Mises on schooling:

It is often asserted that the poor man's failure in the competition of the market is caused by his lack of education. Equality of opportunity, it is said, could be provided only by making education at every level accessible to all. There prevails today the tendency to reduce all differences among various peoples to their education and to deny the existence of inborn inequalities in intellect, will power, and character. It is not generally realized that education can never be more than indoctrination with theories and ideas already developed. Education, whatever benefits it may confer, is transmission of traditional doctrines and valuations; it is by necessity conservative. It produces imitation and routine, not improvement and progress. Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them. (Human Action, c15, s11)

"You would be hard-pressed to find any industry with this level of income that is less efficient than higher education. If Wal-Mart gets into the field, this will change. "

"If the public ever figures out that it can escape the clutches of higher education in the United States, which absorbs about a third of a trillion dollars a year, the game will end. The guilds will have to compete in a free market. They are not used to this. They will resent it. But they are going to have to learn to live with it."

– Gary North, "The Self-Serving System of Peer Review"

I hate it when people talk about socializing children.

Whether they realize it or not, they mean "socialize" the same way the word is used in the term "socialized medicine."

But even if you accept that they're talking about making sure children are sociable, making sure they have social skills, how did the schooling establishment manage to convince everyone that the government's schools were the necessary means toward those ends? Are we supposed to believe that no one was ever sociable before the 19th-century invention of compulsory schooling?

Furthermore, practically everyone who levels this supposed criticism (or voices it as a "concern") went to these types of schools! How do we make sense of that? Were they all popular? Were none of them subjected to long-term bullying? Most of my friends were neighborhood friends. Did these people live in neighborhoods where they were the only children? Did none of them go to church, scouts, camp, clubs, etc.? Really? All their friends were classmates and they all promoted mature and subtle social skills?

Well, I don't really see the need to debunk such an absurd idea — a belief that one could only maintain through deliberate thick headedness — but if you want some material to counter the socialization claims, I now have something to point you to.

Linda Schrock Taylor very kindly included me among the people she forwarded this article to:

"Socializing Homeschooled Students," by David W. Kirkpatrick

Here's the critical line:

"Largely unrecognized are studies that show youngsters who spend more time with their peers are more likely to develop peer standards than adult ones, and the earlier they begin peer-dominated experiences the more dysfunctional their values and attitudes may be."

I'm a big fan of highbrow Cliff Notes. For example, Kant's famous metaphysical treatise is called
Critique of Pure Reason; I eventually had to read it for an upper-level course on Kant, but in 101, we read his much shorter Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, which was, our intro professor explained to us, Kant's own summary presentation of his longer work.

These days, I'm reading H.G. Wells's A Short History of the World, which is the summary version of his two-volume Outline of History.

In both cases, the author wrote his own summary. I couldn't hope for an equivalent with the Bible — which I've started several times but never made it out of Genesis — so instead I'm reading and enjoying David Plotz's "Blogging the Bible," from Slate.com.

As they come up, I'm also keeping track of famous saying I didn't realize were biblical in origin, some of which have been reworded in their popular form, such as, "Can the Cushite change his skin or the leopard his spots?" (Jeremiah 13:23). I guess the Bible isn't very politically correct.

Here's Plotz's introductory comment to Jeremiah chapters 14–16:

Anyone who's ever been in a bad relationship knows the Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Cruelty: Before you go through the torture of dumping a boyfriend, you act meaner than you feel toward him. (This usually goes on at an unconscious level.) Boyfriend understandably bristles and retaliates. This makes the actual leave-taking much easier. You get to lighten your own guilt by blaming the dumpee for being such a jerk.

This appears to be God's strategy.

My father used to lament the lack of biblical literacy in my so-called education. For most of my life, I haven't shared his regret. But that concept alone — the doctrine of preemptive cruelty (which yes, I suppose might be more Plotz's than God's) — would have been well worth knowing in my formative years. My teens and 20's would have looked very different if I'd known it.

"I have concluded that history in my own public school education was little more than a chronological sequence of political campaign slogans, punctuated by the odd war."

– David Bratton

"There are decent public schools and terrible ones," writes Lew Rockwell, "so there is no use generalizing. Nor is there a need to trot out data on test scores. Let me just deal with economics. All studies have shown that average cost per pupil for public schools is twice that of private schools. If we could abolish public schools and compulsory schooling laws, and replace it all with market-provided education, we would have better schools at half the price, and be freer too. We would also be a more just society, with only the customers of education bearing the costs." FULL ARTICLE

Free Resource (#514) - March 11th, 2008

Today's Resource of the Day

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity

In this book forum from the Cato Institute, John Stossel (Co-Anchor of ABC's 20/20) discusses his latest book Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know is Wrong. In his entertaining, no-nonsense style Stossel advocates opening up K-12 education to the free markets because he feels American public schools are falling behind the rest of the world and competition would give school systems the necessary kick they need to get America's schools back on top. This audio program is available on MP3 download as well as streaming audio from the Cato Institute and streaming video from FORA.tv.

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity

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Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity

Consumer advocate, investigative reporter, and bestselling author Stossel is back with a new audiobook based on his top-rated "20/20" segment, which debunks popularly reported misconceptions.

Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity

Just discovered:

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by KUHF-FM Houston. Among other features, this web site houses the transcripts for every episode heard since the show's inception in 1988. Click here for the newest Engines episode, No. 2342. Recent Engines episodes are now available as a Podcast. Click Here. Each individual episode begins with a link to its audio version.

Also available through iTunes U.

A classic Calvin & Hobbes, forwarded by Mr B:

I learned a lot during the first 35 years of my life. I've spent most of the past 5 years doing a lot of unlearning.

Here's a historical corrective worth passing along:

On January 26, 1893, Abner Doubleday died in Mendham, New Jersey. In 1905, Albert J. Spalding, a former player turned sporting goods manufacturer, established a commission to investigate the origins of baseball. After two years of questionable study (and primarily on the basis of unsubstantiated testimony from an elderly man of doubtful sanity), the commission concluded that Abner Doubleday formulated the essential rules of baseball in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York (the current home of the Baseball Hall of Fame). Even though scholars have totally discredited the claim (Doubleday's own obituary says he disliked outdoor sports), the myth lives on. In his 1973 book "The Man Who Invented Baseball," Harold Peterson expressed it all in a beautiful example of chiasmus:

"Abner Doubleday didn't invent baseball,
baseball invented Abner Doubleday."

That's from the weekly newsletter I get from www.DrMardy.com, a website "for lovers of wit and wordplay," which was recommended to me by a lover of chiasmus.

From MaybeLogic.com:

Pranks and Prankster, Tricksters & Tricks (with R.U. Sirius
6 week course from February 4 – March 16) -- the brilliant ones open up a space in the world for magic(k), ambiguity, and novelty. They encourage us to Question Authority and better still, they cause us to Question Reality.

In this course, we will discuss the history of pranks and pranksterism in the contemporary world. We will examine mythical and world historic tricksters like Coyote, Bugs Bunny, Crowley, Puck, Heyoka, Papa Legba, Lucifer, and more. And we'll explore and discuss the role pranksters and tricksters play in cultures. I will also discuss some of my own pranks and tricks and try to get some of my more legendary prankster friends in for interviews.

Finally, we will plan pranks, make pranks, and maybe even leave the course with a dedicated prankster cabal. No fooling.

Course texts:

• Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art by Lewis Hyde
• Pranks 2 by V. Vale

Price: $135.00