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A few thoughts about education today and the trends [1]

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Date: 2022-09-03

I recently saw a clip from an American politician, it might be recentor old, but it really bothered me and I have to expand on thistopic. I have since learned it was the Governor of Florida (RonDeSantis?) and it really began to bother me. I have since found hehas a bit of a mission to destroy education in the state. That mightbe just my opinion, but it is strong enough that I feel the need towrite.

This is aninvitation for you all to tell me if I have this right or wrong. Itis just my initial views. Since it does happen to be an Americanpolitician and I have not heard similar from other countries, Ithought this the place.

This chap wasrejecting arithmetic books, and the reason was that the bookscontained “extraneous” material. That sounded like it could befine, but then he went on to say that two plus two is equal to fourand he did not like having books that prescribed a discussion ofthis. He said the truth is the truth, and discussion of “feelings”did not enter into this. Does this man understand the purpose ofeducation? Does his minister of education ever given any thought asto the purpose of education?

He went on, later,to declare war on reflective education, or, in my opinion, education.These people really do not understand what education is for and/orhow it actually works.

When I began school,I was fortunate enough to have teachers that began everything withcounting and used cuisenaire rods to lock in the concepts of basicmathematical functions. Two and two did still make four, four singleunit blocks were exactly the same length as a four unit block. Thenumber symbols were on the blocks and the real relationships wereclear to my very young brain. The short form patterns (2+2=4) werereal and clear to me. All mathematical formula became and are shortforms that come from proven patterns from counting. That means thatthe most complex equation comes down to understanding exactly what weare counting. In other words, if you understand the relationshipbetween counting and mathematics, you can understand any equation,given the time and effort. You just need to understand what you arecounting and why. If we are to take away that “discussion,” weare robbing the child of the magic of learning. At least that wouldhave been the case with me. Over the years I have had no problem withmaths, but I have met many that do have problems and I do believenone of those people understood the relationship between counting andthe short form patterns that we have all been expected to use. Theywere never given the opportunity to really see the why. For them itwas a was a right/wrong relationship for them with no fundamentalsupport for the concepts. They did not learn the magic.

I have come tobelieve that I learn well because of that, and other subjects, I wastaught, or told, very early. First of all, all children, when theylearn to count, consider it a near super power. They count everythingAnd marvel at their new skill. Learning is best done via narrative.Every good narrative is based on characters and the counted numbers,in maths, make up the characters we use in that narrative.

So I went on tothink about just how the education system could, and sometimes has,made things easier, or much more difficult than it ever needs to be.I do hope kids are being taught chisenbop and the abacus in school,even just a bit of graph paper. Those tools make sense of numbers ina way that allows the kids to discover the patterns we use forthemselves. There is no real magic from a display screen. If we aretaught to trust the number on the screen, we are not actuallyunderstanding the backstory. If we have ignored determining what theproblem is, we have lost real learning. It might be said this willall come out in the wash, eventually, but I am more and more worriedabout that.

Let me look atlearning. If you have read Tony Buzan, or someone similar, I cameinto possession with all of his books and I read them. He talks aboutimproving your memory, but he is also talking about the basics oflearning. One of his most used tricks is to use numbers and words asa base: one-bun; two-shoe; three-tree; I am sure you get the idea.Then you tag the things you want to remember onto the end of thenumber phrases. It does work, but it also ties in with our naturalways of learning.

Real learning is amatter of “chunking.” What we do is we take new information wewant to learn and we attach it to something we already know. In away, we are building on a narrative we already know and patching innew patterns with patterns we already know. Learning, when doneproperly, at least in my experience, is sorting patterns andattaching common patterns together so they can be remembered. I oftenthink of a chap I met who worked as a computer programmer who told mehe could not learn other languages. I believe he was saying he wasnot interested in learning other languages. He lived in Spain andtied himself tightly to his English speaking expatriate community andspent three years not learning the local languages. I have somecomputer programming skills myself and it is not very difficult toattach the syntax to grammar. It takes a little more effort to becomecompetent, but it is a great place to start. So why did the chap notconnect programming languages to English? He was just making thingsfar more difficult for himself. He was actually making an effort notto learn, in my opinion.

Everything I knowseems to bleed into everything else I know and everything I learn,seems to link into my existing knowledge as well. The more I noticethe links, the easier it is for me to learn. I am confident that allof us find that to be the case. I also suspect this is the naturalhome of creativity. I am of the belief that learning is basic tocreativity. It is seeing and using the patterns presented and crosspollinating the ideas. In other words, learning.

