#14.2 School Sucks Project Podcasts 21 thru 40

[9-5-13: links corrected]
2009-12-28: #21 Keys (Instalment One) The Decentralization of Information & Communication

2010-1-2: #22 (Supplemental) School Sucks, On A Student's Works Cited

2011-3-7*: #23 Collective Education (A Listener e-mail)

*This podcast references “episode10” which means it was created around the same time, and posted on YouTube a year later. This episode provides a discussion of private (Catholic) vs. public school education. Accreditation is mentioned as a method to ensure state standards and this ... unwarranted scam intended to enforce conformity ... applies to private as well as public schools. Among schools of higher education in the United States, only Harvard University has traditionally run as unaccredited (that too may have changed). It is unlikely that any well known or long established private school is unaccredited. His comments concerning the difference between learning and training are among the most important concepts to acquire from this podcast.

2010-1-12: #24 American History F-ed (Series Introduction)

Brett calls this episode 11, so we are not missing anything. The subject is American history in collective (public or private) schools. He describes most people's ideas of history being the hero stories we were all told as children. By the time we reach our teens and are involved in the present, we lose our interest in real history. His words against mysticism are worth considering. He describes his own experiences with students and his awakening. Each one of us may have one of these, which I presume is one reason why you are bothering to read this ... and listening to these podcasts ... rather than going along with the crowd, much of which remain fast asleep.

 

2010-1-19: #25 American History F-ed – Part 2 (The Way)

Under the light of the present podcasts, the news story about someone who failed to register their children with the local public school district but homeschooled them instead should resonate differently. Where is the outrage? It's been schooled out of us. The way American history is told, as a story, enables the state (backed to the hilt by the elites) to exert its violent power so that the average citizen doesn't even realize it. Brett also lays the blade to nationalism. What is the American Way? It was invented as one of a number of ways of statism, the worship of the state which always ends in totalitarianism. Psychotic sociopaths who love statism and infest governments must have something nice to cover their evil from public view else they fail. At the end he presents McCain's address at the 2008 GOP convention and then draws comparisons between our times and those before the rise of Hitler.

Homework:

Thomas Di Lorenzo-
Hamilton's Curse, How Jefferson's Arch Enemy Betrayed the American Revolution--and What It Means for Americans Today
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe
Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government
How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold History of Our Country, from the Pilgrims to the Present
with James T. Bennett- Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us

Di Lorenzo may not be the only one (he isn't) but his work presents a good alternative perspective, backed by facts. Again we are listing his books here for interested readers.

2010-1-28: #26 American History F-ed – Part 3 (American Idol Worship)

Brett once again confronts nationalism (literally invented by socialists) and presents it as it really works. He looks at symbols (idols) as the means to hide true intentions of the sociopaths who run things. He looks at the pledge of allegiance, tracing its real history. It's quite revealing. It's myth making and it works because people do believe myths and fables as if they were facts. For nostalgia, hear John Wayne present the pledge.

2010-2-2: #27 American History F-ed – Part 4 (Let's Make A Hero; Abraham Lincoln)

Brett describes the memorials in Washington DC as temples to American heroes, a process that's not unlike what they did in ancient times, when the emperors and kings were often held as gods. Brett and his guest, Gardner Goldsmith, have a discussion of phonics vs. look and say, a method which does not work and encourages illiteracy, therefore there is something going on, ideology, which confounds real learning. Then they focus attention on Abraham Lincoln. The real story is quite other than we expect. Goldsmith maintains that the lionizing of Lincoln was intentional traceable back to the split among the founders leaning in the direction of Hamilton, the pro-Federalists. Henry Clay was a partisan of these interests and Lincoln was his protégé. It's time for a lot of misconceptions concerning Lincoln to be dissolved.

Homework:

Gardner Goldsmith- Live Free or Die: Essays on Liberty by New Hampshire Libertarian

2010-2-6: #28 American History F-ed – Part 5 (Let's Make A Hero; Franklin Roosevelt)

Continuing with the myth making, Brett continues his discussion with Gardner Goldsmith (libertyconspiracy.com). The flow of their conversation is that FDR represented one of many in a progression (from both political parties, so partisan politics does not matter) of those who wanted people to look to greater authority; statism, collectivism and socialism for their answers; addiction to state power. The lionizing of these narcissistic and psychopathic individuals is all related to idol worship (and it promotes these traits in the general population!).

