October 28, 2024 • 43 mins
In episode 90 we talk with Neil Erian, a former math teacher who has discovered perhaps the true cause of school shootings; the schools themselves - specifically their curriculum. Don't miss this hard-hitting exposé on the massive failure of our government schools ("indoctrination centers")!
Call-to-Action: After you have listened to this episode, add your $0.02 (two cents) to the conversation, by joining (for free) The Secular Foxhole Town Hall. Feel free to introduce yourself to the other members, discuss the different episodes, give us constructive feedback, or check out the virtual room, Speakers' Corner, and step up on the digital soapbox. Welcome to our new place in cyberspace!
Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:
- Neil Erian's article, Product Safety Alert: Progressive Education - Capitalism Magazine
- Peter Langman's site, School Shooters dot info
- John Dewey
- Horace Mann
- Howard Zinn
- Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
- Columbine High School massacre
- Dealing with Troubled Writers: A Literacy Teacher's Dilemma by John Simmons
- Charles Whitman
- The Third Wave (experiment)
- Interview with Kerry McDonald on homeschooling - episode 36 of The Secular Foxhole
- Interview with Marsha Enright, President and Program Director of Reliance College - episode 83 of The Secular Foxhole
- RandsDay Boostagram of 221,905 Satoshis - episode 65 of The Secular Foxhole (February 2, 2023)
- Austin Scholar on Twitter (X)
Episode 90 (43 minutes) was recorded at 2200 Central European Time, on October 18, 2024, with Ringr app. Martin did the editing and post-production with the podcast maker, Alitu. The transcript is generated by Alitu.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blair (00:08):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the latest episode of the Secular
Foxhole podcast.
Our guest today is Neil Aryan, currently an
engineer in the aircraft industry, but onceserved as a teacher in the public school
system.
He has a serious warning for parents about our
public, and he does have a serious warningthat he's going to talk about today about our
(00:30):
public school system.
Neil, your article published in Capitalism
magazine in April of this year is quiteprovocative, but if I may say, sadly true.
You, you've issued a public serviceannouncement.
Go ahead and tell our audience what it is.
Neil (00:47):
Well, thank you for having me, Blair.
I appreciate it.
And Martin, I appreciate you being, being onyour podcast.
Basically, I call it a product safety alert.
And basically the idea is that that's a term
that comes from industry and I currently workin industry.
And we issue these alerts if and when some,you know, our products become unsafe and we
(01:11):
need to alert the public about them.
So that's, and in this case, this alert is
about education in the schools because I foundthat there's a link between educational
practices and these school shootings that havebeen occurring.
And I've written about that in my article.
That's the, that's the subject matter of my
article.
Blair (01:29):
I see.
What is your educational background?
Neil (01:32):
Well, I am a Certified Teacher, grade 6 through 12 in Connecticut, as you mentioned,
in math.
And I did my teacher certification training at
Fairfield University in Fairfield,Connecticut.
And so I've taken all of the, the staterequired training courses to become a teacher
(01:55):
in Connecticut and done my student teaching.
And so I'm very intimately aware of what is
going on in the schools.
And really the classes that I took at
Fairfield University really introduced me tothe horror of progressive education.
So this is something that's been on my mindfor quite a while.
(02:16):
I hadn't at the time made the connectionbetween progressive education and school
shootings, though.
I, I, soon after I'd started to become
suspicious about it because I was aware ofschool shooting Since Columbine, since 1999 on
the Columbine attack in Colorado.
But you know, this is really my, my background
in as a certified teacher and just beingintroduced, like I said, to the horror of
(02:40):
progressive education at Fairfield Universityreally just was the impetus to, to trying to
better understand this issue.
Blair (02:47):
In your article, I was again, I was shocked to see that there have been more than
40 school shootings since Columbine.
And I think there was prior one prior to that
in Mississippi, I believe, also.
Yes, that's a staggering number.
Neil (03:03):
Yes, I, I get that number from an online Database of school shooters.
That is, that's been created by a psychologistnamed Peter Langman who has been researching
and writing on this issue for decades.
And we can certainly talk more about him.
But he created an online database of schoolshootings.
It's called school shooters.info and hebasically the database for each school
(03:29):
shooting that occurs.
He's gathered all the relevant legal and
personal documentation associated with theschool shooting and his explicit purpose is to
allow investigators from other fields toresearch into this issue.
And so I have basically been using thisdatabase for years now.
And this is where I, I get my numbers.
(03:51):
And 40 is really, that's 40 random school
shootings.
That doesn't include the targeted schools, the
targeted attacks.
And there's actually, so there's actually more
than 40.
His database has I think over 150 school
shootings in them and most of them haveoccurred since the late 1980s.
Blair (04:12):
Oh my goodness.
Yes, yes.
I've always thought I've held three men in ourhistory up, up as destroyers if you will, of
education.
That's John Dewey, Horace Mann, and more
recently Howard Zinn.
I think all of these men can be considered
(04:34):
progressive to the extreme.
What do you think about those three?
Neil (04:37):
Well, I, I can speak mostly to John Dewey because I have studied him a little bit
in school.
I wouldn't say I'm an expert on him, but I did
learn some interesting things specificallyabout him in doing my research regarding this
issue.
You know, as, as I say in my article that it's
(04:58):
the progressives introduction of this learnercentered education philosophy in the schools
that I'm, I'm basically blaming for these, forthese school shootings.
And what's interesting is that the, theselearner centered advocates, they basically
praise John Dewey as an influence on them, butthey do, they don't consider themselves
(05:21):
strictly speaking Deweyites.
And not only that, but they were around during
the time of John Dewey and he repudiated them.
He basically held that they did not understand
his educational philosophy and he wanted todistance himself from them.
And really they're much worse than John Dewey.
(05:45):
John Dewey was not anti knowledge.
He was pro knowledge.
That what he was opposed to was the idea that
learning should be an individual affair, thatit should be that we're individuals and each
going to learn on our own and acquireknowledge the traditional way that we
typically do in school.
(06:05):
But these so called learner centered
advocates, they are anti knowledge.
They are, they are complete subjectivists and
they basically hold that, that there is noobjective reality, that that knowledge is
basically formed from one's own personalperspective, not from a grasp of objective
facts.
And Dewey basically rejected this.
(06:27):
Not that he was an advocate of objectiveknowledge in the same in the way that we
advocated in Objectivism, but he definitelywas not anti knowledge.
He just thought that the school serves asocial purpose.
And then knowledge is really formed in thecontext of social groups and learning
(06:48):
communities, that kind, that kind of thing.
And that's why we have this kind of thing in
school where they're trying to promote groupwork and social cohesion, that kind of thing.
But the learner centered advocates are not,strictly speaking, Deweyites, they're much
worse.
And Dewey repudiated them.
Blair (07:05):
All right, well, all right.
Neil (07:07):
But I would say one more thing that.
Blair (07:09):
Go ahead.
Neil (07:10):
That we shouldn't praise Dewey for repudiating them because his all embracing
attack on traditional education andtraditional instruction is what made these
learner centered advocates possible and theirinfluence in the first place.
So it's, it's, it's great that Dewey, yourejected them, but it's kind of hard to reject
(07:30):
something on principle for which you were thecause.
So I want to be, I want to be careful here andnot, you know, make it sound like Dewey's this
great guy, you know, who did us all a greatfavor and tried to mitigate the learner
centered types.
Blair (07:45):
Very good, very good then.
But, and you also touched on, I guess, the,
the difference between a teacher basedinstruction and learner based instruction.
So the teacher based was the traditional way,is that correct?
Neil (07:58):
Yes, and it's, it's, it's based on the idea that there is a fixed body of knowledge
to learn and that there are individuals whohave mastered this knowledge in certain
subjects, whether it's math or history orEnglish art, and they have become master
communicators of their subject.
And they will then instruct students who are
(08:19):
basically ignorant of these subjects and teachthem in a classroom type, formal instruction
environment.
So it rejects this whole approach.
This has been sort of the traditionalapproach, generally speaking, to education for
centuries and it rejects this completely.
And the learner centered education is not
(08:43):
really a positive viewpoint.
It doesn't offer really a positive program or
curriculum of its own.
It's more of an attack on the traditional
school.
And as I say in my article, it's basically
rooted in the idea of subjectivism, thatthere, you know, there is no objective
knowledge.
There isn't any object out there about which
to become educated.
(09:03):
Knowledge is really just something that is
based on my own personal perspective, not agrasp of facts and something that I learn
Outside of me.
Blair (09:14):
I see.
Neil (09:15):
And then the question becomes how did this lead to school shootings?