Next, I am going tosay I believe there is nothing that any of us cannot learn to a veryhigh level if we are prepared to invest the time and effort and havesufficient interest. That, of course, depends on us actually knowing,consciously or not, how to learn. The kind of skills I learned inschool.

Education is not theprocess of filling our minds with information, but training our mindsto be able to learn. I do not remember a lot of the details ofhistory I learned, but I do remember the narrative that came from it.I was able, even encouraged, to look for corresponding patterns thatexisted in my life, either personal or societal. The same withliterature, physics, chemistry, and on and on. I was being groomed tothink and learn. To be sure, there were some very tired teachers whowere tied to the syllabus timetable and tested on facts alone, butthey might not really be called teachers at all.

We are, more thanever before, that I can find, in “The Age of Trust.” We know whatis “right” because someone of authority tells us that it is so. Ihave read, multiple times, a wonderful book by Robert Thouless,“Straight and Crooked Thinking(1930)” and, after the firstreading, I thought I was impressively poor at distinguishing betweenevidence and opinion. Then I realised how almost everybody I knew wasevery bit as bad. The education system knows this, theoretically, atleast, but they seem to be doing very little to protect us from thebad influences. For the most part, we have not been trained to think,but we have been trained to believe what others think.

Then I read, decadesago, Fredrick L Allen’s “Only Yesterday.” What struck me,rather hard, was that the world of the 1920s United States was notreally any different from the times I was living in. Had we learnednothing? Recently I found a copy of Allen’s next book “SinceYesterday,” that begins in 1929 and goes to about 1940. I was halfway through the book and that book is so very close to what we aregoing through today that I am appalled by the lessons we have notlearned. What are we doing when the problems are waved in front ofour faces so clearly and yet we continue on in blind trust? Thosethat we lay our faith in, are often the least capable of leading.

I admit I amprejudiced. Frederick L Allen was the editor of “Harper’sMonthly” and I have a particular soft spot for that magazine. Itmight be the very best periodical written in the English language. Ialso admit that I have not had access to it since the days when LewisLapham was editor, but surely it is still one of the very bestmagazines in the English language, and probably has been for manydecades. I also remember reading Mark Twain said “History does notoften reeat, but it does rhyme.” As much as I like poetry, thispoem is a particularly bad verse.

We trusted thosethat said they knew, whichever side of the question was preferred.One side or the other now “buys” the majority for their ideas.They were/are more concerned about their preferred idea instead ofthe supporting arguments. Possibly this has much to do with EdwardBernays contributions, but that aside, who is doing the thinking? Whohas been taught to think instead of just accept? I remember earlyteachers of history that taught me to use narrative, making it alleasy to understand and remember. It was not a photograph in time, buta process. I also remember the odd literature teacher who was not inthe business of helping us discover the magic in the words butdemanded their opinions be regurgitated ad infinitum or a good gradewas not forthcoming.

I now believe thatwhen my educational journey became a hard slog, It came from poorteaching or very poor material. My grades in literature went fromexcellent to mediocre depending on the attitude of the teacher. Thiswas not universal, of course. There were swots who did well no matterwhat teacher they had, but they were, mostly, playing the game. Theobjective for them was the grade and not the learning. Some had nearphotographic memories, some just dedicated themselves to learning byrote, but very few of them ever convinced me that they actuallyunderstood what it was that they were repeating in the exams. I havemy doubts that they were truly educated. To my mind, that is noteducation, rather the opposite of education. In my opinion the nearopposite of education is indoctrination.

I mentioned RobertThouless’ book for a good reason. Thouless was speaking of thosewho represented themselves as experts who were happy to step awayfrom their fields of expertise to expound extraneous opinions basedon their authority. However, their authority was not appropriate, butso often it would be accepted as valid. Would you ask a carpenter todo your plumbing? Do you go to your accountant for legal advice? Whyshould we accept a narrow field of knowledge as being broader? Theymight have a perfectly valid argument, but to just accept it, basedon their reputation, is doing a great disservice. If we are capableof thinking clearly, we have an obligation to think clearly.

Let me move intosome very worrisome areas that appear to have been captured by this“indoctrination doctrine.”

