345 - Dumbed Down, Buttoned Down or Locked Down (Throwaway People in the Disposable Culture)

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Episode #345 - Dumbed Down, Buttoned Down or Locked Down (Throwaway People in the Disposable Culture)

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⌚ Sun 11 February 2007  ☻Ben Manski, Vivien Stern, John Taylor Gatto (reading)

Download Hour1 Download Hour2This week we look at the roots of the modern education system, and the resistance both past and present to the mission of forced schooling.

In our first hour, we hear a presentation is from the (student organised) 2006-04-02 Democracy and Education conference at the University of Connecticut. Ben Manski, who speaks on Higher Education and The Democracy Movement - The Public University in The Age of Corporatisation, tells the history of universities. In our second hour, we hear prison reformer Vivien Stern on how increased emphasis on market mechanisms has affected people's perceptions of justice in what she refers to as 'the commodification of justice'. We also conclude chapter 9 of The Underground History of American Education, on resistance to the Gary School plan. American parents nearly a century ago correctly identified it as an industrially sponsored procedure to dumbing down their children, and used disruptive, sometimes violent tactics to oppose it.
Thanks Emilie Aspenwall of Stark Raven for the Vivien Stern interview and to George King
Some of this episode's content is repeated in episode 520 and episode 543.
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