And the basic issue here is that this allembracing attack on traditional instruction
has caused in my judgment, the intellectualand moral collapse of our schools.
And our schools have basically lost all oftheir intellectual and moral authority.
(09:37):
And this conflict between these two approachesto education is ongoing in the hallways of the
public schools and classrooms today.
And some of these kids are absorbing this
conflict.
They're absorbing the idea that there is that
knowledge is subjective and that they're beingimposed upon by these teachers and by their
(09:57):
schools to learn knowledge that is biased andfalse.
And in my article I basically say that these,that these school shooters are complaining
that they're having to, you know, acquireknowledge or be in these schools that are
imposing false knowledge on them and they'rebecoming radicalized against the schools.
So what this learner centered philosophy isessentially doing is that it's turning
(10:20):
students against their own schools.
And some of these students have decided to
attack the schools.
Martin (10:25):
Neely, is that like a cruel nihilism in action then, but really be forced to go out
and shooting on your fellow students andteachers and others like a effect on that or
result of this nihilistic ideas and education?
Neil (10:45):
It's definitely a nihilistic because if you reject knowledge that there's such a thing
as objective knowledge and that means therearen't going to be any objective morals or
values to pursue.
And, and when you read some of the, the
personal writings of these shooters, theyjust, they, they sound very nihilistic.
They, they reject they.
(11:07):
The institutions and knowledge of the world.
This is particularly true of Eric Harris.
I mean he's really the leading school shooter
here and he is the one shooter that has beenmost influential on later shooters.
You know, he, his, his influence and it's.
And it, and it still goes on, you know, 25
years after he attacked Columbine High School.
Blair (11:28):
Can you even.
It may be distasteful, but could you read your
excerpt from what Harris wrote?Would you read, consider reading that if you
have it in front of you.
Neil (11:37):
Or I don't have in front of me, but I can pull it up if you just.
I can.
Let me just pull that up.
Martin (11:44):
As long as you.
We don't have any so called explicit wordings
because then we have to put the episodeexplicit.
And then listeners in India, for example,can't listen to us.
So.
Blair (11:55):
Oh yeah, we have to.
You'll have to bleep out the swear words.
Neil (12:00):
Oh, I can, I can do that.
That's that's not a problem.
Let me just get to it here.
I can just get to it under education.
It's usually pretty easy to get to.
Yeah, here it is.
So you know, Harris actually has said a lot ofinteresting things that support my, my thesis.
But the most interesting and the most directis the quote that I have in my article.
(12:23):
And, and here's what he says.
So this is a quote from Harris.
He goes.
Ever wonder why we go to school besides
getting a so called education?It's not too obvious to most of you, but for
those who think a little more and deeper, youshould realize it.
It's society's way of turning all the youngpeople into good little robots and factory
workers.
That's why we sit in desks in rows and go by
(12:46):
bell schedules to get prepared for the realworld.
Because that's what it's like.
Well, no it isn't.
One thing that separates us from other animalsis the fact that we can carry actual thoughts.
So why don't we people go on day by dayroutine stuff.
Why can't we learn in school how we want to?Why can't we sit on desks and on shelves and
(13:06):
put our feet up and relax while we learn?Because that's not what the real world is
like.
Well, hey, there is no such thing as an actual
real world.
And that's the end of the quote.
And you know the Eric Harris.
Let me put it this way.
Eric Harris could have taught my educationclasses at Fairfield University.
(13:27):
Understands the, the progressive argumentagainst traditional instruction as good or
better than my own teachers.
So you know, he, he had absorbed this idea and
you know, this is a high school kid, he wasvery bright.
But I highly doubt that he, he learned this onhis own.
(13:48):
I think what is happening in these schools isthat there's this conflict between these two
philosophies and these kids are at the centerof this conflict.
And some of them are absorbing the conflictthat is going on in the schools today,
including Harris here.
Martin (14:03):
Wow.
Blair (14:04):
Wow. Right after your quote there.
You also mentioned.
Let me just read this quick.
Why would these students who demanded to learn
on their own in their own way attack theirschools rather than protest peacefully, drop
out or enroll in private school?Why wouldn't they?
Neil (14:25):
Yeah, exactly.
If you are opposed to your school that you
would think that the most obvious and simplestthing to do would be to drop out or to demand
that your parents put you in another school orto just get an education on your own and in.
Traditionally this is what happened.
Right.
And it still happens.
There's a huge dropout rate.
(14:46):
Right.
And that's probably a good thing.
Why should students who do not feel that theyare getting the value that they need from an
education have to be for forced to sit throughit for, you know, maybe they had to, they went
to early grade school, dropped out by seventhor eighth grade.
Why should they have to spend another four orfive years at the end of middle school and
(15:08):
high school and, and instead just go out intothe world and get a job and learn on their
own?And it's the most important question because,
you know, this is the most obvious thing thatyou should do.
But it's an interesting thing that thislearner centered education, part of the
impetus for this educational philosophy was totry to stem the dropout rate, to try to make
(15:32):
schools and the curriculum more relevant toindividual learners.
That was, that was the ostensive purpose ofthis.
We want to keep kids in school.
And unfortunately what it did do is it didn't
offer any positive approach to learning.
All it is is this critique of the traditional
school and it's a negative critique.
(15:53):
And what you have is, it's the strangest
thing.
You've got these kids in these schools or this
subset of the kids who might have dropped out,who instead linger about in schools.
They reject the curriculum, they reject theirteachings, but they're being promised that
they can still get an education somehow andget this individualized learning.
(16:16):
But the problem is our schools weren'tdesigned for this.
You know, we have a very, a very inflexiblepublic school system.
And teachers who have been trained to teach ina certain way, they've been trained for direct
instruction.
And the public school system that we have in
this country was never designed to, to be ableto cope with a new and radical model of
(16:37):
education just suddenly introduced into it.
And it's certainly not able to cope with a
model of education that is based onsubjectivism.
I mean, teachers typically are trying toimpart some sort of knowledge to their, to
their kids.
And now what they're being told is that they
got to step back and let these kids somehowlearn on their own.
And you know, the teacher no longer hasauthority over their classrooms or even in the
(17:02):
schools.
And, and this is what has led to the moral
collapse that I talk about, right?
Blair (17:08):
I think in America, America's history, originally and initially schools were private.
I mean, you had the one room schoolhouse onthe prairie and they taught from like
kindergarten to sixth or seventh grade.
But I guess the progressive era changed all
that because again, even though the Founders,I also believe they advocated for or certainly
(17:34):
were in favor of government education.
It was because they were living in the fated
emperors of the Enlightenment era and theywanted that to be spread.
But I think that was a mistake.
What do you think?
Neil (17:49):
Well, it was definitely, I think, a mistake to have this kind of mass produced
public school system that doesn't do a verygood job at educating kids.
I mean, I went through the school system, Idid all right.
I got a decent math education.
So I'm not, I'm not here to bash my teachers
or really any teachers today even.
Blair (18:11):
Right.
Neil (18:12):
But this, this kind of, you know, one size in one curriculum fits all type approach
to education.
I don't think that's the, the optimum way to
educate kids.
But then again, it didn't, it never produced
school shooters up until before the late1980s, so at least it didn't do that.
(18:32):
And, and my focus has basically been on whatis it that changed in the schools that led to
the emergence of this horror.
And that's really been my focus before that.
Yes, I mean, I think it was all kinds ofreasons why you might educate your kid in some
other way, homeschooling or a private school,any number of ways.
(18:55):
So there are definitely problems with theschool system.
But I would say the solution to schoolshootings is not, you know, obviously you
might consider taking your kids out of theseschools, but you probably should have
considered doing that even before the schoolshooting starts.
So they were not, they weren't all that goodbefore the school shootings.
And now, and now you got to contend with thisissue.
Blair (19:14):
So I hear you, I hear you.
You mentioned a gentleman by the name of Dr.
John Simmons.
Can you elaborate what he initiated?
Neil (19:24):
Yeah, so I've done a great deal of research over the years on this.
And John Simmons, it was a professor ofEnglish education at Florida State University.
And I came across him very early in myresearch and I'd always, you know, he wrote an
(19:45):
article in response to the Virginia techattack in 2007 by the English student Sun Wei
Joe.
And his article is a direct response to that
attack.
And, and he's really, he's just a well
regarded professor of English education.
(20:06):
And I regard him as a hero and a wise man.
I mean, first of all, he's a, he's a hero.
He, he was, he did, he served in the military
in the Korean War, but he also is a hero forwriting the article that he did and basically
coming out publicly saying that there is aproblem with our educational practice because
(20:27):
it, it's it's actually linked to this schoolshooting that that happened.
