Bill Smith wrote on March 05, 2008 08:48 AM: Are you sure you are a teacher Carole Main, because you obviously lack reading comprehension skills and missed the whole point of the article.

Carole Main wrote on March 02, 2008 10:34 AM: Great article. Until the primary teachers go back to teachng phonics, many kids will have difficulty reading and spelling. Phonics is complicated and difficult to teach but it is the process whereby young children learn to think "logically." As a former elementary teacher from Canada, I was appalled with the lack of teacher supervision when I taught in the USA. In Canada we had inspectors (former principals) who visited our classrooms;if he/she stayed longer than 15 minutes you knew you were in trouble. A good substitute can assess a teacher's ability without the regular teacher being there. The students' work habits and behavior say it all. CM

Bill Smith wrote on February 20, 2008 07:26 AM: Generalissimo Washington: How He Crushed the Spirit of Liberty


http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard171.html

"His primary aim was to crush the individualistic and democratic spirit of the American forces."

Paolo wrote on February 15, 2008 06:46 PM: The amazing thing about our schools is how little they manage to teach, even though they hold the children 200 days per year for 12 years! Then, they have the gall to assign "homework!"

We've all met the "twenty-somethings" who have no idea when the Civil War, WWI, or WWII were fought; or which nations were at war; or even who won.

We've all seen the high school graduates who have no idea how to make proper change for a dollar.

We've all seen the newly-hired nineteen year old who thinks he should be paid fifty grand a year because he knows how to use a mouse and a search engine. Oh, and he can also add and subtract, using a calculator.

Vin and Gatto have pointed out that the schools are NOT failures. They succeed brilliantly at what they were intended to produce: obedient, gullible citizens who will, without questions, follow orders on the battlefield or in the factory, to serve the ruling class.

If you want to save this country, the place to start is the schools. And I don't mean "reforming" them. I mean closing them down. The best way to accomplish this is to simply refuse to enroll your kids in a public school. Either home school, or send them to a private or religious school. Don't send them to a school that can't teach basic reading and math when given twelve years to do so.

Bill Smith wrote on February 13, 2008 09:25 AM: Mrs. Lyndy Omer there are these wonderful tools on the internet called “search engines”. Some examples of those “search engines” are Google, Yahoo, and Ask. If you would simply type in "too illiterate, too unlearned, too unread for his station and reputation." in to the space provide, you will find numerous sources. The internet is a wonderful thing, even for the ignorant.

Mrs. Lyndy Omer wrote on February 13, 2008 08:29 AM: I'd like to know the source where John Adams states that George Washington is
"too illiterate, too unlearned, too unread for his station and reputation."

Bill Smith wrote on February 12, 2008 04:46 AM: Your theory is "spot on" Paolo.

Paolo wrote on February 11, 2008 07:00 PM: I have a theory that I have not been able to develop, but it seems to make sense to me. Nowadays, parents routinely talk about "teen-age rebelliousness," considering this phenomenon to be universal and normal.

I think you will see this phenomenon as something that developed almost entirely after the Second World War. Prior to that, young males (and, to some degree, females) routinely found work, either on the farm, or in a factory, or in Dad's shop. Students, up until WWII, typically stopped schooling (in modern terms, "dropped out") after Junior High School. Only the best students went on to high school, where they were expected to study foreign languages (including Latin and Greek), trigonometry, calculus, and other complex subjects.

There was no stigma attached to "dropping out of school" and getting a job to support the family, or to get married and start a family of your own.

In other words, moving rapidly into adult responsibilities was considered "normal." Nowadays, we have an abnormally-extended childhood, all the way to age 18 and beyond. This despite the fact that children nowadays are reaching puberty at earlier and earlier ages.

The real reason behind anti-child-labor laws was not, as is commonly proposed, "protection of the children." That is the thin veneer or rationalization. The real reason was to shrink the labor force and drive up wages. Unfortunately, this has extended childhood way beyond its normal term, enforcing idleness on millions of teenagers who are rarin' to go out and get a job and be productive.

Hence, "teenage rebellion." In a free society (and, by my experience, in almost all home-schooled adolescents) there is no such thing.

Again, this is only a theory, but I think it merits consideration.

Jeremiah wrote on February 11, 2008 10:54 AM: I see no reason why teens can't get jobs. There are now reasons beyond school as to why this happens (sense of entitlement from today's youth; cheaper labor from south of the border; etc.). My older brother wore pretty much every fast food uni out there as a teen. Nowadays I rarely see a teen working in fast food.

What surprises me is that kids are no longer encouraged (allowed?) to apprentice in any kind of occupation that would interest them. When I was in HS there were wood, metal, and auto shop courses. Those are no longer available in mainstream HS's. Why not offer plumbing or HVAC courses in HS? I mean schools have plenty of problems with those systems anyway, so why not teach students how to fix them? Valuable skill.

We as a nation have become far too obsessed with creating "college-ready" students. College is now no longer a choice. It's both a requirement and an entitlement. It waters down the college degree as it thins out our market for skilled and unskilled labor by making everyone think they should get (and are entitled to) a bachelor's.

You know, Paolo, until public school became mandated there was no such thing as an "adolescent." As a teacher and a parent I think school takes up too much family time (homework is utterly pointless). But with inflation and the economy such as they are both parents need to work to make ends meet most of the time. So that family time is getting harder and harder to come by.

jep wrote on February 11, 2008 09:45 AM: Schools don't educate, they indoctrinate. They don't teach American history, government or civics?

How are you going to keep the public school monopoly going if students learn the Constitution mandates limited government and does not provide for any federal education spending?

If the students actually learned anything useful in High School, how many would need to attend college?

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