AT: Public schools are expert at creating illiteracy. Our K-12 system can usually guarantee that students don’t become fluent readers. The system is nearly foolproof. Parents and teachers can make children illiterate or semi-literate simply by following this well-tested seven-step formula:
1) FORGET ABOUT THE ALPHABET. Do not teach the alphabet, the sounds, or the blends. Reading maestro Frank Smith maintained in Reading Without Nonsense (1973): “I have said that children should not be taught the alphabet[.] … [U]ntil children have a good idea of what reading is about, learning the names of letters is largely a nonsense activity.” MORE
The term functional illiteracy is an oxymoron. You can not be functional and illiterate at the same time unless you’re just plain stupid and don’t know that you’re stupid because you’ve never been told that you’re stupid by the geniuses (sarcasm) who created this mess in the first place to keep people stupid and having them feel good about being stupid. What do you think ebonics is people? I resent the hell out of these progtards who keep people stupid in order to control them by not allowing them to learn anything or just barely enough to get by if that. It’s a perfect way to control the sheeple, to hell with that.
“When I gets to fiddlin’, I just takes me Ritaline.
I’m popping & sailing, man!”
~ Bart Simpson … to the tune of ‘Popeye, the Sailor Man’
we have allowed this, people … when are we going to fight back?
As one who was given Ritalin in order to control me when I was in 7th and 8th grade 50 years ago because I was bored shitless and had an attitude because I hated school these morons can kiss my ass. I’ve learned more on my own that I would’ve ever learned if I had given in to them trying to control me. I can think for myself, thank you and I don’t need or want their help.
@ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ – There’s really only one effective way to fight back right now and that is to starve the govt indoctrination centers of students. Home school kids, or if that simply isn’t possible, send them to a private school that you know does an effective job of actual education.
a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l-uh-mental-p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z.
Held back years for that one. so yea, fuck the alphabet 😉
Aristotle was educated with a clay tablet
Newton was educated with books and a chalkboard
Abe Lincoln was educated with books, chalk and slate
And a damn teacher whose word was law!
The Dept of Education is another guild that is in place to protect the livelihoods of teachers. Teaching is secondary to political leanings and the appearance of liberal propiety.
Children are little drunken lunatics
Now they run the asylum
Here’s a program to spend money on:
Offer every Veteran the means to get a degree and a teaching certificate then hire them to replace the worthless fat slugs in place now.
A soldier knows: When to show up, what to show up with, what attitude is required for the present task, and is prepared to succeed at that task.
And give that teacher a Nigerian Riot control baton and a mandate to use it.
One of the reasons I became a good reader was because reading was my default activity in childhood. And where did I get the idea that it should be? From my parents. We had a daily subscription to the now-defunct Newark Evening News, and several weekly/monthly periodicals. My father read “Human Events” and “U.S. News & World Report,” my mother, “Good Housekeeping” and “Photoplay.” I read them, too: this is why I hate liberals, understand the economy, can bake a mean chocolate chip cookie, and can name every reason why the Elizabeth Taylor vehicle “Cleopatra” was a bomb.
The house was also filled with books. I grew up reading 59-cent Whitman classics, and was a regular customer of Scholastic Books in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, which sold paperbacks three for a buck. (They used to advertise in “American Girl” magazine, which is one magazine I didn’t have to borrow from my parents). Trips to the library were regularly scheduled. When I got older, I would take my dad’s books off the shelf and read them. I was reading Nietzsche in high school!
If a child is illiterate, parents have to shoulder their share of the blame. Teachers only have custody of their students for a few hours a day. Parents have to keep the ball rolling at home.