I Taught Public School For 26 Years,

There Isn't A Right Way To Become Educated; There Are As Many Ways As There Are Fingerprints.

The Shocking Possibility That Dumb People Don't Exist In Sufficient Numbers To Warrant The Millions Of Careers Devoted To Tending Them Will Seem Incredible To You. Yet That Is My Central Proposition: The Mass Dumbness Which Justifies Official Schooling First Had To Be Dreamed Of; It Isn't Real.

Children Learn What They Live. Put Kids In A Class And They Will Live Out Their Lives In An Invisible Cage, Isolated From Their Chance At Community; Interrupt Kids With Bells And Horns All The Time And They Will Learn That Nothing Is Important Or Worth Finishing; Ridicule Them And They Will Retreat From Human Association; Shame Them And They Will Find A Hundred Ways To Get Even. The Habits Taught In Large-scale Organizations Are Deadly.

Is It Any Wonder That Socrates Was Outraged At The Accusation He Took Money To Teach? Even Then, Philosophers Saw Clearly The Inevitable Direction The Professionalization Of Teaching Would Take, That Of Pre-empting The Teaching Function, Which, In A Healthy Community, Belongs To Everyone.

Children Allowed To Take Responsibility And Given A Serious Part In The Larger World Are Always Superior To Those Merely Permitted To Play And Be Passive.