Education and theHumanist Agenda

[Carol]

This clearly is my perference.

I am quoting from the book "Inside American Education", by Thomas Sowell. He clearly opposes the Humanist agenda, because he uses it as an example of what has gone wrong with education. He quotes John J Dunphy, "A Religion for a New Age" Humanist, January/February 1983, page 26.

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classrooms by teahcers who correctly preceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.
These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the education level- preschool day care or large state university."

I would not say this is a new religion, for a new age, but it is what comes through Greek and Roman classics that were the meaning of being literate, when the United States of American became a republic. I think this education is essential to defending our democracy, which is the culture we defended in two world wars. Christianity without this education, just does not result in the democracy we defended.

 

[Samson]

This clearly is my perference.

I am quoting from the book "Inside American Education", by Thomas Sowell. He clearly opposes the Humanist agenda, because he uses it as an example of what has gone wrong with education. He quotes John J Dunphy, "A Religion for a New Age" Humanist, January/February 1983, page 26.

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classrooms by teahcers who correctly preceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.
These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the education level- preschool day care or large state university."

I would not say this is a new religion, for a new age, but it is what comes through Greek and Roman classics that were the meaning of being literate, when the United States of American became a republic. I think this education is essential to defending our democracy, which is the culture we defended in two world wars. Christianity without this education, just does not result in the democracy we defended.

Um...your quote has nothing to do with Christianity, and almost nothing to do with any religion.

Sowell is simply saying that teachers need to be as dedicated as preachers, and that as preachers (imbued in a faith that "Every Student Can Learn") they become better teachers.

 

[psikeyhackr]

This clearly is my perference.

I am quoting from the book "Inside American Education", by Thomas Sowell. He clearly opposes the Humanist agenda, because he uses it as an example of what has gone wrong with education.

The trouble is the teachers keep trying to promote their positions with boring out of date crap that doesn't get the point across to the kids. And then the kids have to spend most of their time with teachers that aren't promoting anything but just serving their time to make a buck.

So you need something that is interesting but sneaks in ideas when the kid isn't even looking for them and yet is so entertaining they will use their own time to find more. So they self educate outside of school.

Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy
Locus Roundtable: Because it was there

Alexei Panshin's Science Fiction Classic: Rite of Passage
Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage

Thomas Sowell can't figure out that planned obsolescence is going on in technology and economists don't suggest that 700 year old double-entry accounting be mandatory in our schools.

psik

 

[Carol]

This clearly is my perference.

I am quoting from the book "Inside American Education", by Thomas Sowell. He clearly opposes the Humanist agenda, because he uses it as an example of what has gone wrong with education. He quotes John J Dunphy, "A Religion for a New Age" Humanist, January/February 1983, page 26.

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classrooms by teahcers who correctly preceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being.
These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the education level- preschool day care or large state university."

I would not say this is a new religion, for a new age, but it is what comes through Greek and Roman classics that were the meaning of being literate, when the United States of American became a republic. I think this education is essential to defending our democracy, which is the culture we defended in two world wars. Christianity without this education, just does not result in the democracy we defended.

Um...your quote has nothing to do with Christianity, and almost nothing to do with any religion.

Sowell is simply saying that teachers need to be as dedicated as preachers, and that as preachers (imbued in a faith that "Every Student Can Learn") they become better teachers.

I am sorry for giving incomplete information. I became aware of this problem because of a Public Boardcasting Station show. The man who has so much influence is a Christian who believes he is doing the work of God, by distorting text books. His belief makes him stronger than others who think they stand alone, and that is why I started this thread.

Christians would have us believe the foundation of the USA and its constitution is the bible and Christianity. They have controlled public education to a large degree, until Eisenhower established the Military Industrail Complex and we replaced liberal education with education for technology for military and industrial purpose. The problem being, before this change in public education, all Christians had a liberal education. That is education Greek and Roman classics. Christianity without this education is not a good thing! Christianity with only education for technology is a very bad thing.

These fanatical Christians who stand in the way of education for science, and who would distort text books, are more powerful than non Christians if the non Christian also knows nothing about history and humanism. You see, education for technology, leaves those who have a vague understanding of humanism and democratic principles standing alone, out in the cold, no longer backed by public education. What they say is only "their opinion", and they are not backed by God as a religious person is backed by God and Christian organizations. I want to clarify, those with an education in the classics have God and morals, but this is not recognized by those who don't have that education, and since it is no longer public education behind this, individuals stand alone, without organized support.

Our education transmitted a culture from the Greek and Roman classics. Our concept of democratic principles and our value as human beings, and our duty to God, family and the state, and comes from the classics, but our whole culture has been radically changed, by the 1958 National Defense Education Act, in part because we stopped transmitting our culture.