And he's basically writing this article towarn his fellow practitioners.
And the title of the article is Dealing withTroubled Writers, A Literacy Teacher's
Dilemma.
And it's not a very long article.
It's only about four pages and you can read itin about half an hour.
It's written in plain English, but in it,Professor Simmons reveals probably the most
(20:55):
important fact about school shootings.
And, and it's, it's kind of interesting.
I, I haven't seen anyone in news reportingdiscuss this, but tells us the origin of these
personal journals that are often found in thepossession of these school shooters that
they've been writing in.
(21:16):
And he explains that the origin of the
personal journals and of personal journalwriting is in the English curriculum that
began in the 1970s and was implemented in thepublic schools.
And I know about these personal journalsfirsthand because I wrote in one in the 1980s
in my American Literature class.
We had these personal journals and they were
the exact.
(21:36):
It was part of this program where you would
spend the first few minutes of class justwriting down your personal thoughts in the
journal and then the journals will go away andthe teacher would then would start teaching
the content of what they, what it is for theday.
And for me it was American Literature class.
So I have, you know, when I first started
seeing or observing that, that these kidswere, who were attacking the schools, that
(22:00):
many of them, it's not all of them, but, but agood number enough for there to be a pattern
that they were writing these disturbingthoughts in personal journals.
I knew immediately where that came frombecause I experienced that in, in 11th grade.
And, and, and this is like the most shockingfact that is re.
That Professor Simmons reveals in his article.
And it's, it's not really even the central
(22:20):
focus of the article, but, but he reveals itand, and it's not by accident.
It's, it's, it's the most important thing tounderstand about, about these attacks.
We need, we need to understand where thesepersonal journals come from, from educational
practice.
Martin (22:39):
Okay, Neil, I will be the devil's advocate here.
We talked in the green room about journalingand I think as an adult it's a positive thing
if you do reflection, introspection, and learnfrom what you have gone through and reflect,
for example, on what you're studying and soon.
But is this more like so called randomoutbursts and anger and this hatred like some
(23:09):
psychoanalysis in a way.
And didn't they talk about this Journaling,
why they did it and how did that come up?
Neil (23:20):
Yes, I agree with you.
Journaling is a very positive thing.
The problem is that this particular method ofjournaling that was encouraged for the kids
was to basically have them turn inward andfocus on their emotions at absent the external
world, basically to, you know, have themindulge their emotions rather than talk about
(23:44):
or, or journal about the things that youmentioned about their interactions with the
world.
Martin (23:49):
And I think and don't, and don't link the like responses, the emotions to value
judgment.
They haven't come so far maybe.
Neil (23:59):
So they're basically encouraging the kids just to rant emotionally in these
journals.
And this is really not the purpose of a
journal or a diary even typically when youhave a journal or a diary, because I've given
this some thought.
This is a time for quiet reflection about
what's going on with you and your life.
(24:21):
It's not a time where you, where you would
sort of rev yourself up into this angryfriends Nikolistic frenzy.
And, and you know, it's, it's veryinteresting.
You may have heard of the, the University ofTexas school shooter, Charles Whitman.
He was, I think he, I think that attack on theUniversity of Texas was in 1964.
(24:46):
I can't remember exact date.
But he, he went to the, the, the clock tower,
up to the clock tower at the University ofTexas and committed a school shooting.
And this was a very, very angry man.
He, he had all kinds of family abuse at home
in his life, but he spent time writing in adiary and he actually used the diary the way a
(25:11):
diary or a journal is intended to be used as ameans, as a, for, for the purpose of quiet,
calm reflection.
And I've read a number of his diary entries
and, and, and, and this angry man that wouldbasically use this diary as a chance to calm
himself down, it didn't work.
I think in the end he would, you know, his
anger overcame him and he, and he became aschool shooter.
(25:32):
But what's what, what these students are beingencouraged is, is the exact opposite.
In these personal journals that ProfessorSimmons talks about, they're being encouraged
to indulge their emotions to, you know, toindulge their anger into, like you said, that
engage in this stream of consciousness kind ofthinking.
And when you, if in these journal entries are,you can find them at schoolshooters.
(25:55):
Dot info on Professor Dr. Langman's websiteand you read these journals and it's just
incredibly disturbing.
They're just very angry and, and they, they
revel in their Anger and in their emotions.
And this is, I don't think, the intent of
journal writing.
Blair (26:13):
I, I, I agree, I agree.
Now you, and just to follow up with that and
maybe tie a bow on it, you called learnerbased instruction and the personal writing
journal assignments the perfect storm.
And I think your evidence is overwhelming.
Neil (26:31):
Yeah, it's shocking.
It's like you've got these two educational
practices that almost seemingly have nothingto do with one another.
I mean, the implementation of personal writingassignments was in the 1970s and prior to the
introduction of learner centered education inthe schools.
(26:52):
The kids were writing in these personaljournals and there were, you know, we didn't
hear about any school shootings.
So although I think this personal journal
writing method, which I, I, I say is basicallybased on a subjective method of writing, I
think it's problematic.
But it clearly didn't lead to school
shootings.
(27:12):
We didn't get that until the, the introduction
of this learner centered educationalphilosophy.
And what these two practices are, arebasically doing.
They, they, they reinforce one another.
So you, you're, you're pitting the, the kids
against their schools, against the schoolsystem in the name of, on the basis that the,
(27:33):
that the knowledge that they're being givenis, is biased and false.
And at the same time you're telling them that,you know, you should have an individualized
learning and hey, go write in this personaljournal and, and tell us all your, you know,
your, your deepest, darkest feelings and youranger.
And they're going to talk about how angry theyare about the system.
(27:55):
And that's exactly what Harris did in hispersonal circle.
So there's kind of a synergy between these twopractices that wasn't intended, but they came
together, I argue, in a perfect storm whichled to these attacks.
Martin (28:09):
Is it like this project or test or what was it called, the Wave or something like
that?It was turned into a movie about how the
students became national socialists and doingall this scary stuff like in indoctrination
(28:33):
and taking orders and then follow orders andthen put their hatred against what
individuals.
Neil (28:44):
I think what's happening is that they're being encouraged to embrace their emotions.
They're being, and to do it.
And the school is basically sanctioning this,
I mean, it's sanctioning this embrace ofemotionalism and it's doing it in a very, in
an academic manner.
By introducing this irrational personal
(29:07):
writing method into the schools, you'reessentially saying, look, I mean, this is,
this is more real, more important than, youknow, learning your math lessons or learning
Something about history.
And this is why, you know, you get these
students who today who are basically, youknow, they're very subjective and they're
(29:28):
always talking about their feelings.
And the academics are almost like an
afterthought in these schools.
It's really a shame.
When I was in school, you know, everybody wasfocused on trying to learn something.
They were trying to acquire some knowledge andskills, trying to, you know, prepare
themselves for the future.
(29:49):
Well, Harris basically understood what his
future was going to be.
It's not that he was.
That he was just against his school.
He was against the institutions and the kind
of life that was awaiting him after graduatingfrom.
From school.
He. He rejected all of it because the
institutions of our.
(30:10):
Of our country and.
And of the Western world, they all rely onscientific knowledge or the idea that you must
acquire this knowledge if you want to achievegoal X or value Y. And he didn't like that.
That approach.
He just wanted to have his own thoughts and,
and basically live in accordance with, youknow, whatever ideas he had.
(30:34):
And he didn't want to live in a world where hehad to, you know, acquire this objective
knowledge and live in accordance with suchknowledge.
He rejected the whole thing, man.
Blair (30:44):
Well, after all this horror and more than likely more horrors to come, the
government remains unaccountable.
Why do you think that is?
Neil (30:53):
Why?
Blair (30:54):
That's a big answer or a big question, I guess.
And we.
We don't have two hours.
Neil (31:00):
No. Well, I would, I would simply.
I would simply point to the fact that they
have the power of coercion behind them andthey don't have to be accountable.
You know, if we had private education andwhere people have to pay, you know, education
has to be paid for by the private citizens andteachers and schools have to earn a profit,
well, they're going to be a lot moreaccountable to parents when things go wrong or
(31:23):
when there's.
When there are problems or criticisms and so
on and so forth.
But how do you hold accountable this massive,
you know, system of government education?Where do you turn and you have this department
of Education that I don't think anybody isable to communicate with or have any, you
know, any influence over?We certainly didn't vote for it.
Blair (31:46):
No. No.
Neil (31:47):
And so it's not accountable.
And because it's not accountable, these.
Our education system and those who basicallyinevitably take charge of it are free to
implement ideas that may be destructive.
