5. The Ultimate History Lesson. A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto (hour 5 of 5).

http://www.TheUltimateHistoryLesson.com (notes, transcript, links, and more)
http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com (all of John's books, and current projects)
http://www.PeaceRevolution.org (episodes 041-045 cover The Ultimate History Lesson + Analysis)
http://www.TragedyandHope.com (an online community which provides educational media by independent producers)

Hour 5 outline:

1. Is there an easy way to learn? Understanding yourself + raw experience. Allowing kids to follow their own instincts. Group projects with tangible goals. "Principia Mathematica" Alfred North Whitehead and statistical sampling prediction. "Aims of Education and Other Essays".

2. Training fleas before you break their will. "Hubert's Dime Museum and Flea Circus." Breaking autonomy and "taking the lid off". Imposing your will. "Hired as the lid on the container."

3. Wilhelm Wundt and Laboratory schooling. The Roman Collegia and 5th Century crowd control.

4. Connections between Calvin and modern theocratic states? The impulsion of certainty, rules, and algorithms. Experimenting with humanity and enlarging its boundaries. Human ingenuity was seeing as a risk for capital formulation. Using financial crisis. "Overproduction" and "Overcapacity", "hyper-democracy" and the inability to suppress the people. The Trilateral Commission and "The Crisis of Democracy". Hyperinflation and warfare.

5. The role of curiosity as "the lever that produces invention and forces you in a fun way to think for yourself." How schools destroy curiosity. Admiral Perry and Japan.

6. When did the American Dream become one of lifelong servitude and debt slavery? Lincoln at the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. "The American dream was Liberty, Freedom, and personal Sovereignty." "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and IT technology. Discoveries by "non-experts." New ways to treat cancerous tumors by John Kanzius. Robert Scott Root-Bernstein. How to deal with ambiguity.

7. "The Principles of Psychology" by William James (1890) "Habit as the enormous flywheel of society..." The world is much bigger than you believe it is, because of conditioning.

8. "The Six Important Functions of Secondary Education". Alexander James Inglis and "The Principles of Secondary Education"; Adjustive functions, Integrative (conformist) Functions, Directive Function, Differentiating Function, Selective Function, and the Propaedeutic Function. (1918) Getting the Inglis lecture from Harvard.

9. Cutting out the middle man. Why can't students just read books? Strawberry Fields Monument, "Pizza Palace Sued," paying the way to Paris. Hampshire College.

10. Something that would "echo through time." "Sensible children do not wish to be incomplete human beings." Stage theories of human development, tormenting and limiting possibilities. Don't be your kids enemy, be a partner and enlarge the opportunity." "No homework please!"

END TAPE 5 - What does a college education really get you in the 21st Century? The last hoop to jump through that doesn't deliver much along a prescribed plan. Cornell, Columbia and Reed College experience. No bang for the buck, unless you commit. The value of persistence and the learning process and those that demonstrate merit. George W. Bush and the Iraq War. What was the role of UNESCO in Education? Pestalozzi and "killing them with kindness", Fabian Socialism, and "fundamental principles of human physics." "The Imperial Cruise" and "Perfectibilists."

Keywords

Principia Mathematica, Alfred North Whitehead, overproduction, overcapacity, hyper democracy, hyperinflation, warfare, Admiral Perry, American Dream, Lincoln, John Kanzius, Robert Scott Root-Bernstein, Alexander James Inglis, Harvard, William James, George W. Bush, Iraq War, UNESCO, Education, Pestalozzi, Fabian Socialism, The Imperial Cruise, Perfectibilists, Strawberry Fields Monument