The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Thursday, November 14, 2002

Chemical experimentation on minors, all in pursuit of educational excellence

The second document, the gigantic Behavioral Science Teacher Education Project, outlined teaching reforms to be forced on the country after 1967. If you ever want to hunt this thing down, it bears the U.S. Office of Education Contract Number OEC-0-9-320424-4042 (B10). The document sets out clearly the intentions of its creators—nothing less than “impersonal manipulation” through schooling of a future America in which “few will be able to maintain control over their opinions,” an America in which “each individual receives at birth a multi-purpose identification number” which enables employers and other controllers to keep track of underlings and to expose them to direct or subliminal influence when necessary. Readers learned that “chemical experimentation” on minors would be normal procedure in this post-1967 world, a pointed foreshadowing of the massive Ritalin interventions which now accompany the practice of forced schooling.

Participatory Democracy Put To The Sword, part of Chapter 2 of The Underground History of American Education

I came across this link not as research for my poor attempt at a novel, but because I have an interest in just how bad our educational system is, but I didn't realize just blatently manipulative it is. And it's just one more depressing data point to add to the every growing list of depressing trends in society.

Real life giving satire a run for the money

[from orders given on Mr. Gatto's first day of teaching:] Good morning, Mr. Gatto. You have typing. Here is your program. Remember, THEY MUST NOT TYPE! Under no circumstances are they allowed to type. I will come around unannounced to see that you comply. DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY TELL YOU about an exception. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.

Not a letter, not a numeral, not a punctuation mark from those keys or you will never be hired here again. Go now.

When I asked what I should do instead with the class of seventy-five, he replied, “Fall back on your resources. Remember, you have no typing license!”

Wadleigh, The Death School, part of Chapter 4 of The Underground History of American Education

Words fail me.

I wish I could say this was satire; a damning critique of the U. S. educational system and unions or guilds but no, this isn't satire, it's real life. It's the New York City school system (in Harlem) circa 1961.

I'm so glad I'm out of that system. But I feel for Spring's children …

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