There are two ways of having social order, culture or authority over the people. Without the culture, that leaves only authority over the people. So I go from forum to forum telling the owners I am willing to donate to a forum that services my purpose for writing, and after failing to get my point across, I move on to the next one, where I am again told, these forums are private, and the owners can do as they want. True, the owners and their moderators have all the power, and Christians would have us believe God has all the power, but Satan is now ruling earth. Power verses power, but no longer the culture of rule by reason. No longer knowledge of humanism, or the principles of democracy and the ideology of for which our nation once stood.

Failure to use the classics to transmit a culture, leaves only those with power to rule over those who have none. We are at the mercey of those with power. This is not rule by reason. It is not the democracy we inherited.

 

[Carol]

This clearly is my perference.

I am quoting from the book "Inside American Education", by Thomas Sowell. He clearly opposes the Humanist agenda, because he uses it as an example of what has gone wrong with education.

The trouble is the teachers keep trying to promote their positions with boring out of date crap that doesn't get the point across to the kids. And then the kids have to spend most of their time with teachers that aren't promoting anything but just serving their time to make a buck.

So you need something that is interesting but sneaks in ideas when the kid isn't even looking for them and yet is so entertaining they will use their own time to find more. So they self educate outside of school.

Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy
Locus Roundtable: Because it was there

Alexei Panshin's Science Fiction Classic: Rite of Passage
Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage

Thomas Sowell can't figure out that planned obsolescence is going on in technology and economists don't suggest that 700 year old double-entry accounting be mandatory in our schools.

psik

The teachers can not transmit the culture for democracy, because they never learned it. The teachers who learned the culture, and gave us liberal education, are dead and buried. Now every discussion about reducing crime is about new laws and longer prison terms, not education. Every disuccsion about human welfare is about what the government should or should not provide, not education. The original purpose of government mandated free public education was to reduce crime and prevent social problems. This is the most cost effective way to do those things. This education had nothing to do with vocational training until we mobilized for the first world war. Find me a teacher who understands that and the ramifications of the change in public education, and I will eat my hat.

Even if a teacher did understand those things, s/he could not act on the understanding. I think the only population more tightly controlled than teachers is prisoners. I am blown away by the federal governments take over of public education. Our constitution prevents the federal government from controlling public education, but who could doubt the "No Child Let Behind Act" is federal control of education?

Is everyone aware that the "No Child Left Behind Act" mandates schools provide military recruiters with children's names and addresses? Our children are being pathed and tracked through education; something we strongly opposed. IQ testing was introduced to help teachers identify those children best suited for higher education. Now children are told, not only does their enterence into college depend on these scores but employers will look at them too! I am sickened by our changed reality.

Anyway blaming teachers and blaming parents distracts us from the real problem. What has happened is beyond the control of teachers and parents. I hope we can discuss this.

About boring books- can we speak of those Greek gods and quantum physics? How about numbers as the archetypes of the universe expressing universal laws. What of books that help us understand our human nature, such as the mythology, where Hades is psychological concept, and youth is explained as period of poor judgment that we hopefully live long enough to outgrow. Maybe this stuff bore some people, but I love it.

 

[psikeyhackr]

About boring books- can we speak of those Greek gods and quantum physics?

I think we need to get thru Newtonian physics before we try for the quantum stuff and most people don't need it.

The laws of physics don't care about Greek or Latin.

Trying to change the schools would be an up hill battle where the enemy has all of the advantages. But now cheap, powerful computers present us with the possibility of doing a complete end run around the schools. If kids learn more faster outside of school than they do in it then who is going to complain?

Besides the people whose true objective is to keep them ignorant? They will of course fall all over themselves in their eagerness to admit that.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq6lFOhLJ0c]YouTube - ‪Noam Chomsky on the Role of the Educational System‬‎[/ame]

I'm not a Chomsky fan but that was good.

All Day September, by Roger Kuykendall
The Project Gutenberg eBook of All Day September, by Roger Kuykendall.

Subversive, by Dallas McCord Reynolds
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Subversive, by Mack Reynolds

Cost of Living, by Robert Sheckley
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cost of Living, by Robert Sheckley

That old science fiction has science and technology and politics and economics.

We now get to watch the technology of economics with these cheap powerful computers. When will users figure out the buying more power does them almost no good. They just make the software more inefficient. This cracked me up.

The Beauty of Inefficient Code - Science and Tech - The Atlantic

psik

PS - The Humanism of Isaac Asimov
Prophet of the Rightness and Power of Knowledge
http://www.asimovhumanists.org/AboutIsaacAssimov2.htm

Star Trek a paean to humanism, says Gene Roddenberry’s former executive assistant
http://gratefultothedead.wordpress....gene-roddenberrys-former-executive-assistant/

Promise of Humanism in Octavia E. Butler’s Science Fiction
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...+fiction"++humanism&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek, Humanism, and Me
http://let-me-be-frank.blogspot.com/2009/03/gene-roddenberry-star-trek-humanism-and.html