john-taylor-gatto-weapons-of-mass-instruction

92 WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION
Even with the Internet I saw how easy it was to cross the line into
a passive state unless good discipline was exercised, and I knew from
experience how hard that was to come by.
Casting about for a working hypothesis with which to fashion antidotes
to the damage, I quickly abandoned preaching as a solution.
Whatever could be said against TV; games, the Internet, and all the
rest, had been said to these kids so many times their minds refused
to hear the words anymore. Relief would have to come from a different
quarter; if these things were truly bad as I believed, if they diminished
the intellect and corrupted the character as I felt, a solution
would have to be found in the natural proclivity of the young to move
around physically, not sit, before we suppress that urge with confinement
to seats in school and with commercial blandishments to watch
performers rather than to perform oneself
The master mechanism at work to cause harm was a suppression
of natural feedback circuits which allow us to learn from our mistakes.
Somebody trying to learn to sail alone in a small boat will inevitably
tack too far lefr and too far right when sailing into a wind,
when the destination is straight ahead, but practice will correct that
beginner's error because feedback will instruct the sailor's reaction
and judgement. In the area of mastering speech, with all its complex
rhythms of syntax, and myriad notes and tones of diction, the
most crucial variable is time spent in practice. And in both instances
the more challenging the situation, the quicker that competence is
reached.
The principal reason bureaucracies are so stupid is that they cannot
respond efficiently to feedback. Think of school management,
compelled by law to follow rules made long ago and far away - as
if human situations are so formulaic they can be codified. Management
resents feedback from parents, teachers, students, or outside
criticism because its internal cohesion depends upon rules, not give
and take.
The absolute necessity for feedback from everywhere in taking an
education, (even from one's enemies), forced me to look closely at how