And those ideas don't ultimately get examined
or rescinded.
They just, they.
(32:07):
They typically remain in place.
So they have these.
This personal journal writing that continueson.
It's problematic to say the least.
And then you have this learner centered
education, which, which nobody's examining.
Nothing is being examined.
When you have, when you're, when, when yourfield experiences some kind of disaster, like
(32:31):
if it's in the aircraft industry, like I talkin my article, or the building industry, the
people who are involved in these industrieswho have the knowledge, they have to come and
examine the problem, examine their ownpractices, and they are accountable.
Where is the accountability of educatorstoday?
Where are the educators who are examiningtheir practices and asking, why are all these
(32:53):
attacks occurring in our schools?I mean, aren't they responsible?
They don't, they don't even recognize thatthey have anything to do with it.
And yet these attacks are all, are all beingdone by their students on their schools.
It's not as if the students are going out andattacking McDonald's or some, you know, or
some mall or something.
They're attacking their own schools.
Martin (33:11):
Yeah. Is that what they call in the industry product escape?
Neil (33:16):
That's right.
And the idea is that there is some flaw that's
been introduced that's been into a product,it's been overlooked or that has escaped our
design intent.
Right.
And because it's escaped our design intent,that product is now behaving in a way that we
didn't expect and it could be very harmful toconsumers.
(33:36):
And when that happens, we got to stopeverything and we got to say, look, there's a,
there's a problem here.
We got to examine this.
We got to examine our own practices.
Only the people working in that particular
industry who make the product are the ones whoare qualified to examine the problem with it
because they're the ones with the specializedknowledge to be able to do so.
You and I can't really examine these schoolshootings.
(34:01):
We don't, we're not insiders.
I mean, I am a little bit because I have my,
my certification.
But it's really the educators that need to
come together as a profession and take a hardlook at their own practices.
And until they do that, these school shootingsare not going to end well.
Blair (34:19):
Again, let me take issue with what you've just said, though, in a way not to.
But the teachers and the administrators thatwe have now, they were, they were educated in
the same flawed system.
So they wouldn't know.
Well, examine it.
Neil (34:37):
Well, that, that.
Well, that there is.
You're right.
I mean, there's a good point here that first
of all, we don't expect these kind ofcatastrophes to occur in the educational
system.
We don't expect this, you know, mass death.
Right?I mean, that's.
That's completely unprecedented, isn't it?
Blair (34:53):
Right.
Neil (34:53):
So. So everybody looks at this and like, well, the schools can't be involved.
The.
The.
The.
The shooters must be mentally ill.
You know, that must be it.
So what we've had for decades now are
primarily psychologists who have beenresearching into this and writing on it.
But.
And that's great.
But the problem is that has had theunfortunate effect of delaying the actual
(35:15):
investigation that we need, which is theinvestigation of the schools.
I. I do disagree in one sense.
You know, everybody is capable of examining
their own practices.
Yeah, you can, and I'm steeped in my.
In my aircraft practices and my knowledge ofengineering.
But I still know that, hey, you know, whensomething goes bad with the engines that we
produce, it's on us to figure it out.
It's not, you know, it's not somebody outside
(35:35):
of our field who's responsible.
It's almost certainly us.
And we got to take a look at what we're doing.
You know, teachers are.
The educators are perfectly capable of doingthis, too.
And Professor John Simmons demonstrates thatperfectly, what he did in writing that
article.
That is the exact right thing to do.
This is how it works.
(35:56):
You see, you make a connection between your
practice and some negative thing that hashappened, in this case, a school shooting, and
you're like, wait a minute, we got practiceshere that are connected to what this kid did
at Virginia Tech.
And now I got to write, I got to warn my
fellow practitioners that we got a problemhere.
And that's exactly what he did.
(36:16):
That's exactly the right thing to do.
And what should have happened is that shouldhave generated a conversation between
Professor Simmons and his fellowpractitioners.
And had it.
Had this been done, right, it would have
generated this conversation.
It would have led to the profession, or at
least the English profession, coming togetheras a profession, saying, look, we need.
(36:37):
We need a deeper investigation here to try tounderstand if there.
If there really is something here.
And Professor Simmons would have been
recruited to lead the investigation.
But that is.
That is how it works.
But that is not what has happened.
But that is what needs to happen if this isgoing to be resolved.
Martin (36:53):
And as an positive end note, Blair, we have had on our show guests talking about
homeschooling and also private new collegesand others.
So there are a bright side in the future here.
Have any comment on that, Neil?
Any positive signs for the future for.
Neil (37:14):
You mean for.
For other forms of schooling?
Martin (37:17):
Yeah, and education in, in general.
Neil (37:19):
But I do, I do see positive signs.
There's some.
I, there's something on Twitter that I've seensome person in Austin, Texas, who is promoting
a school model in which you can do all yourlearning in just like two hours a day.
And I really love that idea.
I mean, I think it's so this idea that you're
in school for eight hours a day.
(37:40):
I just, the more I learn about it and
understand it, it just seems crazy to me.
You can learn a lot with focused instruction
on the things that you need to know within acouple of hours, and then the rest of the day
is yours to learn other things in other ways.
So, yeah, I do have a lot of confidence in the
future.
(38:00):
What I'm not confident about is dealing, is
dealing with this problem, which is not beingdealt with and still isn't.
And we've got continued attacks.
And this is, this has got to be dealt with.
This, you know, the education system is stilla monolith, and it's got to be dealt with.
Blair (38:16):
Well, I certainly agree with that.
And if, maybe after the show, if you could
remember that, the instigator, the author ofthat particular education idea, we'll put it
in our notes.
But I also want to mention, I think, the mess
that was the COVID and all the lockdowns, Ithink that woke a lot of people up to some of
(38:40):
the horrors of the education system, becausethe teachers unions got a lot of press and
they were saying that your parents don't, thestudents don't belong to the parents, they
belong to us, or terrible things like that.
And because of that, I think homeschooling
(39:03):
went up 25% across the country and relativelyshort time.
Yeah, so that's, that's a positive trend.
Neil (39:11):
Definitely.
Blair (39:12):
You still have the.
And even if some Trump or some future
president decides, okay, we're going to shaveoff the Department of Education from the
federal budget, that's okay.
That's the first step of what are you going
to, you know, what, what happens after that?
Neil (39:32):
So, yeah, I, I agree.
I think, I think the, the unions and the
schools did reveal themselves quite a bit inthis covet debacle.
And I think that did open a lot of people'seyes.
You know, for whatever reason, they, theyplayed, you know, their cards too openly.
And, and a lot of people learn more about theway the education system works.
(39:54):
I think that's a good thing.
There's no transparency.
You have to have transparency.
And there's, I think, very little transparency
in the way our educational system works andthe.
What goes on in our schools.
I just, I. And what goes on in these teacher
training schools, the one that I went to,it's, it's.
It's completely irrational.
Blair (40:11):
And you're a parent yourself.
Not that I want to.
Neil (40:13):
Yes.
Blair (40:14):
Yeah. So. So that's what you've done I think is a magnificent.
You shine a light on a very serious issue andI think you've hopefully have opened a lot of
eyes in the.
As we publish this podcast and add our links
to it, I hope a lot of people will be able toread this.
(40:37):
Have you had any feedback other than uswanting to have you on the podcast?
I mean I know this was earlier this year, butit's so still relatively new article.
Neil (40:48):
But it is and I want to thank you for your kind words about it.
But I have not received that much feedback.
But generally what I have received is a bit
skeptical.
But that's understandable.
It's a radical thesis and I certainly expectthat.
And it really is just the tip of the icebergin my opinion.
(41:11):
If there was a proper investigation of theschools on this issue, it would unload a whole
truckload of additional evidence supporting mythesis.
I mean I'm very confident this is a highconviction thesis.
I'm very confident in it despite you know,some of the skepticism that I've encountered.
But, but no, I. Overall I have not receivedtoo much feedback.
So I guess I need to get the word out and I doappreciate being on your podcast because I
(41:34):
think that will help get the word out.
So I think this was a great, a great time.
Martin (41:38):
Yeah. And when we spread the good word and we also welcoming constructive criticism
and feedback from our listeners and also youcould send them a booster gram so called.
It's a digital telegram and send smalldonation or a big donation.
For example we have one Blair what we like221905 Satoshis.
(42:04):
That's Rand's birthday number.
And you could also stream satushis to us and
then we could split here with our guests.
So what's on your plan or mind or agenda in
the near future, Neil, if you want to sharethat?
Neil (42:21):
Well, I do plan to write more articles.
The.
