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Thursday, January 27, 2005

Michael Moore: Math Teacher?

Republican Voices editor posts a link to a seriocomic liberal-socialist technique for inculcating the secular religion of socialism.

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Editors Blog: Michael Moore: Math Teacher? links the reader to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 Teacher’s Guide, which instructs teachers in using the “facts” in Moore’s fictional “documentary” as examples for math problem-solving.

This approach is in keeping with the theory first expounded in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Émile,” later promoted as Progressive Education by John Dewey in the early 20th century: don’t teach actual subject matter; let children learn in the process of playing and “doing.”

Progressive education as a whole has been disastrously ineffective.  Unfortunately, students are unlikely to learn much math from Michael Moore’s technique.  But, as film-maker Oliver Stone has proved with movies like “JFK,” young people left ignorant of history by public education readily assume that movie fiction is fact.

Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 01/27 at 02:37 PM
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