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Oct. 28, 2024

Interview with Neil Erian on Progressive Education and School Shootings

Interview with Neil Erian on Progressive Education and School Shootings

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")!

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Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:


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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Transcript
Blair:

All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the latest episode of the Secular



Blair:

Foxhole podcast.



Blair:

Our guest today is Neil Aryan, currently an



Blair:

engineer in the aircraft industry, but once served as a teacher in the public school



Blair:

system.



Blair:

He has a serious warning for parents about our



Blair:

public, and he does have a serious warning that he's going to talk about today about our



Blair:

public school system.



Blair:

Neil, your article published in Capitalism



Blair:

magazine in April of this year is quite provocative, but if I may say, sadly true.



Blair:

You, you've issued a public service announcement.



Blair:

Go ahead and tell our audience what it is.



Neil:

Well, thank you for having me, Blair.



Neil:

I appreciate it.



Neil:

And Martin, I appreciate you being, being on your podcast.



Neil:

Basically, I call it a product safety alert.



Neil:

And basically the idea is that that's a term



Neil:

that comes from industry and I currently work in industry.



Neil:

And we issue these alerts if and when some, you know, our products become unsafe and we



Neil:

need to alert the public about them.



Neil:

So that's, and in this case, this alert is



Neil:

about education in the schools because I found that there's a link between educational



Neil:

practices and these school shootings that have been occurring.



Neil:

And I've written about that in my article.



Neil:

That's the, that's the subject matter of my



Neil:

article.



Blair:

I see.



Blair:

What is your educational background?



Neil:

Well, I am a Certified Teacher, grade 6 through 12 in Connecticut, as you mentioned,



Neil:

in math.



Neil:

And I did my teacher certification training at



Neil:

Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut.



Neil:

And so I've taken all of the, the state required training courses to become a teacher



Neil:

in Connecticut and done my student teaching.



Neil:

And so I'm very intimately aware of what is



Neil:

going on in the schools.



Neil:

And really the classes that I took at



Neil:

Fairfield University really introduced me to the horror of progressive education.



Neil:

So this is something that's been on my mind for quite a while.



Neil:

I hadn't at the time made the connection between progressive education and school



Neil:

shootings, though.



Neil:

I, I, soon after I'd started to become



Neil:

suspicious about it because I was aware of school shooting Since Columbine, since 1999 on



Neil:

the Columbine attack in Colorado.



Neil:

But you know, this is really my, my background



Neil:

in as a certified teacher and just being introduced, like I said, to the horror of



Neil:

progressive education at Fairfield University really just was the impetus to, to trying to



Neil:

better understand this issue.



Blair:

In your article, I was again, I was shocked to see that there have been more than



Blair:

40 school shootings since Columbine.



Blair:

And I think there was prior one prior to that



Blair:

in Mississippi, I believe, also.



Blair:

Yes, that's a staggering number.



Neil:

Yes, I, I get that number from an online Database of school shooters.



Neil:

That is, that's been created by a psychologist named Peter Langman who has been researching



Neil:

and writing on this issue for decades.



Neil:

And we can certainly talk more about him.



Neil:

But he created an online database of school shootings.



Neil:

It's called school shooters.info and he basically the database for each school



Neil:

shooting that occurs.



Neil:

He's gathered all the relevant legal and



Neil:

personal documentation associated with the school shooting and his explicit purpose is to



Neil:

allow investigators from other fields to research into this issue.



Neil:

And so I have basically been using this database for years now.



Neil:

And this is where I, I get my numbers.



Neil:

And 40 is really, that's 40 random school



Neil:

shootings.



Neil:

That doesn't include the targeted schools, the



Neil:

targeted attacks.



Neil:

And there's actually, so there's actually more



Neil:

than 40.



Neil:

His database has I think over 150 school



Neil:

shootings in them and most of them have occurred since the late 1980s.



Blair:

Oh my goodness.



Blair:

Yes, yes.



Blair:

I've always thought I've held three men in our history up, up as destroyers if you will, of



Blair:

education.



Blair:

That's John Dewey, Horace Mann, and more



Blair:

recently Howard Zinn.



Blair:

I think all of these men can be considered



Blair:

progressive to the extreme.



Blair:

What do you think about those three?



Neil:

Well, I, I can speak mostly to John Dewey because I have studied him a little bit



Neil:

in school.



Neil:

I wouldn't say I'm an expert on him, but I did



Neil:

learn some interesting things specifically about him in doing my research regarding this



Neil:

issue.



Neil:

You know, as, as I say in my article that it's



Neil:

the progressives introduction of this learner centered education philosophy in the schools



Neil:

that I'm, I'm basically blaming for these, for these school shootings.



Neil:

And what's interesting is that the, these learner centered advocates, they basically



Neil:

praise John Dewey as an influence on them, but they do, they don't consider themselves



Neil:

strictly speaking Deweyites.



Neil:

And not only that, but they were around during



Neil:

the time of John Dewey and he repudiated them.



Neil:

He basically held that they did not understand



Neil:

his educational philosophy and he wanted to distance himself from them.