The article that I wrote and published isreally a top level, very concise article that
I and I intended it that way.
I wanted to be able to you to be able to read
it in one sitting and you know, relativelyquickly.
But I do intend on writing articles toadditional articles to elaborate on some of
(42:44):
the further.
Elaborate on some of the aspects that I raise
in that article.
So that's what I see in my future.
Blair (42:50):
Outstanding.
All right, well, we'll definitely have you
back then.
Neil (42:53):
Well, thank you.
Blair (42:54):
Great.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, our guest
today has been Neil Arian, who issued aproduct safety alert on progressive education.
Neil, thanks for manning the foxhole with us.
Neil (43:06):
Thank you.
I enjoyed it.
I appreciate being in the foxhole with you,and I would definitely love to come back.
Martin (43:12):
Thanks.
Blair (43:13):
All right.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the latest episode of the Secular
Foxhole podcast.
Our guest today is Neil Aryan, currently an
engineer in the aircraft industry, but onceserved as a teacher in the public school
system.
He has a serious warning for parents about our
public, and he does have a serious warningthat he's going to talk about today about our
(00:30):
public school system.
Neil, your article published in Capitalism
magazine in April of this year is quiteprovocative, but if I may say, sadly true.
You, you've issued a public serviceannouncement.
Go ahead and tell our audience what it is.
Neil (00:47):
Well, thank you for having me, Blair.
I appreciate it.
And Martin, I appreciate you being, being onyour podcast.
Basically, I call it a product safety alert.
And basically the idea is that that's a term
that comes from industry and I currently workin industry.
And we issue these alerts if and when some,you know, our products become unsafe and we
(01:11):
need to alert the public about them.
So that's, and in this case, this alert is
about education in the schools because I foundthat there's a link between educational
practices and these school shootings that havebeen occurring.
And I've written about that in my article.
That's the, that's the subject matter of my
article.
Blair (01:29):
I see.
What is your educational background?
Neil (01:32):
Well, I am a Certified Teacher, grade 6 through 12 in Connecticut, as you mentioned,
in math.
And I did my teacher certification training at
Fairfield University in Fairfield,Connecticut.
And so I've taken all of the, the staterequired training courses to become a teacher
(01:55):
in Connecticut and done my student teaching.
And so I'm very intimately aware of what is
going on in the schools.
And really the classes that I took at
Fairfield University really introduced me tothe horror of progressive education.
So this is something that's been on my mindfor quite a while.
(02:16):
I hadn't at the time made the connectionbetween progressive education and school
shootings, though.
I, I, soon after I'd started to become
suspicious about it because I was aware ofschool shooting Since Columbine, since 1999 on
the Columbine attack in Colorado.
But you know, this is really my, my background
in as a certified teacher and just beingintroduced, like I said, to the horror of
(02:40):
progressive education at Fairfield Universityreally just was the impetus to, to trying to
better understand this issue.
Blair (02:47):
In your article, I was again, I was shocked to see that there have been more than
40 school shootings since Columbine.
And I think there was prior one prior to that
in Mississippi, I believe, also.
Yes, that's a staggering number.
Neil (03:03):
Yes, I, I get that number from an online Database of school shooters.
That is, that's been created by a psychologistnamed Peter Langman who has been researching
and writing on this issue for decades.
And we can certainly talk more about him.
But he created an online database of schoolshootings.
It's called school shooters.info and hebasically the database for each school
(03:29):
shooting that occurs.
He's gathered all the relevant legal and
personal documentation associated with theschool shooting and his explicit purpose is to
allow investigators from other fields toresearch into this issue.
And so I have basically been using thisdatabase for years now.
And this is where I, I get my numbers.
(03:51):
And 40 is really, that's 40 random school
shootings.
That doesn't include the targeted schools, the
targeted attacks.
And there's actually, so there's actually more
than 40.
His database has I think over 150 school
shootings in them and most of them haveoccurred since the late 1980s.
Blair (04:12):
Oh my goodness.
Yes, yes.
I've always thought I've held three men in ourhistory up, up as destroyers if you will, of
education.
That's John Dewey, Horace Mann, and more
recently Howard Zinn.
I think all of these men can be considered
(04:34):
progressive to the extreme.
What do you think about those three?
Neil (04:37):
Well, I, I can speak mostly to John Dewey because I have studied him a little bit
in school.
I wouldn't say I'm an expert on him, but I did
learn some interesting things specificallyabout him in doing my research regarding this
issue.
You know, as, as I say in my article that it's
(04:58):
the progressives introduction of this learnercentered education philosophy in the schools
that I'm, I'm basically blaming for these, forthese school shootings.
And what's interesting is that the, theselearner centered advocates, they basically
praise John Dewey as an influence on them, butthey do, they don't consider themselves
(05:21):
strictly speaking Deweyites.
And not only that, but they were around during
the time of John Dewey and he repudiated them.
He basically held that they did not understand
his educational philosophy and he wanted todistance himself from them.
And really they're much worse than John Dewey.
(05:45):
John Dewey was not anti knowledge.
He was pro knowledge.
That what he was opposed to was the idea that
learning should be an individual affair, thatit should be that we're individuals and each
going to learn on our own and acquireknowledge the traditional way that we
typically do in school.
(06:05):
But these so called learner centered
advocates, they are anti knowledge.
They are, they are complete subjectivists and
they basically hold that, that there is noobjective reality, that that knowledge is
basically formed from one's own personalperspective, not from a grasp of objective
facts.
And Dewey basically rejected this.
(06:27):
Not that he was an advocate of objectiveknowledge in the same in the way that we
advocated in Objectivism, but he definitelywas not anti knowledge.
He just thought that the school serves asocial purpose.
And then knowledge is really formed in thecontext of social groups and learning
(06:48):
communities, that kind, that kind of thing.
And that's why we have this kind of thing in
school where they're trying to promote groupwork and social cohesion, that kind of thing.
But the learner centered advocates are not,strictly speaking, Deweyites, they're much
worse.
And Dewey repudiated them.
Blair (07:05):
All right, well, all right.
Neil (07:07):
But I would say one more thing that.
Blair (07:09):
Go ahead.
Neil (07:10):
That we shouldn't praise Dewey for repudiating them because his all embracing
attack on traditional education andtraditional instruction is what made these
learner centered advocates possible and theirinfluence in the first place.
So it's, it's, it's great that Dewey, yourejected them, but it's kind of hard to reject
(07:30):
something on principle for which you were thecause.
So I want to be, I want to be careful here andnot, you know, make it sound like Dewey's this
great guy, you know, who did us all a greatfavor and tried to mitigate the learner
centered types.
Blair (07:45):
Very good, very good then.
But, and you also touched on, I guess, the,
the difference between a teacher basedinstruction and learner based instruction.
So the teacher based was the traditional way,is that correct?
Neil (07:58):
Yes, and it's, it's, it's based on the idea that there is a fixed body of knowledge
to learn and that there are individuals whohave mastered this knowledge in certain
subjects, whether it's math or history orEnglish art, and they have become master
communicators of their subject.
And they will then instruct students who are
(08:19):
basically ignorant of these subjects and teachthem in a classroom type, formal instruction
environment.
So it rejects this whole approach.
This has been sort of the traditionalapproach, generally speaking, to education for
centuries and it rejects this completely.
And the learner centered education is not
(08:43):
really a positive viewpoint.
It doesn't offer really a positive program or
curriculum of its own.
It's more of an attack on the traditional
school.
And as I say in my article, it's basically
rooted in the idea of subjectivism, thatthere, you know, there is no objective
knowledge.
There isn't any object out there about which
to become educated.
(09:03):
Knowledge is really just something that is
based on my own personal perspective, not agrasp of facts and something that I learn
Outside of me.
Blair (09:14):
I see.
Neil (09:15):
And then the question becomes how did this lead to school shootings?
And the basic issue here is that this allembracing attack on traditional instruction
has caused in my judgment, the intellectualand moral collapse of our schools.
And our schools have basically lost all oftheir intellectual and moral authority.
(09:37):
And this conflict between these two approachesto education is ongoing in the hallways of the
public schools and classrooms today.
And some of these kids are absorbing this
conflict.
They're absorbing the idea that there is that
knowledge is subjective and that they're beingimposed upon by these teachers and by their
(09:57):
schools to learn knowledge that is biased andfalse.
And in my article I basically say that these,that these school shooters are complaining
that they're having to, you know, acquireknowledge or be in these schools that are
imposing false knowledge on them and they'rebecoming radicalized against the schools.
So what this learner centered philosophy isessentially doing is that it's turning
(10:20):
students against their own schools.
