Dallas Clayton on Empowering Kids' Minds

Hey Guys,

It only takes a quick glance around the kids section of your local Wal-Mart or a flip through the commercials on Nickelodeon to realize that we are headed for some serious trouble in the U.S. if the current trends in children's education and entertainment continue to spiral into the dark abyss of what Aldous Huxley referred to as "The feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy" in his stone-cold classic Brave New World. Literacy rates are declining, India currently boasts more honor students in their education system than our entire student population, and it's starting to look like Idiocracy was less a work of fiction than a serious documentary. De-evolution is real.

But all is not lost in a sea of Pokemon cards and Bratz dolls, because we still have heroes helping to Deny Ignorance in the minds of our kids before it starts--and this week on Don't Tread on Media we had the pleasure of interviewing one such person. Meet Dallas Clayton, a self-made, self-published author of children's books who has managed to achieve a great degree of independent success with the simple goal of helping kids develop the necessary tools to think critically and creatively in a world that's trying to snatch their free will away at every turn.

He's a very sharp and calculated individual, but we managed to discuss the heart of the issues in our education system today and the importance of a positive outlook as I interviewed him in our temporary top secret underground pool location (apologies for the echo, we'll be in a new spot next week)! Although he doesn't share my view that public education is structured to dumb the population down where it's convenient for the government, I have a great deal of respect for his ideas and attitude toward empowering kids in our increasingly restricted world.

What do you guys think about the current state of public education, and what can we do to fix it? I'm looking forward to our discussion, and be sure to tune in next week when we interview one of the most prominent researchers of the infamous 1947 Roswell incident.

Bye TV,

Josh LeCash

reply to post by Notheycant

What do you guys think about the current state of public education

Well, my kids are all grown up both sets of them so I haven't been paying much attention to education anymore. Other than seeing some of that common core garbage that's going around.

How to help kids?

Read them stories every night from the time they are born.
Teach them to read as soon as the can hold a book and look at pictures.
Teach them computer literacy and safety before they are five years old.
Answer their questions honestly.
And never, ever talk down to them because they're kids. Just talk to them normally.

That's what I did anyway and it worked out pretty good.

reply to post by Notheycant


As soon as the host said "hey the United States... we're the best" I had to deny ignorance and stop the video. It's exactly that type of casual ignorance that destroys developing minds.

reply to post by Notheycant


Another good video, Josh. The pool thing was weird, but unique

I've been discussing public education with others this week on this thread: Which is preferable: Secular Education or Theocracy?, and my conclusion is that we've given the government control over education long enough for them to conclusively demonstrate that they're not very good at providing it, and we need an open market for all parents to be given choice in where they send their kids to school, not just for the wealthy.

Here's a scary video on an "up and coming" indoctrination teaching technique, "Whole Brain Teaching".


Groupthink much?

reply to post by Notheycant


Good subject matter

In their own words...

"Far too much of our efforts have been focused on the issue of lets find the short term fix ... rather than the issue of understanding that what we are into is a total restructuring of the society. What is happening in America today and what is happening to Kansas in the great plains is not simply a chance situation in the usual winds of change. What it amounts to is a total transformation of our society ... and the issues for most children, as is the issue for most of society, is that what has changed in education today is that we no longer see the teaching of facts and information as the primary outcome of eduction. During the past ten years we have been going through a reform movement, and that reform movement began with the governors of the nations ... deciding that what their concern was ... they began to understand the very close relationship between economic development and human capital."

As unbelievable as that sounds, it's true. Just to reiterate the three main points in this educational agenda:

1."Total transformation of society."
2."Facts and information (knowledge) is no longer the primary purpose of education."
3."Connection between economic (sustainable) development and human capital (labor).

So, where is the evidence of this? Well, it's all nicely written down for us in the numerous text books given to our children and our children's teachers. Text books such as...