Neil:

And really they're much worse than John Dewey.



Neil:

John Dewey was not anti knowledge.



Neil:

He was pro knowledge.



Neil:

That what he was opposed to was the idea that



Neil:

learning should be an individual affair, that it should be that we're individuals and each



Neil:

going to learn on our own and acquire knowledge the traditional way that we



Neil:

typically do in school.



Neil:

But these so called learner centered



Neil:

advocates, they are anti knowledge.



Neil:

They are, they are complete subjectivists and



Neil:

they basically hold that, that there is no objective reality, that that knowledge is



Neil:

basically formed from one's own personal perspective, not from a grasp of objective



Neil:

facts.



Neil:

And Dewey basically rejected this.



Neil:

Not that he was an advocate of objective knowledge in the same in the way that we



Neil:

advocated in Objectivism, but he definitely was not anti knowledge.



Neil:

He just thought that the school serves a social purpose.



Neil:

And then knowledge is really formed in the context of social groups and learning



Neil:

communities, that kind, that kind of thing.



Neil:

And that's why we have this kind of thing in



Neil:

school where they're trying to promote group work and social cohesion, that kind of thing.



Neil:

But the learner centered advocates are not, strictly speaking, Deweyites, they're much



Neil:

worse.



Neil:

And Dewey repudiated them.



Blair:

All right, well, all right.



Neil:

But I would say one more thing that.



Blair:

Go ahead.



Neil:

That we shouldn't praise Dewey for repudiating them because his all embracing



Neil:

attack on traditional education and traditional instruction is what made these



Neil:

learner centered advocates possible and their influence in the first place.



Neil:

So it's, it's, it's great that Dewey, you rejected them, but it's kind of hard to reject



Neil:

something on principle for which you were the cause.



Neil:

So I want to be, I want to be careful here and not, you know, make it sound like Dewey's this



Neil:

great guy, you know, who did us all a great favor and tried to mitigate the learner



Neil:

centered types.



Blair:

Very good, very good then.



Blair:

But, and you also touched on, I guess, the,



Blair:

the difference between a teacher based instruction and learner based instruction.



Blair:

So the teacher based was the traditional way, is that correct?



Neil:

Yes, and it's, it's, it's based on the idea that there is a fixed body of knowledge



Neil:

to learn and that there are individuals who have mastered this knowledge in certain



Neil:

subjects, whether it's math or history or English art, and they have become master



Neil:

communicators of their subject.



Neil:

And they will then instruct students who are



Neil:

basically ignorant of these subjects and teach them in a classroom type, formal instruction



Neil:

environment.



Neil:

So it rejects this whole approach.



Neil:

This has been sort of the traditional approach, generally speaking, to education for



Neil:

centuries and it rejects this completely.



Neil:

And the learner centered education is not



Neil:

really a positive viewpoint.



Neil:

It doesn't offer really a positive program or



Neil:

curriculum of its own.



Neil:

It's more of an attack on the traditional



Neil:

school.



Neil:

And as I say in my article, it's basically



Neil:

rooted in the idea of subjectivism, that there, you know, there is no objective



Neil:

knowledge.



Neil:

There isn't any object out there about which



Neil:

to become educated.



Neil:

Knowledge is really just something that is



Neil:

based on my own personal perspective, not a grasp of facts and something that I learn



Neil:

Outside of me.



Blair:

I see.



Neil:

And then the question becomes how did this lead to school shootings?



Neil:

And the basic issue here is that this all embracing attack on traditional instruction



Neil:

has caused in my judgment, the intellectual and moral collapse of our schools.



Neil:

And our schools have basically lost all of their intellectual and moral authority.



Neil:

And this conflict between these two approaches to education is ongoing in the hallways of the



Neil:

public schools and classrooms today.



Neil:

And some of these kids are absorbing this



Neil:

conflict.



Neil:

They're absorbing the idea that there is that



Neil:

knowledge is subjective and that they're being imposed upon by these teachers and by their



Neil:

schools to learn knowledge that is biased and false.



Neil:

And in my article I basically say that these, that these school shooters are complaining



Neil:

that they're having to, you know, acquire knowledge or be in these schools that are



Neil:

imposing false knowledge on them and they're becoming radicalized against the schools.



Neil:

So what this learner centered philosophy is essentially doing is that it's turning



Neil:

students against their own schools.



Neil:

And some of these students have decided to



Neil:

attack the schools.



Martin:

Neely, is that like a cruel nihilism in action then, but really be forced to go out



Martin:

and shooting on your fellow students and teachers and others like a effect on that or



Martin:

result of this nihilistic ideas and education?



Neil:

It's definitely a nihilistic because if you reject knowledge that there's such a thing



Neil:

as objective knowledge and that means there aren't going to be any objective morals or



Neil:

values to pursue.



Neil:

And, and when you read some of the, the



Neil:

personal writings of these shooters, they just, they, they sound very nihilistic.



Neil:

They, they reject they.



Neil:

The institutions and knowledge of the world.



