The Government education system has its patron saints. Some have been particularly influential over the past fifty years. One of the most influential has been American educationalist and philosopher, John Dewey.
He wrote:
Now the change which is coming into our education is the shifting of the centre of gravity. It is a change, a revolution, not unlike that introduced by Copernicus when the astronomical centre shifted from the earth to the sun. In this case the child becomes the sun above which the appliances of education revolve; he is the centre about which they are organised. [Cited in Paul Henderson, Vying for Our Children: The Ideological Struggle for Hearts and Minds (Auckland: Maxim Institute, 2003), p.45.]Child-centred education. This is why the "experts" oppose National Standards testing so much: it removes the child from the "centre" of the process and makes him subject to an evil, external, harmful hegemon.
The child is forced to revolve around the "appliances of education", which as any reasonable human being knows, has to be both degrading and harmful to a child. Hence, opposing National Standards has become a moral crusade on the part of the educational establishment.
And to add insult to grave injury--we, the taxpayers, are funding this institutionalised idiocy. Who will rid us of these meddlesome priests and purveyors of perpetual ignorance?
No comments:
Post a Comment