A high school teacher recalls his own alienation from school as a high school student and relates it to the current overriding emphasis on school discipline. School discipline problems are a natural result of coercive educational practices, which have resisted repeated reform efforts. In an alternative educational model, (self-)discipline would…

Examines technology in education as social engineering that discourages intellectual development and accustoms children to accepting without question a hidden stranger's mind-altering drills. Relates this perspective to Greek philosophers Thales and Heraclitus' differing thoughts on the purpose of education: solving the universal human dilemma of…

Suggests that school books present a hidden curriculum that restricts the thinking and learning of students, that the high rate of U.S. illiteracy can be attributed to the method by which reading has been taught since World War II, and that encouraging students to read "real" books will ultimately improve the quality of education. (LP)

A teacher discusses the negative effects of collective socialization on students in government controlled public schools. Suggested ways to deconstruct mass schooling include requiring educators in nonteaching positions to teach, simplifying the curriculum, making student learning relevant, keeping schools small and independent, getting rid of…

Public schooling fails by educating students to become dependent thinkers; by providing irrelevant curricula; and by weakening social institutions such as family, community, and religion. On the other hand, public libraries give students the freedom to choose what they want to read, encourage critical thinking, and be nonjudgmental of students.…

Traces current educational philosophy and practices to 19th-century philosophers who proposed the "mudsill theory," the notion that ordinary children could not be intellectually successful and must be coerced and prepared for work by compulsory schooling. Points to the success of relatively underschooled self-sufficient Lancaster Amish…