Traditionally, K-12 was in the hands of fairly dull, safe, ordinary people. They didn’t have any fancy theories. They wanted kids to be able to read, to add, and to divide. They wanted kids to know the capital of France. Nothing grandiose. Just the basics. (And I would argue, that’s precisely what we really need today.)

John Dewey and his gang, starting more than 100 years ago, did have grandiose theories.…

The linked article shows that literacy in 1910 was almost 99%.

Isn't that shocking? Didn’t you assume it was much worse? Our Education Establishment tells us every day how difficult reading is and how children can’t learn without another billion added to the budget.…

Excerpt: 

It's a common problem in the US. Children in the second and third grades, even the fourth and fifth grades, are struggling readers. They guess; they skip ahead; they search for clues from context; they look at pictures to read words. Did I mention they guess? Typically, these children are unsuccessful in most school subjects and very unhappy.…

An interesting new look at Aldous Huxley’s most famous book. 

All those famous scenes of embryos in glass jars were not about the industrial technology but about a very simple gimmick unseen at the center of the process. Something is not there. Something the organism desperately needs. And this deprivation is the gimmick that is replicated billions of times in our elementary schools, where children are not…