[mrustow]

How can I make such a bold statement? How do I know why America's public school system was designed the way it was (age-segregated, six to eight 50-minute classes in a row announced by Pavlovian bells, emphasis on rote memorization, lorded over by unquestionable authority figures, etc.)? Because the men who designed, funded, and implemented America's formal educational system in the late 1800s and early 1900s wrote about what they were doing.

This man knows nothing about the public school system. It's thirty or more years since the schools emphasized memorization ("rote memorization" is a leftwing cliche); the war on memorization is part and parcel of pedagogical anti-intellectualism. And if he believes that public school classrooms are "lorded over by unquestionable [sic] authority figures," he's delusional. If only. This guy sounds like he's writing from Mars.

BTW, the method of teaching by memorization goes back at least as far as the Jesuits in the early 17th century. But hey, maybe they were in on it, and were deliberately setting up the future American system, 300 hundred years in advance.

People like the writer make lefties look downright intelligent.

[cyborg]

I was surprised to see kids do their times tables on their FINGERS (if they don't have a calculator).

[don-o]

This man knows nothing about the public school system.

What man? What post are you quoting? Nothing in #14.

Uh, you would not happen to be a skool teecher, wuld u?