mastery learning, outcome-based education, and direct instruction—all of which will be performance-based and behaviorist." (1-2; ch.1)

Snippet from the Introduction

In the Introduction to The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, Sarah Leslie says in part:

"Iserbyt so effectively nails down her case that the debate noticeably shifts to the ethics of implementing such a method on children. The late Christian apologist and theologian, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, when discussing the evils of B.F. Skinner in his little booklet Back to Freedom and Dignity (1972), warned: “Within the Skinnerian system there are no ethical controls; there is no boundary limit to what can be done by the elite in whose hands control resides.” There is intriguing evidence in Iserbyt’s book that the “democratic” society of the near future will be managed via systematized operant conditioning—a startling proposition with ramifications which reach far beyond the scope of simple education reform.
Inevitably, questions and controversy will arise after publication of this book. How many popular computer games, programs, and curricula for children are heavily dependent upon this method—a method which requires immediate rewards? To what extent have home school and Christian school leaders, authors, and curriculum companies endorsed and utilized this method? How many child rearing (training) programs, workbooks and seminars are based upon these Skinnerian methods? After reading this book parents will no longer be duped into accepting behaviorist methods—in whatever guise, or by whatever name they come." (xxvi-xxvii)