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Dumbing Us Down
''Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling'' () is a non-fiction book written by American teacher and political libertarian John Taylor Gatto. It has sold over 200,000 copies and consists of a multitude of speeches given by the author. The book proposes that radical change is needed to the American educational system to turn around the negative socialization that children receive. Main thesis Gatto asserts the following regarding what school does to children in '' Dumbing Us Down'': # It confuses the students. It presents an incoherent ensemble of information that the child needs to memorize to stay in school. Apart from the tests and trials, this programming is similar to the television; it fills almost all the "free" time of children. One sees and hears something, only to forget it again. # It teaches them to accept their class affiliation. # It makes them indifferent. # It makes them emotionally dependent. # It makes them intellectually dependent. # It t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto (December 15, 1935 – October 25, 2018) was an American author and school teacher. After teaching for nearly 30 years he authored several books on modern education, criticizing its ideology, history, and consequences. He is best known for his books ''Dumbing Us Down, Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling'', and ''The Underground History of American Education, The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling''. Biography Gatto was born to Andrew Michael Mario and Frances Virginia ( Zimmer) Gatto in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, a steel town near Pittsburgh. In his youth he attended public schools throughout the Pittsburgh Metro Area including Swissvale, Pennsylvania, Swissvale, Monongahela, and Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Uniontown as well as a Catholic boarding school in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Latrobe. He did undergraduate work at Cornell University, Cornell, the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-fiction
Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with being presented more objectively, like historical, scientific, or otherwise straightforward and accurate information, but sometimes, can be presented more subjectively, like sincerely held beliefs and thoughts on a real-world topic. One prominent usage of nonfiction is as one of the two fundamental divisions of narrative (storytelling)—often, specifically, prose writing—in contrast to narrative fiction, which is largely populated by imaginary characters and events, though sometimes ambiguous regarding its basis in reality. Some typical examples of nonfiction include diaries, biographies, news stories, documentary films, textbooks, travel books, recipes, and scientific journals. While specific claims in a nonfiction work may p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Society Publishers
Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. is a Canadian book publishing firm. Douglas & McIntyre was founded by James Douglas and Scott McIntyre in 1971 as an independent publisher, publishing company based in Vancouver. Reorganized with new owners in 2008 as D&M Publishers Inc., it bought New Society Publishers. In October 2012 the company filed a Notice of Intention (NOI) under the Canadian bankruptcy act. D&M Publishers sold off its imprints while under NOI protection; New Society returned to its previous owners, the imprint Greystone Books was sold to a group headed by Heritage House Publishing and set up as a stand-alone company called Greystone Books Ltd. while the original Douglas & McIntyre list was sold to the owners of Harbour Publishing who placed it under a new independent company, Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. It is the publisher of Douglas Coupland, poet Robert Bringhurst, anthropologist Wade Davis (anthropologist), Wade Davis, chef Rob Feenie, artists Bill Reid and Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellow-backs, yellowbacks, dime novels, and airport novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In the United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to the lower cost of paperbacks. Paperb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archiving, web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libertarianism
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's encroachment on and violations of individual liberties; emphasizing the rule of law, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, cooperation, civil and political rights, bodily autonomy, free association, free trade, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, individualism and voluntary association. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of Libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions. Different categori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socialization
In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained".Clausen, John A. (ed.) (1968) ''Socialisation and Society'', Boston: Little Brown and Company Socialization is strongly connected to developmental psychology. Humans need social experiences to learn their culture and to survive.Macionis, John J., and Linda M. Gerber. Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Canada, 2011. Print. Socialization essentially represents the whole process of learning throughout the life course and is a central influence on the behavior, beliefs, and actions of adults as well as of children. Socialization may lead to desirable outcomes—sometimes labeled " moral"—as regards the society where it occurs. Individual views are influenced by the society's consensus and usually tend toward what tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dumbing Down
Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, literature, and cinema, news, video games, and culture. Originated in 1933, the term "dumbing down" was movie-business slang, used by screenplay writers, meaning: " orevise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence". Dumbing-down varies according to subject matter, and usually involves the diminishment of critical thought by undermining standard language and learning standards, thus trivializing academic standards, culture, and meaningful information, as in the case of popular culture. In '' Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste'' (1979), the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) proposed that, in a society in which the cultural practices of the ruling class are rendered and established as the legitimate culture, said distinction then devalues the cultural capital of the subordinate middle- and working- classes, and thus limits their social mobili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socio-economic Class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of hierarchical social categories, the most common being the upper, middle and lower classes. Membership in a social class can for example be dependent on education, wealth, occupation, income, and belonging to a particular subculture or social network. "Class" is a subject of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and social historians. The term has a wide range of sometimes conflicting meanings, and there is no broad consensus on a definition of "class". Some people argue that due to social mobility, class boundaries do not exist. In common parlance, the term "social class" is usually synonymous with "socio-economic class", defined as "people having the same social, economic, cultural, political or educational status", e.g., "the working class"; "an emerging professional class". However, academics distinguish social class from socioeconomic status, using the former to refer to one's relatively stabl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-confidence
Confidence is a state of being clear-headed either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Confidence comes from a Latin word 'fidere' which means "to trust"; therefore, having self-confidence is having trust in one's self. Arrogance or hubris, in comparison, is the state of having unmerited confidence—believing something or someone is correct or capable when evidence or reasons for this belief are lacking. Overconfidence or presumptuousness is excessive belief in someone (or something) succeeding, without any regard for failure. Confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy as those without it may fail or not try because they lack it and those with it may succeed because they have it rather than because of an innate ability. The concept of self-confidence is commonly defined as self-assurance in one's personal judgment, ability, power, etc. One's self-confidence increases as a result of experiences of havin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Praxis Test
{{Education in the U.S. A Praxis test is one of a series of American teacher certification exams written and administered by the Educational Testing Service. Various Praxis tests are usually required before, during, and after teacher training courses in the U.S. In order to be a teacher in about half of the states in the US, the Praxis test is required. It usually consists of two separate tests, Praxis 1 and 2. In some states, alternative teacher certification programs allow prospective educators to obtain licensure without taking Praxis tests. The Praxis I, or Pre-Professional Skills Test (PPST), consisted of three exams: reading, writing, and mathematics. On September 1, 2014, ETS transitioned to the Praxis "CASE" or "Core Academic Skills for Educators" which also consists of reading, writing, and mathematics exams. These sections can be taken as a combined test or separately. In most colleges and universities, a passing score must be earned for admission to teacher education. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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