Modern Education and Classic Education
Modern education, especially as it exists in the government controlled public schools, has deteriorated continually over the past 100 years. There are no "education specialists" who aren't now actually behavioral psychologists or psychiatrists.
The field of psychology has very much taken over the public school system, and is doing its best to take over private schools. Through covert tactics, extensive lobbying efforts, and setting government mandated "educational standards", even home-schooling may have to conform to the dictates of psychologists.
Before the advent of psychology into the schools, education involved learning to read, acquiring mental skills, and developing the ability to think conceptually.
The idea behind traditional education was to prepare the student with as wide and strong a base as possible for future success and contribution in the world. The modern psychologists have a different idea, and this involves ensuring the students possess the correct beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. The attention in education has gone from cognitive skills and effective thinking ability, to affective things, such as how the student feels, what he believes and what attitudes he has. This is why students perform worse on standardized tests today that gauge thinking ability and cognitive skills compared to 25 or 50 years ago.
By 1952, behavioral psychology had not only become the "scientific" foundation of American pedagogy, but it had changed our textbooks, revised the classroom curriculum, and redesigned the American school building. If you detect something mindless about American education, it's because the mind has been taken out of it. Only visible behavior counts.
Monday, May 18, 2009
The modern psychologically-based schools fail to adequately teach the students how to read, learn and understand, concentrating more on the affective domain, and actually cause a number of "learning disabilities", which psychiatry then "diagnoses" and prescribes drugs for as the solution. Many children are labeled as having "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" in the public schools, where psychiatry also has its government mandated influence, based upon teacher observations and recommendations. The teachers are trained in college how to do this, even though they are not properly trained therapists. Almost all "diagnoses" of ADHD depend upon teacher comments and observations. The public school system is as an integral part of the national "mental health" system. There is much to hyperactive and attention problems that have nothing to due with "mental illnesses" and "disorders".
The psychiatrists won't tell you that, and jump at the chance to prescribe Ritalin and other dangerous drugs. Often the child's behavior is due to dietary or other environmental factors such as sugar, allergins or toxins. Or, the child appears to have a "learning disability" primarily because faulty psychological theories and practices have ruined any ability to read and learn the child might have originally possessed (i.e. the modern "look-see" reading method that systematically destroys reading and cognitive ability).
There is much to this subject, and the links below cover a wealth of information and provide further information for the interested parent or person.
The psychiatrists won't tell you that, and jump at the chance to prescribe Ritalin and other dangerous drugs. Often the child's behavior is due to dietary or other environmental factors such as sugar, allergins or toxins. Or, the child appears to have a "learning disability" primarily because faulty psychological theories and practices have ruined any ability to read and learn the child might have originally possessed (i.e. the modern "look-see" reading method that systematically destroys reading and cognitive ability).
There is much to this subject, and the links below cover a wealth of information and provide further information for the interested parent or person.
Losing the Education Race
While critics tend to rely on the three-decades long decline of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to document the dumbing down of American education, more alarming is our performance against the students of other industrialized countries. By virtually every measure of achievement, American students lag far behind their counterparts in both Asia and Europe, especially in math and science. Moreover, the evidence suggests that they are falling farther and farther behind. Read the results of various studies and the details of exactly how modern public education has failed.
While critics tend to rely on the three-decades long decline of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to document the dumbing down of American education, more alarming is our performance against the students of other industrialized countries. By virtually every measure of achievement, American students lag far behind their counterparts in both Asia and Europe, especially in math and science. Moreover, the evidence suggests that they are falling farther and farther behind. Read the results of various studies and the details of exactly how modern public education has failed.
The Leipzig Connection
The history of modern psychology beginning with Wilhelm Wundt in Germany. Wundt's theories change the view of Man as possessing a "mind" or "soul" to one of Man seen as an animal, subject only to stimulus-response factors. Since then modern psychology has more and more aligned with the behaviorist view of Man as a beast to be controlled by placing him in suitable controlled environments. Read how this view came to predominate in modern education.
The history of modern psychology beginning with Wilhelm Wundt in Germany. Wundt's theories change the view of Man as possessing a "mind" or "soul" to one of Man seen as an animal, subject only to stimulus-response factors. Since then modern psychology has more and more aligned with the behaviorist view of Man as a beast to be controlled by placing him in suitable controlled environments. Read how this view came to predominate in modern education.
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