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Monday, September 01, 2003

School is back in session

So lets look at some of the (gasp) philosophy that underlies "modern" education.
First, give a read to Dewey's Pedagogic Creed, the schoolteachers version of the Hippocatic oath. Except, in Dewey's Creed, the School Teacher DOES NOT vow to "do no harm..."

Then take a gander at the webpage of former New York Ciy teacher John Taylor Gatto.
Gatto offers the followng view of Dewey's Creed:
School is a religion. Without understanding the holy mission aspect you’re certain to misperceive what takes place as a result of human stupidity or venality or even class warfare. All are present in the equation, it’s just that none of these matter very much—even without them school would move in the same direction. Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed statement of 1897 gives you a clue to the zeitgeist:

Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way the teacher is always the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of heaven.

What is "proper" social order? What does "right" social growth look like? If you don’t know you’re like me, not like John Dewey who did, or the Rockefellers, his patrons, who did, too.

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