And some of these students have decided to
attack the schools.
Martin (10:25):
Neely, is that like a cruel nihilism in action then, but really be forced to go out
and shooting on your fellow students andteachers and others like a effect on that or
result of this nihilistic ideas and education?
Neil (10:45):
It's definitely a nihilistic because if you reject knowledge that there's such a thing
as objective knowledge and that means therearen't going to be any objective morals or
values to pursue.
And, and when you read some of the, the
personal writings of these shooters, theyjust, they, they sound very nihilistic.
They, they reject they.
(11:07):
The institutions and knowledge of the world.
This is particularly true of Eric Harris.
I mean he's really the leading school shooter
here and he is the one shooter that has beenmost influential on later shooters.
You know, he, his, his influence and it's.
And it, and it still goes on, you know, 25
years after he attacked Columbine High School.
Blair (11:28):
Can you even.
It may be distasteful, but could you read your
excerpt from what Harris wrote?Would you read, consider reading that if you
have it in front of you.
Neil (11:37):
Or I don't have in front of me, but I can pull it up if you just.
I can.
Let me just pull that up.
Martin (11:44):
As long as you.
We don't have any so called explicit wordings
because then we have to put the episodeexplicit.
And then listeners in India, for example,can't listen to us.
So.
Blair (11:55):
Oh yeah, we have to.
You'll have to bleep out the swear words.
Neil (12:00):
Oh, I can, I can do that.
That's that's not a problem.
Let me just get to it here.
I can just get to it under education.
It's usually pretty easy to get to.
Yeah, here it is.
So you know, Harris actually has said a lot ofinteresting things that support my, my thesis.
But the most interesting and the most directis the quote that I have in my article.
(12:23):
And, and here's what he says.
So this is a quote from Harris.
He goes.
Ever wonder why we go to school besides
getting a so called education?It's not too obvious to most of you, but for
those who think a little more and deeper, youshould realize it.
It's society's way of turning all the youngpeople into good little robots and factory
workers.
That's why we sit in desks in rows and go by
(12:46):
bell schedules to get prepared for the realworld.
Because that's what it's like.
Well, no it isn't.
One thing that separates us from other animalsis the fact that we can carry actual thoughts.
So why don't we people go on day by dayroutine stuff.
Why can't we learn in school how we want to?Why can't we sit on desks and on shelves and
(13:06):
put our feet up and relax while we learn?Because that's not what the real world is
like.
Well, hey, there is no such thing as an actual
real world.
And that's the end of the quote.
And you know the Eric Harris.
Let me put it this way.
Eric Harris could have taught my educationclasses at Fairfield University.
(13:27):
Understands the, the progressive argumentagainst traditional instruction as good or
better than my own teachers.
So you know, he, he had absorbed this idea and
you know, this is a high school kid, he wasvery bright.
But I highly doubt that he, he learned this onhis own.
(13:48):
I think what is happening in these schools isthat there's this conflict between these two
philosophies and these kids are at the centerof this conflict.
And some of them are absorbing the conflictthat is going on in the schools today,
including Harris here.
Martin (14:03):
Wow.
Blair (14:04):
Wow. Right after your quote there.
You also mentioned.
Let me just read this quick.
Why would these students who demanded to learn
on their own in their own way attack theirschools rather than protest peacefully, drop
out or enroll in private school?Why wouldn't they?
Neil (14:25):
Yeah, exactly.
If you are opposed to your school that you
would think that the most obvious and simplestthing to do would be to drop out or to demand
that your parents put you in another school orto just get an education on your own and in.
Traditionally this is what happened.
Right.
And it still happens.
There's a huge dropout rate.
(14:46):
Right.
And that's probably a good thing.
Why should students who do not feel that theyare getting the value that they need from an
education have to be for forced to sit throughit for, you know, maybe they had to, they went
to early grade school, dropped out by seventhor eighth grade.
Why should they have to spend another four orfive years at the end of middle school and
(15:08):
high school and, and instead just go out intothe world and get a job and learn on their
own?And it's the most important question because,
you know, this is the most obvious thing thatyou should do.
But it's an interesting thing that thislearner centered education, part of the
impetus for this educational philosophy was totry to stem the dropout rate, to try to make
(15:32):
schools and the curriculum more relevant toindividual learners.
That was, that was the ostensive purpose ofthis.
We want to keep kids in school.
And unfortunately what it did do is it didn't
offer any positive approach to learning.
All it is is this critique of the traditional
school and it's a negative critique.
(15:53):
And what you have is, it's the strangest
thing.
You've got these kids in these schools or this
subset of the kids who might have dropped out,who instead linger about in schools.
They reject the curriculum, they reject theirteachings, but they're being promised that
they can still get an education somehow andget this individualized learning.
(16:16):
But the problem is our schools weren'tdesigned for this.
You know, we have a very, a very inflexiblepublic school system.
And teachers who have been trained to teach ina certain way, they've been trained for direct
instruction.
And the public school system that we have in
this country was never designed to, to be ableto cope with a new and radical model of
(16:37):
education just suddenly introduced into it.
And it's certainly not able to cope with a
model of education that is based onsubjectivism.
I mean, teachers typically are trying toimpart some sort of knowledge to their, to
their kids.
And now what they're being told is that they
got to step back and let these kids somehowlearn on their own.
And you know, the teacher no longer hasauthority over their classrooms or even in the
(17:02):
schools.
And, and this is what has led to the moral
collapse that I talk about, right?
Blair (17:08):
I think in America, America's history, originally and initially schools were private.
I mean, you had the one room schoolhouse onthe prairie and they taught from like
kindergarten to sixth or seventh grade.
But I guess the progressive era changed all
that because again, even though the Founders,I also believe they advocated for or certainly
(17:34):
were in favor of government education.
It was because they were living in the fated
emperors of the Enlightenment era and theywanted that to be spread.
But I think that was a mistake.
What do you think?
Neil (17:49):
Well, it was definitely, I think, a mistake to have this kind of mass produced
public school system that doesn't do a verygood job at educating kids.
I mean, I went through the school system, Idid all right.
I got a decent math education.
So I'm not, I'm not here to bash my teachers
or really any teachers today even.
Blair (18:11):
Right.
Neil (18:12):
But this, this kind of, you know, one size in one curriculum fits all type approach
to education.
I don't think that's the, the optimum way to
educate kids.
But then again, it didn't, it never produced
school shooters up until before the late1980s, so at least it didn't do that.
(18:32):
And, and my focus has basically been on whatis it that changed in the schools that led to
the emergence of this horror.
And that's really been my focus before that.
Yes, I mean, I think it was all kinds ofreasons why you might educate your kid in some
other way, homeschooling or a private school,any number of ways.
(18:55):
So there are definitely problems with theschool system.
But I would say the solution to schoolshootings is not, you know, obviously you
might consider taking your kids out of theseschools, but you probably should have
considered doing that even before the schoolshooting starts.
So they were not, they weren't all that goodbefore the school shootings.
And now, and now you got to contend with thisissue.
Blair (19:14):
So I hear you, I hear you.
You mentioned a gentleman by the name of Dr.
John Simmons.
Can you elaborate what he initiated?
Neil (19:24):
Yeah, so I've done a great deal of research over the years on this.
And John Simmons, it was a professor ofEnglish education at Florida State University.
And I came across him very early in myresearch and I'd always, you know, he wrote an
(19:45):
article in response to the Virginia techattack in 2007 by the English student Sun Wei
Joe.
And his article is a direct response to that
attack.
And, and he's really, he's just a well
regarded professor of English education.
(20:06):
And I regard him as a hero and a wise man.
I mean, first of all, he's a, he's a hero.
He, he was, he did, he served in the military
in the Korean War, but he also is a hero forwriting the article that he did and basically
coming out publicly saying that there is aproblem with our educational practice because
(20:27):
it, it's it's actually linked to this schoolshooting that that happened.
And he's basically writing this article towarn his fellow practitioners.
And the title of the article is Dealing withTroubled Writers, A Literacy Teacher's
Dilemma.
And it's not a very long article.
It's only about four pages and you can read itin about half an hour.
It's written in plain English, but in it,Professor Simmons reveals probably the most
(20:55):
important fact about school shootings.
And, and it's, it's kind of interesting.
I, I haven't seen anyone in news reportingdiscuss this, but tells us the origin of these
personal journals that are often found in thepossession of these school shooters that
they've been writing in.
(21:16):
And he explains that the origin of the
personal journals and of personal journalwriting is in the English curriculum that
began in the 1970s and was implemented in thepublic schools.
And I know about these personal journalsfirsthand because I wrote in one in the 1980s
in my American Literature class.