Neil:

This is particularly true of Eric Harris.



Neil:

I mean he's really the leading school shooter



Neil:

here and he is the one shooter that has been most influential on later shooters.



Neil:

You know, he, his, his influence and it's.



Neil:

And it, and it still goes on, you know, 25



Neil:

years after he attacked Columbine High School.



Blair:

Can you even.



Blair:

It may be distasteful, but could you read your



Blair:

excerpt from what Harris wrote? Would you read, consider reading that if you



Blair:

have it in front of you.



Neil:

Or I don't have in front of me, but I can pull it up if you just.



Neil:

I can.



Neil:

Let me just pull that up.



Martin:

As long as you.



Martin:

We don't have any so called explicit wordings



Martin:

because then we have to put the episode explicit.



Martin:

And then listeners in India, for example, can't listen to us.



Martin:

So.



Blair:

Oh yeah, we have to.



Blair:

You'll have to bleep out the swear words.



Neil:

Oh, I can, I can do that.



Neil:

That's that's not a problem.



Neil:

Let me just get to it here.



Neil:

I can just get to it under education.



Neil:

It's usually pretty easy to get to.



Neil:

Yeah, here it is.



Neil:

So you know, Harris actually has said a lot of interesting things that support my, my thesis.



Neil:

But the most interesting and the most direct is the quote that I have in my article.



Neil:

And, and here's what he says.



Neil:

So this is a quote from Harris.



Neil:

He goes.



Neil:

Ever wonder why we go to school besides



Neil:

getting a so called education? It's not too obvious to most of you, but for



Neil:

those who think a little more and deeper, you should realize it.



Neil:

It's society's way of turning all the young people into good little robots and factory



Neil:

workers.



Neil:

That's why we sit in desks in rows and go by



Neil:

bell schedules to get prepared for the real world.



Neil:

Because that's what it's like.



Neil:

Well, no it isn't.



Neil:

One thing that separates us from other animals is the fact that we can carry actual thoughts.



Neil:

So why don't we people go on day by day routine stuff.



Neil:

Why can't we learn in school how we want to? Why can't we sit on desks and on shelves and



Neil:

put our feet up and relax while we learn? Because that's not what the real world is



Neil:

like.



Neil:

Well, hey, there is no such thing as an actual



Neil:

real world.



Neil:

And that's the end of the quote.



Neil:

And you know the Eric Harris.



Neil:

Let me put it this way.



Neil:

Eric Harris could have taught my education classes at Fairfield University.



Neil:

Understands the, the progressive argument against traditional instruction as good or



Neil:

better than my own teachers.



Neil:

So you know, he, he had absorbed this idea and



Neil:

you know, this is a high school kid, he was very bright.



Neil:

But I highly doubt that he, he learned this on his own.



Neil:

I think what is happening in these schools is that there's this conflict between these two



Neil:

philosophies and these kids are at the center of this conflict.



Neil:

And some of them are absorbing the conflict that is going on in the schools today,



Neil:

including Harris here.



Martin:

Wow.



Blair:

Wow. Right after your quote there.



Blair:

You also mentioned.



Blair:

Let me just read this quick.



Blair:

Why would these students who demanded to learn



Blair:

on their own in their own way attack their schools rather than protest peacefully, drop



Blair:

out or enroll in private school? Why wouldn't they?



Neil:

Yeah, exactly.



Neil:

If you are opposed to your school that you



Neil:

would think that the most obvious and simplest thing to do would be to drop out or to demand



Neil:

that your parents put you in another school or to just get an education on your own and in.



Neil:

Traditionally this is what happened.



Neil:

Right.



Neil:

And it still happens.



Neil:

There's a huge dropout rate.



Neil:

Right.



Neil:

And that's probably a good thing.



Neil:

Why should students who do not feel that they are getting the value that they need from an



Neil:

education have to be for forced to sit through it for, you know, maybe they had to, they went



Neil:

to early grade school, dropped out by seventh or eighth grade.



Neil:

Why should they have to spend another four or five years at the end of middle school and



Neil:

high school and, and instead just go out into the world and get a job and learn on their



Neil:

own? And it's the most important question because,



Neil:

you know, this is the most obvious thing that you should do.



Neil:

But it's an interesting thing that this learner centered education, part of the



Neil:

impetus for this educational philosophy was to try to stem the dropout rate, to try to make



Neil:

schools and the curriculum more relevant to individual learners.



Neil:

That was, that was the ostensive purpose of this.



Neil:

We want to keep kids in school.



Neil:

And unfortunately what it did do is it didn't



Neil:

offer any positive approach to learning.



Neil:

All it is is this critique of the traditional



Neil:

school and it's a negative critique.



Neil:

And what you have is, it's the strangest



Neil:

thing.



Neil:

You've got these kids in these schools or this



Neil:

subset of the kids who might have dropped out, who instead linger about in schools.



Neil:

They reject the curriculum, they reject their teachings, but they're being promised that



Neil:

they can still get an education somehow and get this individualized learning.



Neil:

But the problem is our schools weren't designed for this.