“Religion”according to Skeat means “reverence.” However Cicero seems tohave coined the word and he meant re-read or to go back to andreconsider. I see that the word has changed meaning drastically sinceCicero. However, I prefer Cicero’s definition. Some novelists whohave deeply held religious beliefs and not at all dogmatic, are farmore likely to follow Cicero’s definition. I am not now, or ever,at all religious, but I do hold those writers in very high regard.The reason is not religious, but it is religion that brought them toproducing worthy, non religious, points in their work.

Let me insertanother reference. According to Skeat, “science” has its roots inwords that mean “knowledge.” It appears to be inclusive and verydemocratic, and so it should be, if you ask me. There is no processor method, just “knowledge.” That fits my concepts of sciencenicely.

Related to that isthe wonderful word “conscience” which straight up means “withknowledge,” I like that. If we do something that is not acceptable,quite common with children, they are often acting without theknowledge that what they do is not to be done. If you do something“without knowledge,” or based on a momentary urge, you are lessguilty than if you commit the same act with full knowledge. Equally,if you act in an altruistic way without the conscious knowledge thenare you being altruistic at all? I think that concept has someimportance. If we act altruistically without the conscious knowledge,does that make altruism a natural trait?

It also shares rootwith the words “Sense,” “Conscious,” “nonsense.” and thatwhole ilk. I find that fascinating and gives me new understanding ofthose words. I am a sucker for words.

So, it is notdifficult to assume that the origin of science is the quest to answer“why?” Why does the rain fall? Why is the sun warm? Why doesn’tJohnny like spinach? All of this is a quest for knowledge and, nomatter how great or trivial, they are all the starting point for thepractice of science. The accumulation of “knowledge.”

Children arewonderful “scientists.” they are filled with “why” and “whynot.” They go through all sorts of theories and paradigms everyday. They begin with a blank slate and as they grow they develop their ideas. It is just as important that they make errors along theway. When children fear the dark or suspect there are monsters underthe bed, they have good reason for believing those things. If we know“why,” we can help, but mostly, we discard their reasons. We arenot the child that is working out the world. They are operating inthe world of “inductive” thinking. They start with the empiricalevidence and they make conclusions based on that. That process,especially at young ages, fills me with wonder. As they build theirknowledge, fill their world with science if you like, they begin touse “deductive” thinking. Johnny does not like spinach, spinachis green, Johnny does not like green food. I know people who will noteat green food, I always wonder why? Spinach is green, slimy andparticularly revolting, but lettuce is refreshing and crunchy.

Imagine what it waslike in the earliest days of man. They had no way of measuring thingswith universal accuracy. They were left to the same devices aschildren. They would take their empirical knowledge and line it upwith the things they did understand and bring everything to thatmeasure. They could carry and spill water, so rain was somebody orsomething able to carry and spill much larger quantities of water.Why not? That is what they saw and understood?

Those beliefs andunderstandings were also “knowledge/science.” They might havebeen wrong, but they had no way of knowing. It would, eventually, becodified to one extent or another, just like the Victorian medicalscience believed in bleeding patients. Would that fit the definitionof “religion” as well? I think so. I think religion was, in fact,the product of early scientific theory.

Now we do know thatreligion was eventually a major part, possibly a basic reason forcivilised society. Why, is debatable, but it was. It appears thatreligion often was the container used to encourage support for thesociety, but since it is, as with most things, a double edged sword.The power that comes from a religious position may be sought fornatural altruistic reasons or possibly for the desire for power. Thathas not changed either. Their power came from locking in what theyconsidered truth because that was the source of their power. As therôle of religion worked its way further into the seams ofcivilisation, It became harder and harder to separate things thatmight be true from the activities of the religion. Education was areligious process at the beginning, but without the accoutrements ofthe religion, would it have thrived so early on?

Tradition is a hardtaskmaster, and many of the problems with religion stem from itsorigins. I have no wish to throw out the baby with the bath water,and anybody that feels benefit from religion have my full support. Isuspect the majority do see the problems and their desired reformswill, eventually, be implemented. Tradition and habit are verydifficult to overcome.

I wanted to put thereligious ideas in there, because I want to root “science” firmlyinto the cloth that makes up our civilisation. I would go farther andsay that it may be the cloth itself. The raison d’etre isknowledge. And what we now call “science” does show an earlytendency of being just as hidebound as religion. It is still early,but there are lots of reasons to be suspicious.

