Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Savvy, practical insights on where our Education Establishment went wrong and how most schools can be improved.LET'S FIX EDUCATION explains the many dysfunctional theories and methods operating within our schools. This podcast is intended for parents, teachers, and community leaders who want education reform.
Each week, LET'S FIX EDUCATION examines another problem in our public schools, such as: Constructivism. Learning styles. Sight-words. No memorization. Cooperative learning. Prior knowledge. Reform math. The dilution of knowledge. Common Core. Project-based learning. Student-centered, etc. In fact, there are DOZENS of counterproductive learning and teaching theories, all made worse by ideological motives.
Bio: Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, and education reformer. He has analyzed the problems in education for more than 30 years. Price is the author of "Saving K-12: What happened to our public schools? How do we fix them?" (190 pages) His main education site is Improve-Education.org. For more information about book and author, visit Lit4u.com. Newest novels are "Frankie" (about a harmless robot) and "The Boy Who Saves The World" (about a boy who saves the world).
"Bruce Price’s SAVING K-12 is a MUST read! It is precise, concise and powerful. Action is required…for the sake of our children, our grandchildren and the future of the American Republic!” Robert W. Sweet, Jr., long-time President of The National Right to Read Foundation
Let's Fix Education / by Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 108: Teach philosophy in K-12?? Yes, definitely! For example… (Wed., July 26, 2023)
The Greeks were so clever. Why not take advantage of this? There are hundreds of memorable quotes left by Greek philosophers, a job they may have invented. Use these quotes to draw children into geography, history, logic, etc..
The pattern in K-12 education, for more than 100 years, is to ask a question: is this material easy, is it simple? If not, let's not make our children uncomfortable. Let's not make them feel stressed or unqualified. And that's how K-12 became as dumb as a brick.
The ed professors are always looking for an excuse to get out of the education business. They should be looking for more interesting ways to stay in that business.
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Let's Fix Education explains to Americans why their schools are so bad. The people in charge prefer mediocrity because they are socialists of one kind or another. If people work together to promote real education, we'll have it.
LET'S FIX EDUCATION --- by --- Bruce Deitrick Price
Episode 108 -- Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Teach philosophy in K-12?? Yes, definitely! For example…
Ladies and gentlemen,
Whenever I see quotes from Greece 25 centuries ago, I'm amazed at how modern they sound. Not religious, not strictly speaking scientific. But shrewd; very thoughtful. I call it practical wisdom. I think these people invented philosophy.
This is great stuff for students to learn and also to debate. Why waste time on insipid jargon like critical thinking when we can debate with Socrates.
Socrates said. ‘Wisdom begins in wonder.” True or false?
Or how about this from Plato: “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
My concept of teaching is you use everything to teach everything else. In this case, you use philosophy to teach geography and history. Start with a map of the Mediterranean and explain the Mediterranean is about 2/3 the width of America. Talk lovingly about the city states—Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Sparta, Rhodes, Syracuse, and others. Every major city had an amphitheater. You can see modern theaters right there, stage left, stage right, all that show business.
I have sad news. Most students in our public schools do not know where Greece is. They don't know what ancient history is. They don't know what philosophy is nor why anyone would want to know. They don't know where the Mediterranean is. So blitz their empty heads with sassy quotes from long ago. They won't forget. Many will be grateful that finally the school taught them something interesting.
Epictetus said, "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."
‘Socrates said, “One thing I know, that I know nothing. This is the source of my wisdom.”
Plato said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
Antisthenes said, “Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.”
A theme I keep returning to is that you can't think critically about a vacuum, you have to have a proposal, an idea, an event, anything, and then you can discuss that event. Pretending that kids who know nothing can engage in critical thinking is part of the general folly of so-called progressive education.
Aristotle said, “You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.”
Pericles said, “Wait for the wisest of all advisors, time.”
“Life is short; art long.”– Hippocrates
Greeks were constantly in conflict and sometimes in war. But very early they sometimes adopted a strategy we might call symbolic war. Soldiers lined up in opposing lines ready for combat. They tried to push each other backwards. Referees determined when one side had won. Everyone had agreed to abide by this victory, so a dispute was settled without bloodshed. Some of the best Greek warriors lived on to have children, Greek civilization was protected, thanks to this ingenious workaround.
Aristotle said, “Well begun is half done.” And also said, “Wit is educated insolence.”
A proverb declared, ““The tongue has no bones, but it crushes bones.”
“The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.” By Epicurus.
Before the Greeks there were major empires, Egyptian, Chinese, Mesopotamian, the Indians in India. They tended to have a king who is a god and everybody else is dirt. The Greeks brought in personality and that's why I say they invented modernism. Another way to put it is they were worldly. They existed at the center of the world at that time. They knew about the pyramids and they were invaded by the insolent Persians as you know from the movie 300. Everything the Greeks figured out flowed into the Roman empire and then up into Europe and then to America. So none of what happened in Athens 25 century is unconnected from what is happening in New York now.
Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Plato said, “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
Finally, Hippocrates said something very provocative about health: “It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”
I suggest the best technique is to encourage the students to debate and argue. In the process, Greek philosophy will educate them.
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Quotes from Greek philosophy
10 quotes on education by Greek philosophers
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