Neil:

You know, we have a very, a very inflexible public school system.



Neil:

And teachers who have been trained to teach in a certain way, they've been trained for direct



Neil:

instruction.



Neil:

And the public school system that we have in



Neil:

this country was never designed to, to be able to cope with a new and radical model of



Neil:

education just suddenly introduced into it.



Neil:

And it's certainly not able to cope with a



Neil:

model of education that is based on subjectivism.



Neil:

I mean, teachers typically are trying to impart some sort of knowledge to their, to



Neil:

their kids.



Neil:

And now what they're being told is that they



Neil:

got to step back and let these kids somehow learn on their own.



Neil:

And you know, the teacher no longer has authority over their classrooms or even in the



Neil:

schools.



Neil:

And, and this is what has led to the moral



Neil:

collapse that I talk about, right?



Blair:

I think in America, America's history, originally and initially schools were private.



Blair:

I mean, you had the one room schoolhouse on the prairie and they taught from like



Blair:

kindergarten to sixth or seventh grade.



Blair:

But I guess the progressive era changed all



Blair:

that because again, even though the Founders, I also believe they advocated for or certainly



Blair:

were in favor of government education.



Blair:

It was because they were living in the fated



Blair:

emperors of the Enlightenment era and they wanted that to be spread.



Blair:

But I think that was a mistake.



Blair:

What do you think?



Neil:

Well, it was definitely, I think, a mistake to have this kind of mass produced



Neil:

public school system that doesn't do a very good job at educating kids.



Neil:

I mean, I went through the school system, I did all right.



Neil:

I got a decent math education.



Neil:

So I'm not, I'm not here to bash my teachers



Neil:

or really any teachers today even.



Blair:

Right.



Neil:

But this, this kind of, you know, one size in one curriculum fits all type approach



Neil:

to education.



Neil:

I don't think that's the, the optimum way to



Neil:

educate kids.



Neil:

But then again, it didn't, it never produced



Neil:

school shooters up until before the late 1980s, so at least it didn't do that.



Neil:

And, and my focus has basically been on what is it that changed in the schools that led to



Neil:

the emergence of this horror.



Neil:

And that's really been my focus before that.



Neil:

Yes, I mean, I think it was all kinds of reasons why you might educate your kid in some



Neil:

other way, homeschooling or a private school, any number of ways.



Neil:

So there are definitely problems with the school system.



Neil:

But I would say the solution to school shootings is not, you know, obviously you



Neil:

might consider taking your kids out of these schools, but you probably should have



Neil:

considered doing that even before the school shooting starts.



Neil:

So they were not, they weren't all that good before the school shootings.



Neil:

And now, and now you got to contend with this issue.



Blair:

So I hear you, I hear you.



Blair:

You mentioned a gentleman by the name of Dr.



Blair:

John Simmons.



Blair:

Can you elaborate what he initiated?



Neil:

Yeah, so I've done a great deal of research over the years on this.



Neil:

And John Simmons, it was a professor of English education at Florida State University.



Neil:

And I came across him very early in my research and I'd always, you know, he wrote an



Neil:

article in response to the Virginia tech attack in 2007 by the English student Sun Wei



Neil:

Joe.



Neil:

And his article is a direct response to that



Neil:

attack.



Neil:

And, and he's really, he's just a well



Neil:

regarded professor of English education.



Neil:

And I regard him as a hero and a wise man.



Neil:

I mean, first of all, he's a, he's a hero.



Neil:

He, he was, he did, he served in the military



Neil:

in the Korean War, but he also is a hero for writing the article that he did and basically



Neil:

coming out publicly saying that there is a problem with our educational practice because



Neil:

it, it's it's actually linked to this school shooting that that happened.



Neil:

And he's basically writing this article to warn his fellow practitioners.



Neil:

And the title of the article is Dealing with Troubled Writers, A Literacy Teacher's



Neil:

Dilemma.



Neil:

And it's not a very long article.



Neil:

It's only about four pages and you can read it in about half an hour.



Neil:

It's written in plain English, but in it, Professor Simmons reveals probably the most



Neil:

important fact about school shootings.



Neil:

And, and it's, it's kind of interesting.



Neil:

I, I haven't seen anyone in news reporting discuss this, but tells us the origin of these



Neil:

personal journals that are often found in the possession of these school shooters that



Neil:

they've been writing in.



Neil:

And he explains that the origin of the



Neil:

personal journals and of personal journal writing is in the English curriculum that



Neil:

began in the 1970s and was implemented in the public schools.



Neil:

And I know about these personal journals firsthand because I wrote in one in the 1980s



Neil:

in my American Literature class.



Neil:

We had these personal journals and they were



Neil:

the exact.



Neil:

It was part of this program where you would



Neil:

spend the first few minutes of class just writing down your personal thoughts in the



Neil:

journal and then the journals will go away and the teacher would then would start teaching



Neil:

the content of what they, what it is for the day.



Neil:

And for me it was American Literature class.