So, if science is,in fact, knowledge, then how do we all practice this science? I thinkof science being the questions “why,” and, often more importantly“why not.” I believe when we ask those two questions, we arebeing “scientists.” I did say I liked the inclusiveness of thedefinition, if I am correct, the very root of science. We are allscientists and the horizon of our knowledge is in our hands, if wechhose.

Some questions areeasier to answer than others. Those are called “hard” sciencethese days. We can take a ruler of some sort and measure them up andwe can depend on simple(?) mathematical formula to predict theresults. They can be easily perceived and apart from ourselves. Thereis, supposedly, one right or wrong answer and the answer alwaysworks...until it does not work. Isaac Newton never “discovered”gravity. Nothing fell up before Newton, nor did it after. What he didwas he brought the reality into his world and considered both “why”and “why not” and saw a relationship pattern that seemed to beuniversal. He was truly practicing “science” but he could notprovide empirical proof of many of his theories. One has to admirehis insight, his creativity.

Then we have the“Soft” science. Those quests tend to be much messier than the“Hard” variety. They almost always mean the answers have manymore variables and the variables have more variety. It is oftendependent on that which is not physical or maybe not physicallyunderstood. There may be subtleties that come into play that mean wecan, at the moment, come up with one answer. What is worse, when youhave a reasonably strong answer, the new variants that grow from thatdo not often “play nice.” That sort of sounds like quantummechanics, doesn’t it? I love reading about quantum theories. It istruly a humbling experience. Whatever you believe is true and setstarts to erode when we look at quantum mechanics.

Why the “soft”sciences are held in disdain by so many in the science community, Ido not know. If science is knowledge then any effort to improve ourknowledge has to be considered to be a scientific quest, or simply“science.” Why are the more difficult quests considered somethinglesser than the physical sciences?

I like to readeconomics these days, and I have to say I have real problems withmany economists. Those economists try to slice everything away frommoney and focus only on money and work from there. That might workfor a hard science but not for economics. They say that “economicman,” if his work dries up where he is will travel to where thework is. That would be true if everything was equal, but it never is.

In Thatcher’sBritain, the coal mines were closed throwing many thousands out ofwork. The government economists said that the unemployed would moveto where the work was. Generations of people had depended on themines. Education there expected their students to work in the miningindustry, the whole business ecosystem was based on the mines andthere was no reason to believe the coal would run out in theforeseeable future.

The miners were nowfaced with no income and available work existing in the south of thecountry, but not for miners. They would have to sell their homes andbusinesses, when nobody wanted to buy. They would have to leave theirfriends and families to move to where the work was and would not beable to afford the increased cost of living without endangering theirnuclear families to the possibility of homelessness. They would be,in effect, economic refugees at the “tender mercies” of agovernment that had no “tender mercies” to spare. The neweconomic policy fell at the first hurdle. It appears that nobody inpower noticed it had so dramatically failed. There were forces atwork that were not apparent in the stripped down version of economicsbeing used, but that was ignored because the theory worked so wellwhen reality was ignored. Economics is science, but it is far from“soft” to those on the wrong end of it. The stripped down versiondoes not work simply because it is stripped down.

Can we understandthese forces? Yes we can, but we need to dedicate enormous resourcesto look over the myriad histories and a myriad of influences to haveany idea of exactly what forces we are dealing with. We are, for themost part, doing no such thing.

Now from thatthought, I began to notice people, again from the United States,talking about post secondary education being filled with “useless”courses and accusing the universities of doing so just to make money.They want to turn places of learning into practical, job creating,centres. I have had a certain amount of experience with universitiesover a number of countries. They are not places where fortunes aremade that I can see. There are fortunes made from universities, butmore from outside exploitation.

I say there are no“useless” courses.

We all have our ownpersonal narratives that we prefer to learn with. For some it mightbe physics, for others it might be literature, languages, socialwork, art history, whatever the individual finds easiest to growthrough. I have no idea about what motivates anybody else, butmotivating it is and it should be encouraged. It matters not one whitthat it may or not end with an obvious job.

Education is notabout work, it is about learning how to learn. The successfulstudent, being the student that has learned how to learn, Is an assetto any profession they choose to turn their hand. They have gonethrough the early education where they were mostly guided, throughsecondary education where they had a certain amount ofresponsibility, to University where they should have had a very largeamount of autonomy to be successful. They could go to post graduatestudies where they are almost completely autonomous. They should belearning machines.

