Are Public Schools Harming Your Kids? - Samuel L. Blumenfeld

[FrankRep]

Are Public Schools Harming Your Kids? (http://www.vimeo.com/20991312)


Samuel L. Blumenfeld documents the unprecedented decline in academic quality of education that has precipitated an exodus of children from government schools. Blumenfeld examines public education from the early 1830's to 1986.

Filmed in 1986 and produced by The John Birch Society (http://www.jbs.org/)'s American Opinion Speakers Bureau.



http://www.vimeo.com/20991312


Why Johnny Still Can't Read: A New Look at the Scandal of Our Schools
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060910313/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0060910313

NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0941995070?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0941995070

The Victims of Dick & Jane and Other Essays
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1891375210?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1891375210

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865714487/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0865714487

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865716692/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=libert0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0865716692

Book Review: The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/reviews/books/6204-the-deliberate-dumbing-down-of-america

[PaulineDisciple]

Thanks! I loved the previous lectures I have heard from Blumenfeld and I am sure these will be excellent as well.

[Fox McCloud]

isn't this like asking "does crashing my car into a tree damage the vehicle?"

[danberkeley]

isn't this like asking "does crashing my car into a tree damage the vehicle?"

Yes. But we need more trees.

[heavenlyboy34]

Thanks for the vids, OP! When I hear this kind of thing, I am eerily reminded of reading "Fahrenheit 451" when I was 12. :eek:

[penguin]

Wow! Great find! I wonder if this has anything to do with China buying so much of our debt?

[M House]

This is kinda like asking are parents harming their kids.

[FrankRep]

This is kinda like asking are parents harming their kids.
If you mean the parents are harming their kids by sending them to government run schools, I guess it is.

[M House]

Nope more like they harming their kids, blaming public education, and still not teaching them shit.

[Kludge]

Nope more like they harming their kids, blaming public education, and still not teaching them shit.

I think it may be more what public education implies.

The same thinking that would lead someone to say "since the government doesn't ban wormwood, it must not be bad for me". So I don't think it's unreasonable to think that someone may say they don't need to educate their kid since they're going to public schools. Of course, since schools rarely teach anything practical due to legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act and other attempts to "standardize" education on a federal level, students don't have any actual skills upon leaving their required education UNLESS the parent is responsible and teaches what was assumed to be taught.

[M House]

If you can go to any school and figure out a way not to learn anything for duration they expect you too let me know. 5 days a weak, 8 to 3 or longer. Majority is garbage in/garbage out but if I didn't have some of the courses I had there, I probably wouldn't be here visiting the forums.

[emazur]

It's pretty good but the religious slant isn't doing him any favors in getting the message across. Atheists [I]hate[I] god? Rock music and Dungeons and Dragons promote Satanism? Gimme a break.

[heavenlyboy34]

in part 9 he accuses the schools and rock music of fostering Satanism, occultism, suicide, etc... a little kooky, but not far from the truth, it seems. :(

[M House]

Wow....
This had got to be some of the most ignorant bullshit I've heard in awhile. O well, I kinda like rock music. Um he's ranting against schools addressing suicide as well. Alot of the stuff is off the wall.

[FrankRep]

If you can go to any school and figure out a way not to learn anything for duration they expect you too let me know. 5 days a weak, 8 to 3 or longer. Majority is garbage in/garbage out but if I didn't have some of the courses I had there, I probably wouldn't be here visiting the forums.

Obama is sending his kids to private schools. Something to think about. ;)

[M House]

Um if he can afford it why wouldn't he hand pick a potentially better school for his children? You might not think like this but it seems to me it's like some would rather have a child sit at home all day and watch TV than go to a public school for education.

[apropos]

A central problem of education nowadays is that educators don't agree on what constitutes an education. For many hundreds of years students were given a grounding first in grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium) and that was often followed by the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). But the trivium was the foundation of all other learning that followed in one's life.

Now we have a shotgun approach to basic education...some phonics, some math, an hour of social studies, an occasional sex ed or driver's ed class, typing class, art, chorus, english, spanish, P.E., etc. The college curriculum is even more atomized. Aside from the majors meant to teach a trade (such as computer science or pharmacy), a lot of students leave college possessing only a few disparate factoids about totally separate and unrelated areas of study. A large part of what is missing in education is coherence. The kids don't need the endless hours of studies like we see in Japan....they just need to be given the lost tools of learning (http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html). These tools even have commercial value today: a genuine grasp of grammar and logic make computer science much more intuitive, for example.

Most teachers cannot say why their subjects should matter to students, and this apparent meaninglessness appears in the students' lack of enthusiasm.

[heavenlyboy34]

A central problem of education nowadays is that educators don't agree on what constitutes an education. For many hundreds of years students were given a grounding first in grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium) and that was often followed by the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). But the trivium was the foundation of all other learning that followed in one's life.

Now we have a shotgun approach to basic education...some phonics, some math, an hour of social studies, an occasional sex ed or driver's ed class, typing class, art, chorus, english, spanish, P.E., etc. The college curriculum is even more atomized. Aside from the majors meant to teach a trade (such as computer science or pharmacy), a lot of students leave college possessing only a few disparate factoids about totally separate and unrelated areas of study. A large part of what is missing in education is coherence. The kids don't need the endless hours of studies like we see in Japan....they just need to be given the lost tools of learning (http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html). These tools even have commercial value today: a genuine grasp of grammar and logic make computer science much more intuitive, for example.

