Losing the War on Ignorance

“‘Sorrowful each bird of the plain;/ Cry of raven for bright-red blood/ In the rough Winter’s sound./  Black dark Winter of smoke;/ Arrogant bone-breaking hounds;/ Iron pot is slung over fire/ After a dark black day.’ – Fifth Century Gaelic poem

“This succession of evocative images belongs to a society which is gone forever; a society which felt the days of winter in all their unrelieved blackness and dark. One may picture the people around the great fire in the open-air, the pot simmering over it and the hungry wolf-hounds jostling the company as they snatch bones which are thrown aside.” – Patrick C, Power, A Literary History of Ireland

I’m not saying Donald Trump would not have been elected if more people had read Hall of Fools, but I am saying that Hall of Fools shows exactly how and why we are losing the War on Ignorance.

If you needed a reminder that we are losing the War on Ignorance, you just got one. A special award for obtuseness goes to those who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, but of course they’ll have to wrestle the prize away from Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Tell me again what you were thinking?

Why are we losing the War on Ignorance? Because someone profits from the losing the War on Ignorance. Who are they, these war profiteers? You may know some of them. They don’t want you to read Hall of Fools. Some of them have even read Hall of Fools themselves and see the threat it poses to the status quo and their cake jobs. Some of them are teachers who are afraid to admit they are losing, who are afraid to confess they experienced a shock of recognition. Some of them, of course, are politicians who are adept at saying No Comment.

It’s too late to do anything about the election, but it’s not too late to Wake Up, America!

 

Wake up America! This is a must read book.

By Tess on August 6, 2015

Hall of Fools is a compelling read, and page turner, despite it’s 400 plus pages. The reader is taken behind the scenes of a typical (gee I hope not!) middle to upper class public middle-school in modern day America. If even 10% of this story is accurate on a national level, our country had better wake up and do something about public education. I believe this book is on the level of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” a genuine alert to the masses about a long on-going problem which is being ignored. This book is a gut wrenching story of deplorable teaching conditions, from incidents like fecal material dripping through damaged bathroom flooring, onto teachers in their lounge below eating their lunch to the constant level of violence and disrespect, both, towards teachers, and fellow students is mind boggling. When incidents like a punch to the face (facial bones broken) and heavy loaded backpacks intentionally dropped from upper levels on an unsuspecting student (resulting in a 3-week hospital stay for recipient) not only have no legal repercussion, but are the norm, it is easy to extrapolate and understand why our country is so violence orientated. It is a shocking must read for anyone and everyone. A lot of this book reminds me of the old movie, “To Sir, with Love” starring Sidney Poitier as well as other movies of that genre. The big difference is the school in this book is not an inner city, no funding school, but a middle to upper-class school district in a distinctive higher education University town, where not only do the all kids flunking at the lowest level get promoted anyway, but where the good students are the big losers in their education. I hope one of the major publishing companies out there picks up the rights to this book, it is an important work that needs to reach the masses. The author is well qualified to write on the topic, listing his 30-years as a middle school teacher.

http://www.amazon.com/Hall-Fools-Shamrock-McShane/dp/1511466553/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1430838905&sr=8-2&keywords=hall+of+fools

 

 

James Livingston, Professor of History, Rutgers, on Hall of Fools:

 

“Everyone who teaches, at whatever level of education, higher, lower, or in the hellish depths of private schools and prisons, needs to avoid this book, because it lays bare the absurdity of the enterprise. Every department chair, dean, provost, principal, janitor, or hall monitor, and every student aged 14 to 24 needs to read it, because it explains why we–us teachers–enact this repetition compulsion on a daily basis.”