Assuming that thestudent has taken a course they are interested in, they should beable to attach nearly any knowledge to that narrative. They should bethe ideal candidate for any position. They are probably better thanmost since while they learn they are developing creative energy inthe acquisition of new patterns.

What did I find theworst educational experience? Not my own but from observation,business degrees seem to produce the most indoctrinated people I haveever run into. They are, for the most part, good corporate cogs, asthey were trained to be. Few of them ever become entrepreneurs, whichI should think is their natural home. Business students have adistinct tendency to be dogmatic and narrowly focussed. That is justmy experience.

There is noknowledge that is not of value. Albert Einstein said that allobservations were valid in context. I think that was in the GeneralTheory of Relativity, but I might be wrong. That appears to besomething that many supporters of “science” have forgot. Anyobservation is just as valid as any other.

Prior to his death,I had a correspondence with Marcello Truzzi, A sociologist and anoriginal founder of CSICOP(Committee for the Scientific Investigationof Claims of The Paranormal.) He is well known for coining the phrase“extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” but heregretted the comment almost as soon as he had said it. If you like,the mathematics of that formula eliminate the word “extraordinary”on each side of the equation. In any case claims require proof. Whois to judge what is “extraordinary?” If you are familiar withCSICOP and its followers these days, you will be aware that they arenot interested in anything to do with “scientific investigation ofthe paranormal” but rather in a blanket denial of any such thing.They expelled Mr Truzzi about the end of the first year, because heprotested there should be members of the committee that supported thepossible existence of “paranormal” phenomenon. He really wantedto look for the truth in the claims, but his colleagues believed thayalready had it.

Mr Truzzi was wellworth my time. He was always pushing me to remember that there wasnever an up without a down, a left without a right, and so on. Ibelieve he was the one who told me of Einstein’s position.

The CSICOP fellowtravellers, at least some of them, have always struck me as beingamongst the least scientific thinkers I have ever met. I do notbelieve in ghosts, I have never seen one and so I will keep an openmind. These people have no such scruples. They tell me “Ghosts donot exist.” I tend to agree, but when somebody tells me they haveseen a ghost, I accept that hey have seen something and I have not.Maybe it was a ghost, I doubt it, but I was not the observer. TheCSICOP people all seem to accept quantum mechanics, but that is asclose to magic, or ghosts as I have ever heard of.

This story isinteresting and has not been explained:https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11560152.modest-man-centre-yorks-famous-ghost-story-passes-away/

Is it a ghostsighting? I have my doubts. Do I believe the man who witnessed it istelling the truth? Yes. Do I know anything else? No. I do not need ananswer to everything and there is much I, quite happily, do notunderstand. I would never call anyone who has seen a ghost a liar ora fool. I see school buses as being pale orange while most think themyellow. Am I also one of the “liars” or “fools?”

In any case, I havemet the odd person who has a belief in UFOs. Nobody that I have methave actually claimed they have seen one, but one gave me a book onUFOs. It is important to be somewhat sceptical about everything.

The book, “Handbookfor the New Paradigm,” took me less than thirty minutes, not evenfinishing the first chapter, to find the writer (George Green:https://projectcamelot.org/george_green.html) could not haveexperienced what he had in the USAF as a junior officer. Juniorofficers do not have free access to restricted areas, as he claimedhe did. He had not invested in the things he had claimed he had, orassociated with the people he said he had, assuming that he couldhave attended the summit that did not take place where or when he hadsaid, as well as many of his identified attendees were in completelydifferent places each on those days. He was most certainly asupporter of the Republican party of the day, making a clear point todefame well known, senior Democrat politicians. I would not besurprised to find the book has been revised to eliminate much of theoffending content. I do believe this book is available for freeonline. It is a very good example of reasons to not believe in UFOs.It does not condemn all those who have seen UFOs, but it is a verygood reason to be suspicious.

I mentioned this toadvertise my own caveats. If any person is to tell me that have seena UFO, I have not, nor have I had interaction with aliens, I have tobelieve they did have an experience. The idea of their experiencebeing that of a “true” UFO, because I had no such experience, hasto remain on my list of possibilities, no matter how low on thatlist, and if I do not choose to spend the time and effort toconclusively disprove the claim, it must remain there.

The same goes withghosts, esp, and all other such claims, but they do not requireanything more than proof to disprove and if I do not choose to findit end to it. I have to accept someone else’s experience as real,and place their claim at a level that is appropriate for me. If youare prepared to condemn the observer without providing your ownproof, that, to me, would be an “extraordinary” claim and shouldrequire the same “extraordinary” proof. To deny any observationout of hand is clearly not a scientific position.