Getting To Know Connected Mathematics

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0ca76dcdf077.jpg[/atsimg]

Standard 3: Mathematics as reasoning.

"They learn that mathematics is man made, that it is arbitrary, and good solutions are arrived at by consensus among those who are considered expert."

Yes, you read that right. No longer does 2+2 = 4. Oh no, those who are 'considered expert' might decide (by consensus) that 2+2 now = 3. Not even mathematics is safe!

In the teachers guide at the back we are told that...

"Because the curriculum does not emphasise arithmetic computations done by hand some students may not do as well on tests assessing computational skills. We believe such a trade off in favour of CMP is very much to the students advantage in the world of work."

In other words, they don't want children to think about the numbers behind the buttons, they just want them to know what buttons to press...like good little mindless drones. Which is why most modern day cash registers look like this:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f33ba99b1f2e.jpg[/atsimg]

And what has this got to do with Sustainable Development? Well, here is the answer straight from the horses mouth...

'Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit'

"Generally, more highly educated people, who have higher incomes, consume more resources than poorly educated people, who tend to have lower incomes. In this case, more education increases the threat to sustainability."

There you have it, in their own words, intelligent people are a threat to their planned sustainable future!

UNESCO goes on to reiterate this agenda:

"Indeed, in the 21st century, the literacy of SD will be as essential to comprehending the world as were the traditional skills of reading and writing at the start of the 20th century."

"The effectiveness must ultimately be measured by the degree to which ESD changes the attitudes and behaviours of people, both in their individual roles and in carrying out their collective responsibilities and duties as citizens"

This is then backed up by the 'Performance Instructions Manual' which states that:

"Learning has not taken place until behaviour is changed."

"Values, attitudes and interests can be learned/taught and also objectively evaluated."

From this thread.

Also, peruse the work of Sir Ken Robinson who lives at the more rational end of the spectrum...



Funny guy, too.

Being an artist myself, I am probably biased, but I thought that was a great interview, with a pretty interesting guy. The questions were interesting, as were the answers. I liked it. The interaction seemed natural, and unforced, which is how a good interview should be in my opinion. It was a good segment

reply to post by InverseLookingGlass


It was a joke ... but then again maybe my delivery is terrible.

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Josh

reply to post by adjensen


Totally agree with you. Free markets offer choice. Government does not.

Hopefully soon enough people will wake up and realize that. More and more parents are homeschooling their children.

the new coming generation of children should be supported by the syek (read backwards) of David. It will restore order to the world.

Don't believe me? Look at my links in my signature. I'm not lying.

reply to post by LiveForever8


Really great post! I am definitely going to make more videos with this subject matter

Thanks for posting

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Josh

These are the reasons why I get so frustrated with people who think that we need to stick with the same old government school monopolies and see any possible breaking of that system as a threat. They really don't see how they're dooming so many children. I saw it in my brief time teaching in that system.

The public school system made a mistake with me and put me in the Gifted Program with a teacher who taught us formal logic and reasoning, and my husband and I are doing everything we can to ensure our son going into a school situation one way or another where he gets the same. Even if it financially breaks us.

We will do whatever we can to make sure he can at least reason for himself. I don't want his mind chained.

adjensen
reply to post by Notheycant

 

Another good video, Josh. The pool thing was weird, but unique

I've been discussing public education with others this week on this thread: Which is preferable: Secular Education or Theocracy?, and my conclusion is that we've given the government control over education long enough for them to conclusively demonstrate that they're not very good at providing it, and we need an open market for all parents to be given choice in where they send their kids to school, not just for the wealthy.

I'm not religious at all, however I went to a Catholic HS based largely on the fact that it was private and simply offered a superior education (our freshman HS level stuff was at the level of Junior College stuff). I've come to the conclusion that neither is the way to go about things. I'm not quite sure at what age it should begin but I think a series of religion classes would be very beneficial for students. Where most people trip up here though is they want to push one specific religion, in the US that's usually Christianity. I think we need to teach many of the worlds belief systems. One semester of each religion. Greek, Roman, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, Judaism, Atheism, and several others. Expose people to all of the religions, and the major points of what each believes, including reading their holy book if applicable. Then let students make up their own minds from there. If nothing else I think it would lead to more tolerance.

