Bonmot. You've lost me. The link you posted next to my username sends me straight back to this thread. The point I make stands. Our education system is geared to creating cynicism toward, rather than mass servitude to, the capitalist system. As such the article has no grounding in reality.

tony,

I apologise for that, but it was impossible for me not to run with your demeaning TLDR line.

The curious thing is that both my brother and sister are teachers...and yes, they both support my decision wholeheartedly.

I'm sure your sister is wonderful at her job.

When my son attended kindergarten, he was fortunate to have an experienced and perceptive teacher. She approached me on and off during the year with some concerns regarding my son's autistic tendencies. During this year my son also began to read fluently - something I can take no credit for as he just spontaneously began to read. Eventually toward the end of that year I took him to a developmental paediatrician who, after some tests, a chat (and taking note of his reading) pronounced my son 'gifted'. As you can imagine, I was rather chuffed about that and promptly informed the teacher that she'd been barking up the wrong tree.
During his next year in pre-school, I began to think differently. I made it my business to thoroughly investigate behaviours and sensory issues related to autism (high-functioning). My research and my knowledge of my son led me to request a referral for a formal assessment (psychologist and speech pathologist) from our paediatrician. This fellow was at pains to tell me that in his opinion my son wouldn't meet the criteria. He even smirked as he said this to me. (after all, this is the bloke who had dismissed it earlier in favour of giftedness). In the end I stuck to my guns and had to be quite assertive. However, my son was eventually formally assessed. He met 9.5 of the 12 criteria - when 6 would have been enough to to give him a formal diagnosis.
The paediatrician got it 'wrong'. If my son had still been at school, and I'd acquiesced to the paediatrician's erroneous conclusions, my son would have had no 'special needs' assistance because he wasn't formally diagnosed.

My boy has matured and developed a lot since then and is doing fine.

Yep...stupid parents. What could they possibly know?

Actually dozer, the link sends you straight back to your inane post, ending with:

>> Quite frankly I see Ted and his supporters as the enemy, as they have made it explicitly clear they want to destroy civillisation. <<

Yeah, right.

Let me put it this way ... your comments have all the hallmarks of a raving lunatic, sorry.

Bonmot,

Sending me a link to my comments, calling them "inane," and calling me a "raving lunatic," does not constitute an argument. Although I have so far only provided anecdotal evidence to support my assertions, I have nevertheless made assertions which you make no attempt to counter. I assume that you assume that people who don't think like you are dumber than you and can be silenced with wise-cracks such as "Hasbeen."

With regard to my conclusion that "Quite frankly, I see Ted and his supporters as the enemy, as they have made it explicitly clear that they want to destroy civillisation," this is not that much of a stretch. Ted explicitly supports the concept of "no econmomic growth" using the Trojan argument that "consumer-capitalist society is plunging toward economic catastrophe." This tired argument is simply communism by another name. He advocates "transition to a Simpler Way (not in itself a bad idea,) a society in which there are mostly small and highly self-sufficient local communities...(controlling) their own local economies which they run to meet local needs from local resources." Again it sounds quite nice, and might be a nice place to visit to get away from it all, but for the entire planet of 6 billion people to "transition" would result in tremendous upheaval and suffering. I would also imagine mass starvation and death. One thing I have found when arguing with nuts like Ted is that they play their desire for the kind of conflagration necessary for

such a "transition" very close to their chest. When I hear someone calling for no economic growth, no trade between communities, and no alternative to their plans as the world is headed for disaster, I hear lunatic who wants to end civillisation as we know it. We call Christians who believe the world is going to end lunatics. You're calling me a lunatic for pointing out the idiocy of a communist/ environmentalist/ whatever-new-path-he-thinks-he-is-ist who thinks the world is going to end.

Scarily, his last line "If you want Education, you will have to join those of us working for the transition to a society that makes it possible," displays his desire to make people think the way he thinks. According to him, there is no other way. Quite authoritarian. Anyone who has studied revolutions will recognise this attitude as the seed of the terror to come. So I have no qualms in calling him the enemy.

And finally bonmot, with regard to your assertion to spindoc that "The gist of Ted's article was not "Do schools and universities educate,"" in the first sentence of the second paragraph of Ted's article he says "Despite significant differences they agree that schools and universities train workers, very well, but don't do much educating." On several occassions in his article he uses the words "school" and "university" in the same sentence, and he also refers to ""educational" institutions."

Sorry.

Cue Arjay?