That is important. Ihave read a number of books that claim God does not exist. Mostly they are written by scientists who take what they consider to be ascientific point of view, and each one fails miserably. They areplaying the expertise card to apply pressure to accept theirprejudice. Their argument is that lack of proof is proof of lack, butthat ignores the fact that there are believers that claim fact. Whyis that to be ignored? They usually try to bring in the measuringdevices of their speciality, but if you do not know what it is youare really counting, how can you claim to be counting it? I go backto quantum mechanics.

I have a veryspecial interest in the public and general demeaning of thescientific press because I have been a very active, workingjournalist. I made quite a good living at it over a number of years,and I am going to use that knowledge. If you would like to verifyanything I say about the rules of journalism, speak to any editor, inyour area, or farther afield. They will back up everything I sayabout it.

There are a set ofrules, that are not always followed, to be sure, but they are thevery base of the profession. “Citizen journalism” can be a fineand noble endeavour, but often it is a rag tag gang of activiststrying to propagandise. The internet is not a friend of journalism.Citizen scientists can be very much the same. If you wish to indulgein real journalism, follow these rules and you cannot go far wrong.

First write aboutwhat you know for certain. Nothing else should ever enter the story.Second, never forget you are an observer and not a participant. Youmay like the Hunter Thompson writing, but do not confuse it withjournalism. Equally, when any story includes opinion, it has ceasedto be journalism. The editorial pages of the paper are specificallyset out to express opinion and they are always clear to state theyare not journalism, if written by journalists.

There are twodefinitions I am going to use as a basic premise. They are importantto agree on because if they are left to personal preference, they canbe left to pedantry.

“Expertise” isnothing more than a set of tools. It is my belief that there is noexpertise that most people reading this, could not acquire if theyhad the inclination, the time and put in the effort. Having the toolsdoes not give one the capacity to use them. I know the theory ofplumbing, but I become dangerous with the physical tools. Knowing thetheory and owning the tools does not establish ability. Plumbers tendto ask me “How did you do that?” Which I translate to “Why didyou do that?” I have the theory, they have the expertise.

Most expertise comeswith the expectation that when you use those tools, you will performto a minimum standard of performance. I expect a doctors to becompetent , I expect a taxi driver to know the area, I expect apolitician to be honest and well meaning. Two out of three?

Then we have“Reputation.” This is nothing more than the expected performanceof an individual. It may be higher or lower than the expected minimumfor the given “expertise,” but we all know our performance variesbased on so very many influences. Everybody’s does. Reputation isnot a guarantee of any sort. We might try to meet the high watermark every time, but we know that is not that easy.

In a court of law,each and every player is judged on their merits and, hopefully, thefacts presented and proven. Nobody is there should be able to ride ontheir reputation, even their expertise is put under scrutiny. Shouldwe not be as vigilant with every piece of information that impactsus? Every day and every experience is a learning opportunity and thatis only achieved when we think about what it is we are being expectedto believe. We cannot always judge its veracity, but when we are toldto accept it, it is time to match it to the patterns we already know.

That is the reason Iam suggesting that this “new” paradigm for education that isbeing promoted, deserves to be completely considered in other lights.We can all be experts, it is true, but some of us will have thecreative capacity to further the world’s knowledge in some small,or great, part. I am of the belief that if we do not foster thenatural drive to learn and foster it, we will be cheating our future.

I have read that inthe United States and Britain, that teachers are very low down on thefinancial and respect totem pole. This situation just makes it easierfor the indoctrinators to rule. I know this has been going on for along time, but it seems to me that, in the past, the political actorsoffered, at the least, lip service, to the idea that there might besomething sacrosanct about education.

So what we are beingoffered here is the promise, to students, to a vista of middlemanagement and boredom, but not to worry, when there are fewer trulyeducated candidates, they can move to the top floor of a structurethat is quickly sinking due to lack of talent. That talent isdeveloped and nurtured by a free, creative, learning environment seenover by teachers that appreciate that their duty is far more thanimparting information. School is not for information, that isentirely an entirely separate thing. Education is for learning thereal learning skills.

Could it bethat this Mr DeSantis and his ilk never actually learned to learn? Inthat case their motivation would be goals that have nothing to dowith our future, bit possibly just for their own.

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