We had these personal journals and they were
the exact.
(21:36):
It was part of this program where you would
spend the first few minutes of class justwriting down your personal thoughts in the
journal and then the journals will go away andthe teacher would then would start teaching
the content of what they, what it is for theday.
And for me it was American Literature class.
So I have, you know, when I first started
seeing or observing that, that these kidswere, who were attacking the schools, that
(22:00):
many of them, it's not all of them, but, but agood number enough for there to be a pattern
that they were writing these disturbingthoughts in personal journals.
I knew immediately where that came frombecause I experienced that in, in 11th grade.
And, and, and this is like the most shockingfact that is re.
That Professor Simmons reveals in his article.
And it's, it's not really even the central
(22:20):
focus of the article, but, but he reveals itand, and it's not by accident.
It's, it's, it's the most important thing tounderstand about, about these attacks.
We need, we need to understand where thesepersonal journals come from, from educational
practice.
Martin (22:39):
Okay, Neil, I will be the devil's advocate here.
We talked in the green room about journalingand I think as an adult it's a positive thing
if you do reflection, introspection, and learnfrom what you have gone through and reflect,
for example, on what you're studying and soon.
But is this more like so called randomoutbursts and anger and this hatred like some
(23:09):
psychoanalysis in a way.
And didn't they talk about this Journaling,
why they did it and how did that come up?
Neil (23:20):
Yes, I agree with you.
Journaling is a very positive thing.
The problem is that this particular method ofjournaling that was encouraged for the kids
was to basically have them turn inward andfocus on their emotions at absent the external
world, basically to, you know, have themindulge their emotions rather than talk about
(23:44):
or, or journal about the things that youmentioned about their interactions with the
world.
Martin (23:49):
And I think and don't, and don't link the like responses, the emotions to value
judgment.
They haven't come so far maybe.
Neil (23:59):
So they're basically encouraging the kids just to rant emotionally in these
journals.
And this is really not the purpose of a
journal or a diary even typically when youhave a journal or a diary, because I've given
this some thought.
This is a time for quiet reflection about
what's going on with you and your life.
(24:21):
It's not a time where you, where you would
sort of rev yourself up into this angryfriends Nikolistic frenzy.
And, and you know, it's, it's veryinteresting.
You may have heard of the, the University ofTexas school shooter, Charles Whitman.
He was, I think he, I think that attack on theUniversity of Texas was in 1964.
(24:46):
I can't remember exact date.
But he, he went to the, the, the clock tower,
up to the clock tower at the University ofTexas and committed a school shooting.
And this was a very, very angry man.
He, he had all kinds of family abuse at home
in his life, but he spent time writing in adiary and he actually used the diary the way a
(25:11):
diary or a journal is intended to be used as ameans, as a, for, for the purpose of quiet,
calm reflection.
And I've read a number of his diary entries
and, and, and, and this angry man that wouldbasically use this diary as a chance to calm
himself down, it didn't work.
I think in the end he would, you know, his
anger overcame him and he, and he became aschool shooter.
(25:32):
But what's what, what these students are beingencouraged is, is the exact opposite.
In these personal journals that ProfessorSimmons talks about, they're being encouraged
to indulge their emotions to, you know, toindulge their anger into, like you said, that
engage in this stream of consciousness kind ofthinking.
And when you, if in these journal entries are,you can find them at schoolshooters.
(25:55):
Dot info on Professor Dr. Langman's websiteand you read these journals and it's just
incredibly disturbing.
They're just very angry and, and they, they
revel in their Anger and in their emotions.
And this is, I don't think, the intent of
journal writing.
Blair (26:13):
I, I, I agree, I agree.
Now you, and just to follow up with that and
maybe tie a bow on it, you called learnerbased instruction and the personal writing
journal assignments the perfect storm.
And I think your evidence is overwhelming.
Neil (26:31):
Yeah, it's shocking.
It's like you've got these two educational
practices that almost seemingly have nothingto do with one another.
I mean, the implementation of personal writingassignments was in the 1970s and prior to the
introduction of learner centered education inthe schools.
(26:52):
The kids were writing in these personaljournals and there were, you know, we didn't
hear about any school shootings.
So although I think this personal journal
writing method, which I, I, I say is basicallybased on a subjective method of writing, I
think it's problematic.
But it clearly didn't lead to school
shootings.
(27:12):
We didn't get that until the, the introduction
of this learner centered educationalphilosophy.
And what these two practices are, arebasically doing.
They, they, they reinforce one another.
So you, you're, you're pitting the, the kids
against their schools, against the schoolsystem in the name of, on the basis that the,
(27:33):
that the knowledge that they're being givenis, is biased and false.
And at the same time you're telling them that,you know, you should have an individualized
learning and hey, go write in this personaljournal and, and tell us all your, you know,
your, your deepest, darkest feelings and youranger.
And they're going to talk about how angry theyare about the system.
(27:55):
And that's exactly what Harris did in hispersonal circle.
So there's kind of a synergy between these twopractices that wasn't intended, but they came
together, I argue, in a perfect storm whichled to these attacks.
Martin (28:09):
Is it like this project or test or what was it called, the Wave or something like
that?It was turned into a movie about how the
students became national socialists and doingall this scary stuff like in indoctrination
(28:33):
and taking orders and then follow orders andthen put their hatred against what
individuals.
Neil (28:44):
I think what's happening is that they're being encouraged to embrace their emotions.
They're being, and to do it.
And the school is basically sanctioning this,
I mean, it's sanctioning this embrace ofemotionalism and it's doing it in a very, in
an academic manner.
By introducing this irrational personal
(29:07):
writing method into the schools, you'reessentially saying, look, I mean, this is,
this is more real, more important than, youknow, learning your math lessons or learning
Something about history.
And this is why, you know, you get these
students who today who are basically, youknow, they're very subjective and they're
(29:28):
always talking about their feelings.
And the academics are almost like an
afterthought in these schools.
It's really a shame.
When I was in school, you know, everybody wasfocused on trying to learn something.
They were trying to acquire some knowledge andskills, trying to, you know, prepare
themselves for the future.
(29:49):
Well, Harris basically understood what his
future was going to be.
It's not that he was.
That he was just against his school.
He was against the institutions and the kind
of life that was awaiting him after graduatingfrom.
From school.
He. He rejected all of it because the
institutions of our.
(30:10):
Of our country and.
And of the Western world, they all rely onscientific knowledge or the idea that you must
acquire this knowledge if you want to achievegoal X or value Y. And he didn't like that.
That approach.
He just wanted to have his own thoughts and,
and basically live in accordance with, youknow, whatever ideas he had.
(30:34):
And he didn't want to live in a world where hehad to, you know, acquire this objective
knowledge and live in accordance with suchknowledge.
He rejected the whole thing, man.
Blair (30:44):
Well, after all this horror and more than likely more horrors to come, the
government remains unaccountable.
Why do you think that is?
Neil (30:53):
Why?
Blair (30:54):
That's a big answer or a big question, I guess.
And we.
We don't have two hours.
Neil (31:00):
No. Well, I would, I would simply.
I would simply point to the fact that they
have the power of coercion behind them andthey don't have to be accountable.
You know, if we had private education andwhere people have to pay, you know, education
has to be paid for by the private citizens andteachers and schools have to earn a profit,
well, they're going to be a lot moreaccountable to parents when things go wrong or
(31:23):
when there's.
When there are problems or criticisms and so
on and so forth.
But how do you hold accountable this massive,
you know, system of government education?Where do you turn and you have this department
of Education that I don't think anybody isable to communicate with or have any, you
know, any influence over?We certainly didn't vote for it.
Blair (31:46):
No. No.
Neil (31:47):
And so it's not accountable.
And because it's not accountable, these.
Our education system and those who basicallyinevitably take charge of it are free to
implement ideas that may be destructive.
And those ideas don't ultimately get examined
or rescinded.
They just, they.
(32:07):
They typically remain in place.
So they have these.
This personal journal writing that continueson.
It's problematic to say the least.
And then you have this learner centered
education, which, which nobody's examining.
Nothing is being examined.
When you have, when you're, when, when yourfield experiences some kind of disaster, like
(32:31):
if it's in the aircraft industry, like I talkin my article, or the building industry, the
people who are involved in these industrieswho have the knowledge, they have to come and
examine the problem, examine their ownpractices, and they are accountable.
Where is the accountability of educatorstoday?
Where are the educators who are examiningtheir practices and asking, why are all these
(32:53):
attacks occurring in our schools?I mean, aren't they responsible?
They don't, they don't even recognize thatthey have anything to do with it.
