{"id":233,"date":"2005-08-04T20:41:39","date_gmt":"2005-08-04T20:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/?p=233"},"modified":"2010-05-08T20:42:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T20:42:05","slug":"dumbing-us-down-where-meaning-is-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/dumbing-us-down-where-meaning-is-found\/","title":{"rendered":"Dumbing Us Down: Where Meaning Is Found"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We might be able to see that [an alternative to our educational system  and the idea of a national curriculum] if we regained a hold on a  philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be  found\u2014in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in  simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, generosity, compassion, and  service to others, in a decent independence and privacy, in all the  free and inexpensive things out of which real families, real friends,  and real communities are built\u2014then we would be so self-sufficient we  would not even need the material \u2018sufficiency\u2019 which our global  \u2018experts\u2019 are so insistent we be concerned about.&#8221;\u00a0 (John Taylor Gatto,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/redirect?link_code=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;tag=mjtate-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;path=tg\/detail\/-\/0865714487\/qid=1123213605\/sr=8-1\/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_1?v=glance%26s=books%26n=507846\"><span style=\"color: #000066;\">Dumbing Us Down<\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #000066;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=mjtate-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>, pp. <\/span>16-17)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We might be able to see that [an alternative to our educational system and the idea of a national curriculum] if we regained a hold on a philosophy that locates meaning where meaning is genuinely to be found\u2014in families, in friends, in the passage of seasons, in nature, in simple ceremonies and rituals, in curiosity, &#8230; <a title=\"Dumbing Us Down: Where Meaning Is Found\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/dumbing-us-down-where-meaning-is-found\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Dumbing Us Down: Where Meaning Is Found\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}