RE: The 31 Sentence Contest
One word was used to epitomize the entire 20th century: #jazz, "to describe not only music, but the sweep and swing of the quintessential American century, and the cultural flows that invigorated it." Ok, it's not the word of the year for 2019, it's the word for the whole 20th C. (Did I mention math, clocks, calendars, counting, and all that jazz, to be my weak spots?)
Who gets to decide such weighty, wordy things? The little-known American Dialect Society (ADS), founded in 1889, and dedicated to the study of the English language in North America.
ADS has been picking a word of the year since 1990, longer than any other entity. Its members selected jazz from dozens of possible words in January 2000. source:
App. Fake news. Hashtag. What will be the word of the decade? And who decides?
Now to see what Gatto said about jazz:
(Just when I thought I was done googling for a minute!)
Over in China, the revered Shanghai Conservatory of Music can’t even believe the principles of jazz are real! That with enough courage and trust in yourself, you can hear a piece of music once, and ring dazzling changes on it forever and ever. They can’t duplicate our jazz. But everything else we make doesn’t worry them a bit.
....The road to wealth comes from understanding yourself. Doing what you do best, not what other people do best.
--John Taylor Gatto,
author of Dumbing Us Down, The Exhausted School, A Different Kind of Teacher, and The Underground History of American Education. Formerly a three-time New York City Teacher of the Year and New York State Teacher of the Year, he “dropped out” of teaching in 1991 via an article in the Wall Street Journal, claiming he was no longer willing to hurt children. He has been writing and talking about non-schooling ever since. https://www.life.ca/lifelearning/0510/breaking_from_the_herd_whats_wrong_with_college_by_John_Taylor_Gatto.htm
Oh my goodness I love this guy! Here's the letter he wrote when he quit
https://www.educationrevolution.org/blog/i-quit-i-think/
Thank you for this!!! He speaks for me. And Lenore Skenazy-ish free spirits like you and @owasco and @goat-girlz and.... all of us at @freewritehouse, I suspect.
Public schooling has lobotomized us, as it was intended to do. We are know nothings who think we know everything. You've really got me going now. I sound like I do on FB. Hey! Did you ever get a friend request from me?
I responded to that friend request ages ago... let me see if it went through....
Someone else with a similar name is Wellness Advocate at doTERRA Essential Oils USA....
@owasco, @Carolkean - One of my favorite videos.
This certainly explains a lot about what we are seeing today, most of us blindly accepting what we are told as truth, even when it is completely irrational. Divide and conquer - so obvious. I am ashamed. But the video is great!
Reminds me a bit of Red Pill, the movie, title taken from The Matrix...
Yes.
And the echo box thing, where we scour social media for whatever will confirm what we already believe.
Echo chamber (not box): Where we seek confirmation of what we already believe.
This video is disturbing! How is it possible that our elected leaders never seem to address it in political campaigns, except to propose throwing more money at education, which - listen to Gatto - is not the solution:
You can find me on fb as tristan j carax.
I just sent you a request.
Same profile pix
Awesome stuff. I'm glad he resonates with you.
haha! @agmoore2 also said something like that.
Loved the article. I never knew.
I loved the quote! It is perfect for this contest. Thanks for finding it.
When I had a psychological break down, while living in New York, just after Hurrican Katrina, I was invited over to my friend's house after he talked my blubbering, angry, confused self into coming over. There is where I was introduced to John T. G. So many lights were going off that tied back into things I had experienced in the schooling system and why I lacked the skills, supposed to be taught to you during your schooling career, necessary to truly strive in the world of which I was waking up to. He was a teacher I always dreamed of having. His words touched my soul.
I have for the last five years had a another seba (teacher) who stands up to those standards of mine. In this way, I'm blessed.
You've come a long way from the "angry, confused self" you describe post-Katrina! Finding a mentor and teacher is indeed a great blessing. Your experience parallels millions of children oppressed by institutionalized education -forcing children to sit still and stay quiet all day in a hard chair is not my idea of how to teach life skills and prepare our little ones for adulthood. Most kids SEEM to turn out ok with this system, but I'm haunted by photos of Native American children in matching school uniforms sent to boarding schools. Their childhoods were stolen, they were punished for speaking in their native tongue... ok, I stop now. This is too depressing to recall. Back to MEMORY LOSS... story prompt....
I always picked up on that aspect regarding the Indigenous peoples of this land and that of the Afrikans. Things just looked off.