Neil:

So I have, you know, when I first started



Neil:

seeing or observing that, that these kids were, who were attacking the schools, that



Neil:

many of them, it's not all of them, but, but a good number enough for there to be a pattern



Neil:

that they were writing these disturbing thoughts in personal journals.



Neil:

I knew immediately where that came from because I experienced that in, in 11th grade.



Neil:

And, and, and this is like the most shocking fact that is re.



Neil:

That Professor Simmons reveals in his article.



Neil:

And it's, it's not really even the central



Neil:

focus of the article, but, but he reveals it and, and it's not by accident.



Neil:

It's, it's, it's the most important thing to understand about, about these attacks.



Neil:

We need, we need to understand where these personal journals come from, from educational



Neil:

practice.



Martin:

Okay, Neil, I will be the devil's advocate here.



Martin:

We talked in the green room about journaling and I think as an adult it's a positive thing



Martin:

if you do reflection, introspection, and learn from what you have gone through and reflect,



Martin:

for example, on what you're studying and so on.



Martin:

But is this more like so called random outbursts and anger and this hatred like some



Martin:

psychoanalysis in a way.



Martin:

And didn't they talk about this Journaling,



Martin:

why they did it and how did that come up?



Neil:

Yes, I agree with you.



Neil:

Journaling is a very positive thing.



Neil:

The problem is that this particular method of journaling that was encouraged for the kids



Neil:

was to basically have them turn inward and focus on their emotions at absent the external



Neil:

world, basically to, you know, have them indulge their emotions rather than talk about



Neil:

or, or journal about the things that you mentioned about their interactions with the



Neil:

world.



Martin:

And I think and don't, and don't link the like responses, the emotions to value



Martin:

judgment.



Martin:

They haven't come so far maybe.



Neil:

So they're basically encouraging the kids just to rant emotionally in these



Neil:

journals.



Neil:

And this is really not the purpose of a



Neil:

journal or a diary even typically when you have a journal or a diary, because I've given



Neil:

this some thought.



Neil:

This is a time for quiet reflection about



Neil:

what's going on with you and your life.



Neil:

It's not a time where you, where you would



Neil:

sort of rev yourself up into this angry friends Nikolistic frenzy.



Neil:

And, and you know, it's, it's very interesting.



Neil:

You may have heard of the, the University of Texas school shooter, Charles Whitman.



Neil:

He was, I think he, I think that attack on the University of Texas was in 1964.



Neil:

I can't remember exact date.



Neil:

But he, he went to the, the, the clock tower,



Neil:

up to the clock tower at the University of Texas and committed a school shooting.



Neil:

And this was a very, very angry man.



Neil:

He, he had all kinds of family abuse at home



Neil:

in his life, but he spent time writing in a diary and he actually used the diary the way a



Neil:

diary or a journal is intended to be used as a means, as a, for, for the purpose of quiet,



Neil:

calm reflection.



Neil:

And I've read a number of his diary entries



Neil:

and, and, and, and this angry man that would basically use this diary as a chance to calm



Neil:

himself down, it didn't work.



Neil:

I think in the end he would, you know, his



Neil:

anger overcame him and he, and he became a school shooter.



Neil:

But what's what, what these students are being encouraged is, is the exact opposite.



Neil:

In these personal journals that Professor Simmons talks about, they're being encouraged



Neil:

to indulge their emotions to, you know, to indulge their anger into, like you said, that



Neil:

engage in this stream of consciousness kind of thinking.



Neil:

And when you, if in these journal entries are, you can find them at schoolshooters.



Neil:

Dot info on Professor Dr. Langman's website and you read these journals and it's just



Neil:

incredibly disturbing.



Neil:

They're just very angry and, and they, they



Neil:

revel in their Anger and in their emotions.



Neil:

And this is, I don't think, the intent of



Neil:

journal writing.



Blair:

I, I, I agree, I agree.



Blair:

Now you, and just to follow up with that and



Blair:

maybe tie a bow on it, you called learner based instruction and the personal writing



Blair:

journal assignments the perfect storm.



Blair:

And I think your evidence is overwhelming.



Neil:

Yeah, it's shocking.



Neil:

It's like you've got these two educational



Neil:

practices that almost seemingly have nothing to do with one another.



Neil:

I mean, the implementation of personal writing assignments was in the 1970s and prior to the



Neil:

introduction of learner centered education in the schools.



Neil:

The kids were writing in these personal journals and there were, you know, we didn't



Neil:

hear about any school shootings.



Neil:

So although I think this personal journal



Neil:

writing method, which I, I, I say is basically based on a subjective method of writing, I



Neil:

think it's problematic.



Neil:

But it clearly didn't lead to school



Neil:

shootings.



Neil:

We didn't get that until the, the introduction



Neil:

of this learner centered educational philosophy.



Neil:

And what these two practices are, are basically doing.



Neil:

They, they, they reinforce one another.



Neil:

So you, you're, you're pitting the, the kids



Neil:

against their schools, against the school system in the name of, on the basis that the,



Neil:

that the knowledge that they're being given is, is biased and false.



