I just wanted to point out one of the Best books about “public scholing” that i have ever read…especially for americans this is a must read!

Here is the free Versioon (but there is no PDF ..if anyone ver gets his hands on a pdf PLEASE SEND ME )

the Title on amazon is “dumbing us down”…

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/15d.htm this is the site where i am at (reading it the 3rd time)..and belive me..this is written by an very very inteligent man who must now whats schooling about ..##

about the author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto

Have fun!

Firstly, I hope that everyone understands that it is necessary to generalise to an extent. Hopefully those reading the article understand that there are exceptions which don’t negate the main argument.

Secondly, about formal education. My assertion is that it does not generally help someone think clearly or be successful. It doesn’t say that ignorance is desirable, or formal education is a complete waste of time – obviously it can impart some skills. But if you rely on it for your success, or think that it will somehow teach you how to think, you will be disappointed.

Clear thinking is the ability to understand an argument and critically evaluate it in the light of other information (http://www.csicop.org/si/2006-02/thinking.html). Studies do indicate that a large number of graduates are incapable of critical thinking (http://www.conference-board.org/UTILITIES/pressDetail.cfm?press_ID=2971, http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/12/18/are_colleges_failing/) – or basic literacy either. I’m not sure why this would be any surprise, since this is de-emphasised in the curriculum.

It is axiomatic that education does not result in success. If that was the case, those with the highest qualifications would automatically be the most successful people in our society, while those with less education would be in the gutter. Instead, in my country, many graduates never earn enough to go over a basic living and repay their student loans, and everyone knows someone with very basic formal educations, who are self educated who go on to be successful in society. Yes, education is useful to get employment as a corporate drone, but that doesn’t make you successful either.

Thirdly, news is propaganda and entertainment. It is true that there are alternative sources of news. Does the mainstream person go to them? No. Does the majority of people get their news from News Corp or similar sources, or daily newspapers? Yes. Are these designed to entertain and put forward a slant on “news”. Yes. Is society largely influenced by mainstream news media. Yes. So I think the point remains valid.

Lastly, I stated that taxation is not of personal benefit. I would ask anyone who thinks that it is to look at what comes out of your paypacket in tax, then compare it to other categories of expenditure.

Do you get benefit from buying food. Yes. Do you get benefit from rent or mortgage payments. Yes. How about the tax (which exceeds for most people the combined cost of food, shelter, retirement savings, holidays etc)? With all that money gone, it should provide you with some huge benefit, right? But all anyone can point to is police (if they actually turn up when you are attacked), roads and public schools (which only applies to those with children of school age). Not much benefit in proportion to the large amount you pay, is it?

Even politicians don’t try to say that taxes are of personal benefit. They try to use altruistic arguments – “you are helping others” or “we need to build a more just society”. Where does most of the tax take go? In transfer payments from one sector of society to another. Look at the budget breakdown of any western country and you will see that.

Governments get their claws into a range of areas. Then they set up committees plus an incredible overhead of extra public sector regulators, clerks and incur other costs. Why not, the taxpayer foots the bill, there’s a state monopoly and the more people employed, the more important the public sector administrator becomes.

This work can be done more efficiently, better and cheaper by the private sector which tries to keep costs low to make a profit. And instead of EVERYONE having to pay for them, only the end users who actually want the service would have to. Worried about monopoly pricing? Allow competition.

In conclusion, if there was no tax, people would still find ways of paying for things that were important. Governments are an undesirable and inefficient solution for providing services. And theft of income through taxes in order to fund someone at the expense of someone else is the nature of their racket.

Education is really-really important. And it can open you doors, which otherwise wouldn’t even be there.

The original chapter said, that our education systems (you called it ‘schooling’) don’t necessarily promote ‘free handed thinking’ or ensure, that you’ll know in the end, what counts in life, if you follow the system closely. It can turn you into a system’s idiot, if you follow it like a one-way road.

I definitely agree with you, that when your 2nd part of education (life itself) kicks in, it should help, to open your eyes.

I still disagree with the education issue not being important. I do agree that people who might be called ‘un-educated’ live full and happy lives, but is that not part of the education that comes from travelling? Seeing just how little you actually need in life.

From a personal point of view, I think that those who work themselves to the bone and die of heart attacks are missing that vital piece of education I just wrote about above… ie, lifes lessons in frugality.

Perhaps a piece of personal info can help clarify my stance. I’m living in the UK after growing up in NZ, i’m saving a lot of money in the UK that i’m using to fund my semi-retirement. By this I mean, being able to work part time in a few years (i’m 25 now) and having more time for myself. If I hadn’t gotten my formal education then I wouldn’t be able to afford to do it. Likewise, if I hadn’t gotten some life education, then I wouldn’t realise that such a thing was possible or that there were other options than working and accruing more wealth in the rat race.

Without my education/s my life would not nearly be as rich and full as it is now.

While the original post contains a lot of generalization, especially about taxes, educations and maybe the news part, I’m amazed about the different interpretations.

A lot of people see taxes as a painful duty and try to avoid it as much as they can, independently from their wealth. Even moving to different countries and trying to get another citizenship. Is there anything wrong with that? Hm…

Education doesn’t lead people out of the rat race; the opposite is usually true. I had lots of high-skilled colleagues once, many working their a**e* off, some dying of heart attacks in their 50s or even 40s. Never happy, never enough money. What did education make them? Skilled monkeys? One-way expert idiots?

On the opposite, since I’m traveling; I met many ‘so-called’ uneducated people, living a happy life, full of joy, meaningful and lively. Living more with less.
Idiocation anyone???

(Okay, as a German I won’t even start explaining about news, we practically invented propaganda…)

8 – That education helps us think clearly and be successful.

Ok, There’s two types of education: Schooling and life.

I’m not sure where you had your schooling but when I was at school (i’m 25 now) I learnt to read, write, do arithmetic, algebra and trigonometry alongside a multitude of other things. Granted the education system in your country might be substandard but it’s not the same everywhere. I studied computer programming and that education gave me a sound logical basis for everything in my life. If i’ve got a problem I can come up with an algorithm to solve it. If I didn’t have that education I wouldn’t have travelled the world and have a much improved standard of life over what I had three years ago.

As for life education, a traveller such as yourself should realise that getting out and seeing different cultures and their values makes you grow as a person and think more clearly about what you want, and what really matters in life.

Ask yourself this:

Would you have managed to build this website without education? Would you have managed to discover your libertarian stance without being able to think clearly and make educated decisions about what you want from life?

No, I didn’t think so either.