My problem with free market schools comes from the fact that it essentially abandons the problem. It's not fair to say those with the means to go elsewhere can goto the good schools while we focus on them and let the others deteriorate. Bad schools are a reflection of a bad community that doesn't wish to better themselves, it's a systemic issue. I'm not sure what the problem is but I do know that school funding being based off of that districts property values, and programs like No Child Left Behind which encourage cheating on tests, and penalties on worse schools aren't the solution.

One idea I've had is a mixture of the Japanese and Netherlands systems. Let each high school focus on the areas it wants to focus on (perhaps with some voter input), create different entrance exams for each test so that students study the relevant areas to get into the schools they want. The only problem with such a system is that our populations are far too rural for there to be much in the way of choices and transportation is a huge issue outside of a handful of major cities.

As for that video of third graders, it's hard to take it in context. What I remember in my third grade class involved learning multiplication, reading, writing, cursive, art, and so on. That video seems to involve a much more interactive class than when I was a kid but I'm not sure what they're learning. I see a lot of imitation but that's all, there was a lack of opportunity for thinking, for example (I did a lot of skipping through the video... I can't stand kids at that age) they ask what is a noun, and there's no opportunity for the students to figure it out. Instead they're simply given the answer, then they have it repeated three times and they move on.

reply to post by Aazadan


Totally hear what you are saying but we really never have given people a true free market choice for education. Why is it we can enjoy the free market just for goods but not services.

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Josh

Good subject to discuss.
I don't have kids in school anymore but it's hard not to notice how kids just aren't kids anymore. Whatever happened to pretend makeup? Pretend phones? The elementary kids have iPhones now.

The education system isn't teaching proper subjects early enough. All they do in the first couple of years is draw silly pictures and make crafts. Art is important but should be a seperate subject.

Your kid comes home with pictures of leaves in orange, red and yellow for the fall theme. It would be far more educational for the teacher to take them outside and ask each child to pick up 6 dead leaves, bring them back into class and identify them. What type of tree are they from. Discuss the colors they see in the leaves. It would be part of biology class. Yes children should learn about nature and all sciences at an early age.

These themes are stupid. Valentines, Easter, any reason to do the silly crafts.

I don't agree with computers for teaching because it's lazy, as are calculators. You learn far more If you have to hand write each word yourself. Or do math. Maths or arithmetic exercizes the brain and will help the child learn better at other subjects, if it's included each day.

A good school rule is that each student has to take out a book from the school library each week. Bring it back and take another. Encourage children to get library cards. I had to. Or do libraries no longer exist due to the digital age?

What irks me and I know this will spark responses from believers in this. Is the ADHD syndrome. It's made up!
They get put on Ritalin and it messes with their heads and often they continue with antidepressants as they age.
Those meds make one docile. So you don't care, don't pay attention or question anything. They really dumb you down.

If I had to lay blame I would say it's technology.

reply to post by Notheycant


Forgot to respond about the video. The pool was cool!
I wasn't really sure what the guy was really about. He didn't talk much or did, and wasn't holding my attention.

InverseLookingGlass
reply to post by Notheycant

 

As soon as the host said "hey the United States... we're the best" I had to deny ignorance and stop the video. It's exactly that type of casual ignorance that destroys developing minds.

Whats the matter with being proud of your country? Would you have felt better if they shouted "Praise ALLAH!" God is GREAT!"?

reply to post by violet


Thank you! I agree with you he was definitely careful with what he was saying and was holding back. I tried to ask questions that would rock the boat but he was calculated with his answers.

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Josh

reply to post by violet


I partially agree with your point although I disagree what you think about computers. Have you heard of the success the Khan Academy has had in helping teachers teach?