Neil:

And at the same time you're telling them that, you know, you should have an individualized



Neil:

learning and hey, go write in this personal journal and, and tell us all your, you know,



Neil:

your, your deepest, darkest feelings and your anger.



Neil:

And they're going to talk about how angry they are about the system.



Neil:

And that's exactly what Harris did in his personal circle.



Neil:

So there's kind of a synergy between these two practices that wasn't intended, but they came



Neil:

together, I argue, in a perfect storm which led to these attacks.



Martin:

Is it like this project or test or what was it called, the Wave or something like



Martin:

that? It was turned into a movie about how the



Martin:

students became national socialists and doing all this scary stuff like in indoctrination



Martin:

and taking orders and then follow orders and then put their hatred against what



Martin:

individuals.



Neil:

I think what's happening is that they're being encouraged to embrace their emotions.



Neil:

They're being, and to do it.



Neil:

And the school is basically sanctioning this,



Neil:

I mean, it's sanctioning this embrace of emotionalism and it's doing it in a very, in



Neil:

an academic manner.



Neil:

By introducing this irrational personal



Neil:

writing method into the schools, you're essentially saying, look, I mean, this is,



Neil:

this is more real, more important than, you know, learning your math lessons or learning



Neil:

Something about history.



Neil:

And this is why, you know, you get these



Neil:

students who today who are basically, you know, they're very subjective and they're



Neil:

always talking about their feelings.



Neil:

And the academics are almost like an



Neil:

afterthought in these schools.



Neil:

It's really a shame.



Neil:

When I was in school, you know, everybody was focused on trying to learn something.



Neil:

They were trying to acquire some knowledge and skills, trying to, you know, prepare



Neil:

themselves for the future.



Neil:

Well, Harris basically understood what his



Neil:

future was going to be.



Neil:

It's not that he was.



Neil:

That he was just against his school.



Neil:

He was against the institutions and the kind



Neil:

of life that was awaiting him after graduating from.



Neil:

From school.



Neil:

He. He rejected all of it because the



Neil:

institutions of our.



Neil:

Of our country and.



Neil:

And of the Western world, they all rely on scientific knowledge or the idea that you must



Neil:

acquire this knowledge if you want to achieve goal X or value Y. And he didn't like that.



Neil:

That approach.



Neil:

He just wanted to have his own thoughts and,



Neil:

and basically live in accordance with, you know, whatever ideas he had.



Neil:

And he didn't want to live in a world where he had to, you know, acquire this objective



Neil:

knowledge and live in accordance with such knowledge.



Neil:

He rejected the whole thing, man.



Blair:

Well, after all this horror and more than likely more horrors to come, the



Blair:

government remains unaccountable.



Blair:

Why do you think that is?



Neil:

Why?



Blair:

That's a big answer or a big question, I guess.



Blair:

And we.



Blair:

We don't have two hours.



Neil:

No. Well, I would, I would simply.



Neil:

I would simply point to the fact that they



Neil:

have the power of coercion behind them and they don't have to be accountable.



Neil:

You know, if we had private education and where people have to pay, you know, education



Neil:

has to be paid for by the private citizens and teachers and schools have to earn a profit,



Neil:

well, they're going to be a lot more accountable to parents when things go wrong or



Neil:

when there's.



Neil:

When there are problems or criticisms and so



Neil:

on and so forth.



Neil:

But how do you hold accountable this massive,



Neil:

you know, system of government education? Where do you turn and you have this department



Neil:

of Education that I don't think anybody is able to communicate with or have any, you



Neil:

know, any influence over? We certainly didn't vote for it.



Blair:

No. No.



Neil:

And so it's not accountable.



Neil:

And because it's not accountable, these.



Neil:

Our education system and those who basically inevitably take charge of it are free to



Neil:

implement ideas that may be destructive.



Neil:

And those ideas don't ultimately get examined



Neil:

or rescinded.



Neil:

They just, they.



Neil:

They typically remain in place.



Neil:

So they have these.



Neil:

This personal journal writing that continues on.



Neil:

It's problematic to say the least.



Neil:

And then you have this learner centered



Neil:

education, which, which nobody's examining.



Neil:

Nothing is being examined.



Neil:

When you have, when you're, when, when your field experiences some kind of disaster, like



Neil:

if it's in the aircraft industry, like I talk in my article, or the building industry, the



Neil:

people who are involved in these industries who have the knowledge, they have to come and



Neil:

examine the problem, examine their own practices, and they are accountable.



Neil:

Where is the accountability of educators today?



Neil:

Where are the educators who are examining their practices and asking, why are all these



Neil:

attacks occurring in our schools? I mean, aren't they responsible?



Neil:

They don't, they don't even recognize that they have anything to do with it.



Neil:

And yet these attacks are all, are all being done by their students on their schools.



Neil:

It's not as if the students are going out and attacking McDonald's or some, you know, or



Neil:

some mall or something.



Neil:

They're attacking their own schools.



Martin:

Yeah. Is that what they call in the industry product escape?



Neil:

That's right.