Homework:

Jim Powell-
FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
Wilson's War: How Woodrow Wilson's Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II
Greatest Emancipations: How the West Abolished Slavery
Bully Boy: The Truth About Theodore Roosevelt's Legacy

Amity Shlaes- The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

Jeffrey Rogers Hummel-

Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War
Monetary Lessons from the Not-So-Great Depression

Robert Higgs-

Delusions of Power: New Explorations of the State, War, and Economy
Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity (Independent Studies in Political Economy)
Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government

2010-2-17: #29 American History F-ed – Part 6 (The War On Fire) 

Brett starts with a repeating cycle, which is real, then considers myths and the people at the centre of them who are used to personify government. He talks with Ian Freeman (host of Free Talk live, Keene, NH or freetalklive.com and freekeene.com) and the topic of their conversation centres around the unintended consequences of government action and how the electoral process is used as a basis for continued government intrusions. Their example is the so called “war on drugs.” The War on Fire was real as it turns out, also the product of government intervention to eliminate ALL forest fires.

 

Homework:

Stephen F. Arno- Flames in Our Forest, Disaster or Renewal?

2010-2-21: #30 (Supplemental): Ian Freeman and I Discuss Action As Education

2010-3-3: #31 Keys (Instalment 2) Leaving Government School
 

This episode centres on an amazing interview with a young man named Jack who “dropped out” of public school and has embarked on his own education centred on unschooling and liberty. He was very articulate and obviously knew himself quite well, unexpected in one so young, but it would not have seemed so in our grandfather's day. To be perfectly blunt about it, this lets us see just how far we have fallen. We know who is squarely to blame for it and we know exactly why they did it; they are the grand parasites and predators, we are the sheep. Question for critical thinking: do we want to follow their known plan, their widely promulgated view of the future for us and for themselves, based on their past record?

Homework:

Grace Llewellyn-
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education
with Amy Silver- Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School
Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go to School Tell Their Own Stories

Blake Boles-
College Without High School: A Teenager's Guide to Skipping High School and Going to College
Better Than College: How to Build a Successful Life Without a Four-Year Degree

Maya Frost- The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition, and Get a Truly International Education

Mary Griffith- The Unschooling Handbook : How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom

John Caldwell Holt- Instead of Education: Ways to Help People do Things Better

Jamie McMillin - Legendary Learning: The Famous Homeschoolers' Guide to Self-Directed Excellence

Cafi Cohen - Homeschooling: The Teen Years: Your Complete Guide to Successfully Homeschooling the 13- to 18- Year-Old

Alex Harris, Brett Harris and Chuck Norris-
Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

John Taylor Gatto and Thomas Moore-- Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling

2010-3-12: #32 School News (#1) The Pledge of Xenophobia and Intolerance

More objections to the pledge of allegiance and more.

2011-3-7: #33 New Hampshire Liberty Forum & FTL Interview

The episode begins with comparisons made between public schools and prisons. Brett introduces The Liberty Forum involved with the Free State movement in New Hampshire. Jason Osborn, who has been mentioned often in previous episodes, is probably what is called in fund raising circles, an “angel” of the School Sucks podcasts, etc. Brett discusses unschooling and the necessity of forming alternatives to the public schools. I presume these would operate as voluntary adjuncts to regular school, but I think they need to examine a direct marketing strategy that is congruent with other alternative ways of thinking about things like alternative economies and alternative money. This is a source podcast with a lot of news, from probably early 2010, even though it wasn't posted to YouTube until 2011. Brett is being interviewed.

2011-3-23: #34 Cary Grove Student Discussion Debate

2010-4-4: #35 American History F-ed – Part 7 (Problem, Reaction, Solution)

This is a first rate foundation for this course. It relies to some extent on previous material and summarizes positions. If you don't listen to any of the other podcasts, please consider listening to this one. Hegel is revisited, and that's as it should be, because this is a core of the philosophy that underlies the operations of the predators. Once you see their pattern, and how stupid we have been, then you recognize it, to get out of its way, not to be fooled by its blandishments, etc. Look at the products of statism, war and death, and recognize that its nature ha never changed.

2010-4-13: #36 (Supplemental) NH Capital Access TV Interview

 

2010-4-19: #37 U Conn-athon! (Students For Liberty Discussion Part 1)

 

2010-4-19: #38 U Conn-athon! (Students For Liberty Discussion Part 2)

2010-4-23: #39 School News (#2) Too Fat to Fight

 

2012-5-2: #40 Keys (Instalment #3) Transition

 

Kate Richards from The Scholars' Academy in New Hampshire is Brett's guest, or maybe he' her's. In any case she seems to be more grounded in the actual doing of education and had a lot of really good advice to give to anyone who would pay attention, including the costs. Avoid the central planner trap. Believe it or not the best solution was and still is the one hundred thousand odd one room schoolhouses that might have been or still could be, within each a mix of ten or twelve kids at various ages from maybe seven to seventeen to one teacher. As time went on, you'd add electives that would have smaller age differentials. That seems to be her model and if think about it, it's very natural. Pupils of different ages in the same ... space for learning ... tends to promote different kinds of relationships based on slight advantages in knowledge and according to Richards breaks the often mean competitive tendencies of same age groupings. Her method has plenty of other advantages too.

INTERMISSION