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Feb. 23, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

06:52

1858 Dumbed Down to the Very Ground! True News from Freedomain Radio

The Wisconsin protests -- how exactly other parents and children supposed to 'bargain collectively' for even remotely decent conditions?

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Walleniew from Free Domain Radio.
	This is Schooled in Wisconsin, the second.
	Collective bargaining? Really?
	That's what they're going with?
	Host of Free Domain Radio.
	So collective bargaining, this is their big thing, right?
	We have the right to bargain collectively.
	Wiki defines it as a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements which regulate working conditions.
	But teachers' unions do not bargain.
	There's no bargaining involved.
	They use political power to take money from parents by force through property taxes and debt.
	Parents pay for teachers' government education through force.
	They are forced to pay for it, and they are usually geographically ensnared like a rabbit in a ring trap.
	To send their kids to the closest school.
	They have virtually no choice and they have to pay whether they have kids or not, whether they like the teachers or not, whether the values are being taught or not.
	It's a forced and coercive situation.
	Let's not pretend that that's anything called a bargain or we'll have to reinvent the word to say that a stick-up artist with a knife to your ribs is bargaining with you for your watch.
	And, hey, if it's such a big good thing that everyone has the right to bargain for what it is that they want, how do parents and kids bargain?
	I mean, imagine in a peaceful market, in a free market, without the use of force to educate children.
	Imagine parents work nine to five.
	What school's going to survive if it ends at three o'clock in the afternoon, dumping the kids out into the streets a couple of hours before the parents end up their workday?
	Of course it wouldn't, but that's public schools, right?
	Oh, also, the kids are going to have two months of no school in the summer, despite the fact the parents have maybe two to three weeks off at best.
	How convenient is that?
	Imagine that's on your brochure of your school.
	Oh, and by the way, semi-random professional development days where the kids have no place to go, and good luck finding a place for them.
	The reason you have two months off in the summer was for the harvest, to help the kids help on the farm 150 years ago when 80% or more of the US population was involved in agriculture.
	What does that have to do with the 21st century?
	Well, nothing. But when you put violence around a system, it stops in time.
	It stops in time.
	150 years ago, before government took over education, how did it work?
	You had a bunch of kids in a row with a teacher up front using a blackboard.
	150 years later, we've gone to the moon, we've split the atom, we've blown up half of Japan, we've developed the internet, I'm talking to you through all these bits and bytes and burps.
	Incredible progress in every field of human technology.
	And how does school nick now?
	Well, okay. Sometimes it's a whiteboard, so I guess we'll call that progress.
	Look, state schools serve no one.
	Good teachers hate them.
	You ever see that movie Stand and Deliver?
	That guy got kicked out of the school.
	John Taylor Gatto, number one teacher, New York, he got kicked out of the school.
	Anybody who really wants to teach kids doesn't do well and loathes the system.
	It doesn't serve them. It doesn't serve the kids.
	It doesn't serve the parents at all.
	Oh, well, let's say, okay, a couple of people.
	United Federation of Teachers brass last year spent nearly $1.4 million for their 50th anniversary gala.
	They paid $514,000 to $16 separate caterers.
	Yum, yum, yum. They dropped $278,417 on the Teachers' Union Day ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria.
	Apparently quite nice. They bought $6,100 in gift baskets, plowed almost $180,000 into training retreats at a Connecticut resort, boasting golf, scuba diving, and aqua aerobics.
	I think those were all taught at my high school, so that's all right.
	The United Federation of Teachers rents 25 slots in Brooklyn's Renaissance Plaza garage for members at an average annual cost of $75,000 over three years.
	And the teachers' union in New York is currently engaged in a furious last-ditch effort to conceal information that would help parents judge the effectiveness of their children's instructors.
	And why is that? Because, of course, there's going to be lots of teachers laid off, and the union wants seniority, of course, because the higher-paid teachers pay more in union dues.
	And the parents, you see, want the better teachers to stay and the worse teachers to go, because they actually care about their damn children.
	But we can't have any of that, of course, because remember, collective bargaining and the rights of people to negotiate for better conditions is essential.
	Oh, but not for the kids and certainly not for their parents who are trying to help them.
	1895, so this is shortly after.
	Government took over education, which means you still have the momentum of the free market, right?
	In the same way that NASA wasn't total crap in the 1960s because it still had the momentum of the free market, people who have good discipline and work ethics and so on.
	Here's an exam for grade 8 students from 1895.
	A couple of questions. I want you to get how much has been robbed from you, how much has been stolen from you with this crappy education that you're forced to endure and not ignite it to burn with a learning passion for your whole life.
	Here's some questions from grade 8.
	Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7%.
	Find bank discounts on $300 for 90 days, no grace, at 10%.
	What are the principal parts of a verb?
	Give principal parts of do, lie, lay, and run.
	Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
	Some history. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the rebellion.
	No! Not the one with Chewbacca.
	Who were the following? Morris, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe.
	Name events connected with the following dates.
	1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.
	Here's some more. Oh, you know, you hear the phrase, but he only had an eighth grade education.
	Well, imagine what that meant over a hundred years ago.
	Some linguistics. What is meant by the following?
	Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication.
	What are the following?
	And give examples of each. Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, and linguals.
	Yes, they're all rap bands.
	Write ten words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
	Why is the Atlantic coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
	Lots of other questions. I'll post the links to these below.
	I'm sorry to say it.
	Look, you've been robbed. I think the internet can give you some great tools for learning how to reason and think critically again.
	But to stare into the more of the brain and blood-sucking emptiness of government miseducation to really understand how much has been taken from the kids, how much has been taken from the adults, how dumbed down we have become.
	Is to have the greatest sympathy for the potential of people in the future and for what we as a species in a race can do with the right education.
	We can solve all the world's problems.
	We can heal the world. We can end war.
	We can solve every environmental problem.

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