Neil:

And the idea is that there is some flaw that's



Neil:

been introduced that's been into a product, it's been overlooked or that has escaped our



Neil:

design intent.



Neil:

Right.



Neil:

And because it's escaped our design intent, that product is now behaving in a way that we



Neil:

didn't expect and it could be very harmful to consumers.



Neil:

And when that happens, we got to stop everything and we got to say, look, there's a,



Neil:

there's a problem here.



Neil:

We got to examine this.



Neil:

We got to examine our own practices.



Neil:

Only the people working in that particular



Neil:

industry who make the product are the ones who are qualified to examine the problem with it



Neil:

because they're the ones with the specialized knowledge to be able to do so.



Neil:

You and I can't really examine these school shootings.



Neil:

We don't, we're not insiders.



Neil:

I mean, I am a little bit because I have my,



Neil:

my certification.



Neil:

But it's really the educators that need to



Neil:

come together as a profession and take a hard look at their own practices.



Neil:

And until they do that, these school shootings are not going to end well.



Blair:

Again, let me take issue with what you've just said, though, in a way not to.



Blair:

But the teachers and the administrators that we have now, they were, they were educated in



Blair:

the same flawed system.



Blair:

So they wouldn't know.



Blair:

Well, examine it.



Neil:

Well, that, that.



Neil:

Well, that there is.



Neil:

You're right.



Neil:

I mean, there's a good point here that first



Neil:

of all, we don't expect these kind of catastrophes to occur in the educational



Neil:

system.



Neil:

We don't expect this, you know, mass death.



Neil:

Right? I mean, that's.



Neil:

That's completely unprecedented, isn't it?



Blair:

Right.



Neil:

So. So everybody looks at this and like, well, the schools can't be involved.



Neil:

The.



Neil:

The.



Neil:

The.



Neil:

The shooters must be mentally ill.



Neil:

You know, that must be it.



Neil:

So what we've had for decades now are



Neil:

primarily psychologists who have been researching into this and writing on it.



Neil:

But.



Neil:

And that's great.



Neil:

But the problem is that has had the unfortunate effect of delaying the actual



Neil:

investigation that we need, which is the investigation of the schools.



Neil:

I. I do disagree in one sense.



Neil:

You know, everybody is capable of examining



Neil:

their own practices.



Neil:

Yeah, you can, and I'm steeped in my.



Neil:

In my aircraft practices and my knowledge of engineering.



Neil:

But I still know that, hey, you know, when something goes bad with the engines that we



Neil:

produce, it's on us to figure it out.



Neil:

It's not, you know, it's not somebody outside



Neil:

of our field who's responsible.



Neil:

It's almost certainly us.



Neil:

And we got to take a look at what we're doing.



Neil:

You know, teachers are.



Neil:

The educators are perfectly capable of doing this, too.



Neil:

And Professor John Simmons demonstrates that perfectly, what he did in writing that



Neil:

article.



Neil:

That is the exact right thing to do.



Neil:

This is how it works.



Neil:

You see, you make a connection between your



Neil:

practice and some negative thing that has happened, in this case, a school shooting, and



Neil:

you're like, wait a minute, we got practices here that are connected to what this kid did



Neil:

at Virginia Tech.



Neil:

And now I got to write, I got to warn my



Neil:

fellow practitioners that we got a problem here.



Neil:

And that's exactly what he did.



Neil:

That's exactly the right thing to do.



Neil:

And what should have happened is that should have generated a conversation between



Neil:

Professor Simmons and his fellow practitioners.



Neil:

And had it.



Neil:

Had this been done, right, it would have



Neil:

generated this conversation.



Neil:

It would have led to the profession, or at



Neil:

least the English profession, coming together as a profession, saying, look, we need.



Neil:

We need a deeper investigation here to try to understand if there.



Neil:

If there really is something here.



Neil:

And Professor Simmons would have been



Neil:

recruited to lead the investigation.



Neil:

But that is.



Neil:

That is how it works.



Neil:

But that is not what has happened.



Neil:

But that is what needs to happen if this is going to be resolved.



Martin:

And as an positive end note, Blair, we have had on our show guests talking about



Martin:

homeschooling and also private new colleges and others.



Martin:

So there are a bright side in the future here.



Martin:

Have any comment on that, Neil?



Martin:

Any positive signs for the future for.



Neil:

You mean for.



Neil:

For other forms of schooling?



Martin:

Yeah, and education in, in general.



Neil:

But I do, I do see positive signs.



Neil:

There's some.



Neil:

I, there's something on Twitter that I've seen some person in Austin, Texas, who is promoting



Neil:

a school model in which you can do all your learning in just like two hours a day.



Neil:

And I really love that idea.



Neil:

I mean, I think it's so this idea that you're



Neil:

in school for eight hours a day.



Neil:

I just, the more I learn about it and



Neil:

understand it, it just seems crazy to me.



Neil:

You can learn a lot with focused instruction



Neil:

on the things that you need to know within a couple of hours, and then the rest of the day



Neil:

is yours to learn other things in other ways.



