All of these problems with the failing public education system caused me to begin researching things. I’m just getting started, but I have already come to one big picture conclusion:
Government’s goals and We, the people’s goals are not the same. They are actually competing goals.
We have been fed lines of BS propaganda for generations. Very much so since WWII. I suspect the success of the OSS and that they had all those geniuses laying around on the payroll might have had something to do with it.
It seems that whenever there is a cataclysmic event, the civil war, WWII, 9/11,Covid Hysteria…Government does a tectonic shift.
It appears to be insidious and camouflaged, so we don’t realize the impact for a generation or so-and as far as I can from my perspective, it ends up not being good for We, the people overall. Oh there are crumbs to distract us and get us to believe Government is benevolent. But it’s an illusion.
I ordered Weapons of Mass Instruction this morning. It’s a 2010 book written by a former NYC public school teacher. 14 years have passed, enough time to see if he was correct. I will report back.
When I was in school, we were taught Henry Ford was a great American. Henry Ford was evil. Just one example.
What we were told about The Bell Curve is another example.
The state generally uses the education system to make itself or its primary benefactors (or in their eyes model citizens) look better than they actually are. That’s why guys like Henry Ford or Walt Disney are really such praised individuals but then when you start digging deeper into them you find out they are way more complicated than the state wants you to believe.
I’ve always said that very few individuals history are totally bad or totally good. They are usually a mixture of both.
I will agree that Ford leans a lot closer to the totally bad aspect of history rather than the middle like Walt straddled. He was important for a variety of reasons, even though he didn’t actually invent anything. He took existing ideas for mass production efficiency and production lines pioneered by other early auto guys (like Robin Olds) and combined it together into a system we still recognize today that only has small modifications to its existing set-up. He was also an antisemitic, pro-Nazi piece of garbage.
I don’t think our grade and high school treatment of Henry Ford is any different than their treatment of Thomas Jefferson, or Christopher Columbus, or most of that era’s explorers for that matter.
But is grade or high school geography or history the place to deal with these nuances? When talking about the industrial revolution, it’s undeniable that Ford is a pivotal figure. But is his vile antisemitism relevant to those studies? (And just so we’re clear - ■■■■ that guy.) When talking about the founding of the country, of course Jefferson was a key person who did incredible things for our country and possessed an incredible mind. He also owned slaves and had an affair with at least one.
And it’s no different from the conversations today about the various forms of cancel culture and artists today. Is it OK to watch the Cosby show and laugh? How about Airport? Shrug.
I think it’s a really interesting topic, but in no way is it indictive of some X-Files level master plot by the government to subvert the masses.
What is the context? Are you talking about a school grading system?
The Bell Curve in and of itself has its uses and it hasn’t gone anywhere. Using the bell curve to adjust one’s grade is controversial. I personally don’t support the use of a bell curve adjusted grading system.
I haven’t read all of it, but I have skimmed through it before. I’d say what I read was flawed with some interesting observations and policy shouldn’t really be based on those ideas in my opinion.
The authors claimed that average intelligence quotient (IQ) differences between racial and ethnic groups are at least partly genetic in origin, a view that is now considered discredited by mainstream science.
I have absolutely no interest in that kind of subject matter.
But of course.