I think a huge problem is the "one size fits all" way government schools operate. I don't think the government should be in the business of schools. It takes away choice, it doesn't allow a free market to facilitate peoples needs. People should have a vast array of schools to choose from. Once a free market steps in it would allow competition, which in turn would lower tuition prices.

But to step away from the economics and politics whether schools should or shouldn't be ran by the government, what about curriculum? Every year students learn the same things except just a little harder as the years pass. Its plain boring and students are all supposed to conform to the meat grinder. Kids love to learn, they are hungry and curious. They obviously should learn the basics. But they should be taught skills, skills that would help them in the real world.

Right now we are pumping out a generation of part time workers with no basic skills.

But, thats just my opinion I still want to hear what you guys have to say. It is truly an interesting conversation to be had

Notheycant
Totally hear what you are saying but we really never have given people a true free market choice for education. Why is it we can enjoy the free market just for goods but not services.

I'm not completely against market schools, my suggestion for a solution involved it. One of my suggestions for a solution involved market schools as that's what Japan uses. The thing is however, before you can have market schools there's some underlying infrastructure that needs to be in place and we just don't have it:

1. Markets mean choice, many areas of the US are relatively rural. In order for a school to be a valid choice you need to have transportation to and from that school. It's not practical for each school to bus every student in from wherever so that means we need a public transportation system so that students can get to an appealing school that's further away from them.

2. Choice means variety. We need a lot more schools each with a lower population in order to truly create a competitive and diverse environment. Take my town for example, we have 12,000 people and 1 high school. If we had market schools here things would simply be business as usual, which is to say business is quite poor. As a cost cutting measure my town cut school bus service last year to jr high and up. We have a lot of students completely unable to even get to school now so they simply don't go. For market schools to be viable, we need to build a bunch of schools, and then we need teachers to fill them. Just doing this on it's own would already improve education since the student:teacher ratio would decline.

3. Schools need to specialize. Maybe one school is designed to segway into certain local colleges, another is designed to get people into trades, one could have a great atheltic program that produces the best athletes. Different schools need to cater to different needs, it's not all about just getting into the school with the best writing/math scores. Of course each school should still teach to a general set of education guidelines but schools should have strengths and weaknesses. This is the part of the Japanese system that I really like. Of course, this requires students have some idea of what areas interest them by the time they're in 8th grade so there's some things to work out, probably requiring a more broad middle school than what currently exists.

4. We need to get off the push of reading/writing/math to the exclusion of all else. Those are important subjects, but they don't teach everything. Arts not only foster creativity but critical thinking skills. They also explain science in a manner that is less dry memorization and more learning about material properties. This is a learning method that works far better for many people. The downfall of the asian school system is that while they produce students who know a lot, they also produce students that are incapable of thinking. To put it another way they teach that 2+2=4 but they don't teach the process of addition (actually they do teach addition, but it's just an analogy to higher level learning) and that's where our mimicry of them should stop. Countries like the Netherlands however, have taken an approach of letting students learn about whatever they want. There's some soft guidelines but they view education not as a set of tests to overcome that require the best scores, but rather a path to let each person become whatever they want to be. If a student would rather spend their days learning to be a better pipe fitter or a musician rather than memorize trigonometry then that's what the school should be doing for them. They didn't go down that route looking for academic excellence but it has turned out to be the best system in the world. I would like to see schools that can specialize so that they can better serve students needs this way.

5. The downside to market competition is that someone inevitably loses, it's a 0 sum game. What most market school proposals fail to address is that everyone is going to want to goto the best school once districts are no longer a thing. This means the schools are either going to get more exclusive through test scores or more expensive through tuition. Either way, there's going to be a whole lot of people that can't goto the best schools, and quite a few people that are still stuck in the worst schools, if for no other reason than physical space which means we still haven't solved the issue of how to give everyone a quality education.