And yet these attacks are all, are all beingdone by their students on their schools.
It's not as if the students are going out andattacking McDonald's or some, you know, or
some mall or something.
They're attacking their own schools.
Martin (33:11):
Yeah. Is that what they call in the industry product escape?
Neil (33:16):
That's right.
And the idea is that there is some flaw that's
been introduced that's been into a product,it's been overlooked or that has escaped our
design intent.
Right.
And because it's escaped our design intent,that product is now behaving in a way that we
didn't expect and it could be very harmful toconsumers.
(33:36):
And when that happens, we got to stopeverything and we got to say, look, there's a,
there's a problem here.
We got to examine this.
We got to examine our own practices.
Only the people working in that particular
industry who make the product are the ones whoare qualified to examine the problem with it
because they're the ones with the specializedknowledge to be able to do so.
You and I can't really examine these schoolshootings.
(34:01):
We don't, we're not insiders.
I mean, I am a little bit because I have my,
my certification.
But it's really the educators that need to
come together as a profession and take a hardlook at their own practices.
And until they do that, these school shootingsare not going to end well.
Blair (34:19):
Again, let me take issue with what you've just said, though, in a way not to.
But the teachers and the administrators thatwe have now, they were, they were educated in
the same flawed system.
So they wouldn't know.
Well, examine it.
Neil (34:37):
Well, that, that.
Well, that there is.
You're right.
I mean, there's a good point here that first
of all, we don't expect these kind ofcatastrophes to occur in the educational
system.
We don't expect this, you know, mass death.
Right?I mean, that's.
That's completely unprecedented, isn't it?
Blair (34:53):
Right.
Neil (34:53):
So. So everybody looks at this and like, well, the schools can't be involved.
The.
The.
The.
The shooters must be mentally ill.
You know, that must be it.
So what we've had for decades now are
primarily psychologists who have beenresearching into this and writing on it.
But.
And that's great.
But the problem is that has had theunfortunate effect of delaying the actual
(35:15):
investigation that we need, which is theinvestigation of the schools.
I. I do disagree in one sense.
You know, everybody is capable of examining
their own practices.
Yeah, you can, and I'm steeped in my.
In my aircraft practices and my knowledge ofengineering.
But I still know that, hey, you know, whensomething goes bad with the engines that we
produce, it's on us to figure it out.
It's not, you know, it's not somebody outside
(35:35):
of our field who's responsible.
It's almost certainly us.
And we got to take a look at what we're doing.
You know, teachers are.
The educators are perfectly capable of doingthis, too.
And Professor John Simmons demonstrates thatperfectly, what he did in writing that
article.
That is the exact right thing to do.
This is how it works.
(35:56):
You see, you make a connection between your
practice and some negative thing that hashappened, in this case, a school shooting, and
you're like, wait a minute, we got practiceshere that are connected to what this kid did
at Virginia Tech.
And now I got to write, I got to warn my
fellow practitioners that we got a problemhere.
And that's exactly what he did.
(36:16):
That's exactly the right thing to do.
And what should have happened is that shouldhave generated a conversation between
Professor Simmons and his fellowpractitioners.
And had it.
Had this been done, right, it would have
generated this conversation.
It would have led to the profession, or at
least the English profession, coming togetheras a profession, saying, look, we need.
(36:37):
We need a deeper investigation here to try tounderstand if there.
If there really is something here.
And Professor Simmons would have been
recruited to lead the investigation.
But that is.
That is how it works.
But that is not what has happened.
But that is what needs to happen if this isgoing to be resolved.
Martin (36:53):
And as an positive end note, Blair, we have had on our show guests talking about
homeschooling and also private new collegesand others.
So there are a bright side in the future here.
Have any comment on that, Neil?
Any positive signs for the future for.
Neil (37:14):
You mean for.
For other forms of schooling?
Martin (37:17):
Yeah, and education in, in general.
Neil (37:19):
But I do, I do see positive signs.
There's some.
I, there's something on Twitter that I've seensome person in Austin, Texas, who is promoting
a school model in which you can do all yourlearning in just like two hours a day.
And I really love that idea.
I mean, I think it's so this idea that you're
in school for eight hours a day.
(37:40):
I just, the more I learn about it and
understand it, it just seems crazy to me.
You can learn a lot with focused instruction
on the things that you need to know within acouple of hours, and then the rest of the day
is yours to learn other things in other ways.
So, yeah, I do have a lot of confidence in the
future.
(38:00):
What I'm not confident about is dealing, is
dealing with this problem, which is not beingdealt with and still isn't.
And we've got continued attacks.
And this is, this has got to be dealt with.
This, you know, the education system is stilla monolith, and it's got to be dealt with.
Blair (38:16):
Well, I certainly agree with that.
And if, maybe after the show, if you could
remember that, the instigator, the author ofthat particular education idea, we'll put it
in our notes.
But I also want to mention, I think, the mess
that was the COVID and all the lockdowns, Ithink that woke a lot of people up to some of
(38:40):
the horrors of the education system, becausethe teachers unions got a lot of press and
they were saying that your parents don't, thestudents don't belong to the parents, they
belong to us, or terrible things like that.
And because of that, I think homeschooling
(39:03):
went up 25% across the country and relativelyshort time.
Yeah, so that's, that's a positive trend.
Neil (39:11):
Definitely.
Blair (39:12):
You still have the.
And even if some Trump or some future
president decides, okay, we're going to shaveoff the Department of Education from the
federal budget, that's okay.
That's the first step of what are you going
to, you know, what, what happens after that?
Neil (39:32):
So, yeah, I, I agree.
I think, I think the, the unions and the
schools did reveal themselves quite a bit inthis covet debacle.
And I think that did open a lot of people'seyes.
You know, for whatever reason, they, theyplayed, you know, their cards too openly.
And, and a lot of people learn more about theway the education system works.
(39:54):
I think that's a good thing.
There's no transparency.
You have to have transparency.
And there's, I think, very little transparency
in the way our educational system works andthe.
What goes on in our schools.
I just, I. And what goes on in these teacher
training schools, the one that I went to,it's, it's.
It's completely irrational.
Blair (40:11):
And you're a parent yourself.
Not that I want to.
Neil (40:13):
Yes.
Blair (40:14):
Yeah. So. So that's what you've done I think is a magnificent.
You shine a light on a very serious issue andI think you've hopefully have opened a lot of
eyes in the.
As we publish this podcast and add our links
to it, I hope a lot of people will be able toread this.
(40:37):
Have you had any feedback other than uswanting to have you on the podcast?
I mean I know this was earlier this year, butit's so still relatively new article.
Neil (40:48):
But it is and I want to thank you for your kind words about it.
But I have not received that much feedback.
But generally what I have received is a bit
skeptical.
But that's understandable.
It's a radical thesis and I certainly expectthat.
And it really is just the tip of the icebergin my opinion.
(41:11):
If there was a proper investigation of theschools on this issue, it would unload a whole
truckload of additional evidence supporting mythesis.
I mean I'm very confident this is a highconviction thesis.
I'm very confident in it despite you know,some of the skepticism that I've encountered.
But, but no, I. Overall I have not receivedtoo much feedback.
So I guess I need to get the word out and I doappreciate being on your podcast because I
(41:34):
think that will help get the word out.
So I think this was a great, a great time.
Martin (41:38):
Yeah. And when we spread the good word and we also welcoming constructive criticism
and feedback from our listeners and also youcould send them a booster gram so called.
It's a digital telegram and send smalldonation or a big donation.
For example we have one Blair what we like221905 Satoshis.
(42:04):
That's Rand's birthday number.
And you could also stream satushis to us and
then we could split here with our guests.
So what's on your plan or mind or agenda in
the near future, Neil, if you want to sharethat?
Neil (42:21):
Well, I do plan to write more articles.
The.
The article that I wrote and published isreally a top level, very concise article that
I and I intended it that way.
I wanted to be able to you to be able to read
it in one sitting and you know, relativelyquickly.
But I do intend on writing articles toadditional articles to elaborate on some of
(42:44):
the further.
Elaborate on some of the aspects that I raise
in that article.
So that's what I see in my future.
Blair (42:50):
Outstanding.
All right, well, we'll definitely have you
back then.
Neil (42:53):
Well, thank you.
Blair (42:54):
Great.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, our guest
today has been Neil Arian, who issued aproduct safety alert on progressive education.
Neil, thanks for manning the foxhole with us.
Neil (43:06):
Thank you.
I enjoyed it.
I appreciate being in the foxhole with you,and I would definitely love to come back.
Martin (43:12):
Thanks.
Blair (43:13):
All right.
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