Most teachers cannot say why their subjects should matter to students, and this apparent meaninglessness appears in the students' lack of enthusiasm.

Well said! :D:)

[FrankRep]

Um if he can afford it why wouldn't he hand pick a potentially better school for his children? You might not think like this but it seems to me it's like some would rather have a child sit at home all day and watch TV than go to a public school for education.

I'd rather do private school or home schooling than public schooling.

[FrankRep]

links are fixed.

[TGGRV]

It all relies to the idea that everyone should go to school and be something. Then to not displease parents brainwashed into believe their little shit is something special, you lower the standards so that everyone passes. If everyone passes, it means that school is too easy. Soon the only question that admission officers will ask will be... Do you have a pencil? If you do, welcome to our school.

And lowered standards lead to degrees being useless even for people who worked hard and actually deserved them, making students despise education. They don't see a goal in it. And it all comes to critical thinking, which public schooling removed. It's just about teaching the right political platform. I look at my economics teacher and I laugh. I debated him on so many things and he lost every debate, eventually agreeing that I'm right. But what can you expect from someone who likes Al Gore and thinks Obama's policies aren't that bad. I swear, this idiot shouldn't teach 101 economics, let alone economics at the top university in a country.

I look at education and I see subjects missing from it that are key. Logics, philosophy, economics, history, grammar and math are really important. I did more biology, which is something that I won't use in my life than these, which everyone has to know to function properly. I'd also have a class about politics. People are clueless in things that affect their lives like economics and politics and believe everything a tool with a microphone on CNN tells them. I fail to see how doing anatomy twice in my life helped me. I def forgot the names of all the stupid bones and muscles. Besides certain subjects that help you in life like those I listed above, the rest should be optional and each would choose whatever is related to what they want to do in life.

The disaster that the American average education represents is shown by the fact that Women Studies is a fucking degree. I mean, I'm a woman and I don't see the relevance of such a major. Probably the most useless degree is major in women studies and minor in minorities studies. What did those teach you except some skewed point of view of some power hungry sexists or racists? Throw logic at one of the people who graduated with any of those majors and they won't know what hit them.

[andrewh817]

I think it may be more what public education implies.

The same thinking that would lead someone to say "since the government doesn't ban wormwood, it must not be bad for me". So I don't think it's unreasonable to think that someone may say they don't need to educate their kid since they're going to public schools. Of course, since schools rarely teach anything practical due to legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act and other attempts to "standardize" education on a federal level, students don't have any actual skills upon leaving their required education UNLESS the parent is responsible and teaches what was assumed to be taught.

Exactly. Since many public schools are so crowded, even if the textbooks did teach useful things, the class can only move as fast as the slowest person for everything to work together. When the smartest/fastest kids are done they must sit quietly and wait for the rest of the class to finish to move forward with the lesson.

Just as the government forces the kids with actual potential to sit and waste time in a class room, it forces employers to pay workers by time rather than how much work is done.

Result: More money for no addition services from the worker or the teacher, only added time...... Something the government obviously is in favor of. Not only are the dollars devalued, but the cattle have less time to worry about the major problems going on (most of them government related). Fascism sure is great!!!

[emazur]

Found a series of mp3 lectures from Blumenfeld:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?SpeakerOnly=true&currSection=sermonsspeaker&keyword=Dr.^Samuel^L.^Blumenfeld
From the URL you'll see these have a Christian bias, but that doesn't mean that all the information is worth dismissing

[FrankRep]

bump

[heavenlyboy34]

It all relies to the idea that everyone should go to school and be something. Then to not displease parents brainwashed into believe their little shit is something special, you lower the standards so that everyone passes. If everyone passes, it means that school is too easy. Soon the only question that admission officers will ask will be... Do you have a pencil? If you do, welcome to our school.

And lowered standards lead to degrees being useless even for people who worked hard and actually deserved them, making students despise education. They don't see a goal in it. And it all comes to critical thinking, which public schooling removed. It's just about teaching the right political platform. I look at my economics teacher and I laugh. I debated him on so many things and he lost every debate, eventually agreeing that I'm right. But what can you expect from someone who likes Al Gore and thinks Obama's policies aren't that bad. I swear, this idiot shouldn't teach 101 economics, let alone economics at the top university in a country.

I look at education and I see subjects missing from it that are key. Logics, philosophy, economics, history, grammar and math are really important. I did more biology, which is something that I won't use in my life than these, which everyone has to know to function properly. I'd also have a class about politics. People are clueless in things that affect their lives like economics and politics and believe everything a tool with a microphone on CNN tells them. I fail to see how doing anatomy twice in my life helped me. I def forgot the names of all the stupid bones and muscles. Besides certain subjects that help you in life like those I listed above, the rest should be optional and each would choose whatever is related to what they want to do in life.

The disaster that the American average education represents is shown by the fact that Women Studies is a fucking degree. I mean, I'm a woman and I don't see the relevance of such a major. Probably the most useless degree is major in women studies and minor in minorities studies. What did those teach you except some skewed point of view of some power hungry sexists or racists? Throw logic at one of the people who graduated with any of those majors and they won't know what hit them.

ASU and a few other universities are already like that. If I understand correctly, the dropout rate has spiked since colleges started lowering their entrance standards like this.

[DamianTV]

Todays children are taught if they have the same answer as everyone else that they are intelligent, and thus, entitled to something.