Posts in Education
The unbearable ignorance of politicians

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say if a typical MP could not pass a pop quiz on World War II or almost any subject, and voters and journalists don’t notice, it’s way past time we stopped letting the state run our education system.

Words Worth Noting - September 20, 2023

“Men say indignantly that we ought not to be worrying about creeds: we ought to be worrying about education. They might as well say that we must not worry about cats, because we ought to be worrying about kittens. A kitten only means the first stage of a cat. Education only means the first stage of some creed, some view of life.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News Oct. 3, 1908, quoted in standalone boxed quotations headed “Education” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)

Soft totalitarianism in state schools

In my latest Loonie Politics column I say the Peel District School Board purging all books written before 2008 is a worrying red flag about what’s happening in government schools… and I do mean red.

Words Worth Noting - September 13, 2023

“They talk a great deal about education, because it is compulsory education. Whether or no they can educate, they are always eager to compel. But as a fact their aim is the very contrary of education. It is the destruction of education, and even of experience. It is to make men forget the past, forget the facts, forget the very memories of their own lives. And if their compulsory culture spreads successfully, it is very likely that we shall be alone in knowing what was known to every man, woman and child, in the hour of our danger and deliverance.”

G.K. Chesterton in New Witness Sept. 24, 1920, quoted in standalone boxed quotations headed “Education” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #2 (Nov.-Dec. 2021)