Neil:

So, yeah, I do have a lot of confidence in the



Neil:

future.



Neil:

What I'm not confident about is dealing, is



Neil:

dealing with this problem, which is not being dealt with and still isn't.



Neil:

And we've got continued attacks.



Neil:

And this is, this has got to be dealt with.



Neil:

This, you know, the education system is still a monolith, and it's got to be dealt with.



Blair:

Well, I certainly agree with that.



Blair:

And if, maybe after the show, if you could



Blair:

remember that, the instigator, the author of that particular education idea, we'll put it



Blair:

in our notes.



Blair:

But I also want to mention, I think, the mess



Blair:

that was the COVID and all the lockdowns, I think that woke a lot of people up to some of



Blair:

the horrors of the education system, because the teachers unions got a lot of press and



Blair:

they were saying that your parents don't, the students don't belong to the parents, they



Blair:

belong to us, or terrible things like that.



Blair:

And because of that, I think homeschooling



Blair:

went up 25% across the country and relatively short time.



Blair:

Yeah, so that's, that's a positive trend.



Neil:

Definitely.



Blair:

You still have the.



Blair:

And even if some Trump or some future



Blair:

president decides, okay, we're going to shave off the Department of Education from the



Blair:

federal budget, that's okay.



Blair:

That's the first step of what are you going



Blair:

to, you know, what, what happens after that?



Neil:

So, yeah, I, I agree.



Neil:

I think, I think the, the unions and the



Neil:

schools did reveal themselves quite a bit in this covet debacle.



Neil:

And I think that did open a lot of people's eyes.



Neil:

You know, for whatever reason, they, they played, you know, their cards too openly.



Neil:

And, and a lot of people learn more about the way the education system works.



Neil:

I think that's a good thing.



Neil:

There's no transparency.



Neil:

You have to have transparency.



Neil:

And there's, I think, very little transparency



Neil:

in the way our educational system works and the.



Neil:

What goes on in our schools.



Neil:

I just, I. And what goes on in these teacher



Neil:

training schools, the one that I went to, it's, it's.



Neil:

It's completely irrational.



Blair:

And you're a parent yourself.



Blair:

Not that I want to.



Neil:

Yes.



Blair:

Yeah. So. So that's what you've done I think is a magnificent.



Blair:

You shine a light on a very serious issue and I think you've hopefully have opened a lot of



Blair:

eyes in the.



Blair:

As we publish this podcast and add our links



Blair:

to it, I hope a lot of people will be able to read this.



Blair:

Have you had any feedback other than us wanting to have you on the podcast?



Blair:

I mean I know this was earlier this year, but it's so still relatively new article.



Neil:

But it is and I want to thank you for your kind words about it.



Neil:

But I have not received that much feedback.



Neil:

But generally what I have received is a bit



Neil:

skeptical.



Neil:

But that's understandable.



Neil:

It's a radical thesis and I certainly expect that.



Neil:

And it really is just the tip of the iceberg in my opinion.



Neil:

If there was a proper investigation of the schools on this issue, it would unload a whole



Neil:

truckload of additional evidence supporting my thesis.



Neil:

I mean I'm very confident this is a high conviction thesis.



Neil:

I'm very confident in it despite you know, some of the skepticism that I've encountered.



Neil:

But, but no, I. Overall I have not received too much feedback.



Neil:

So I guess I need to get the word out and I do appreciate being on your podcast because I



Neil:

think that will help get the word out.



Neil:

So I think this was a great, a great time.



Martin:

Yeah. And when we spread the good word and we also welcoming constructive criticism



Martin:

and feedback from our listeners and also you could send them a booster gram so called.



Martin:

It's a digital telegram and send small donation or a big donation.



Martin:

For example we have one Blair what we like 221905 Satoshis.



Martin:

That's Rand's birthday number.



Martin:

And you could also stream satushis to us and



Martin:

then we could split here with our guests.



Martin:

So what's on your plan or mind or agenda in



Martin:

the near future, Neil, if you want to share that?



Neil:

Well, I do plan to write more articles.



Neil:

The.



Neil:

The article that I wrote and published is really a top level, very concise article that



Neil:

I and I intended it that way.



Neil:

I wanted to be able to you to be able to read



Neil:

it in one sitting and you know, relatively quickly.



Neil:

But I do intend on writing articles to additional articles to elaborate on some of



Neil:

the further.



Neil:

Elaborate on some of the aspects that I raise



Neil:

in that article.



Neil:

So that's what I see in my future.



Blair:

Outstanding.



Blair:

All right, well, we'll definitely have you



Blair:

back then.



Neil:

Well, thank you.



Blair:

Great.



Blair:

All right, ladies and gentlemen, our guest



Blair:

today has been Neil Arian, who issued a product safety alert on progressive education.



Blair:

Neil, thanks for manning the foxhole with us.



Neil:

Thank you.



Neil:

I enjoyed it.



Neil:

I appreciate being in the foxhole with you, and I would definitely love to come back.



Martin:

Thanks.



Blair:

All right.