​My first time through this book, I was not as impressed with this book.   However the book as grown on me.  I have made many notes in the book.  The one that I think has to most impact on this read is the importance we place on spending time for ourselves. 
 
“If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.  What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it – like a secret vice!” (p. 43-44)
 
I think this can still be true today.  If I said, “me time” it is much more acceptable than to say, “this is my study time”.   I can’t tell you how many times I have violated the scheduled study time because I feel bad for saying no.  Or even when asked what I am doing the response can be ‘oh only study so you are free to help me’.
For me the lesson I need to learn, and practice is to just say ‘I am busy right now’ because it is important that I set time aside to do the things I like instead of trying to sneak it in late at night when I am tired.

I do agree with the idea that we have made a mess of the education system.  The question to me is really what do I do about it for myself, my family, and my community?

According to Sowell what of the biggest problems is that American children are missing thinking skills because of the institutions and the attitudes within the institutions.   So the system is broken.  Institutions are not going to educate children in order to help them think because they have a different agenda.   "All across this country, the school curriculum has been invaded by physiological-conditioning programs which not only take up time sorely needed for intellectual development, but also promote an emotionalized and anti-intellectual way of responding to the challenges facing every individual and every society" (p. ix). 

I think this leads back to the reason we have created schools.  Why did and do we think children going to school is important?  What value should schools provide to the individual?  There are many books out there that try to answer these questions.  

I believe the biggest problem of the school is that it "undermines the parent-child relationship and the shared values which make a society possible" (p. ix).  

The family is the foundation of a society.  If we destroy the family, we destroy society.   The best way to create a great society is to have great families.  Therefore the parent-parent relationship and the parent-child relationship is the most important within any society.    Building a principled, moral home culture is something we should take great time and effort to create and maintain.  

Families however can't do everything in a society alone.  That is why we work to create communities.  So that we can create a community where our family thrives.  In Freedom Matters by Oliver DeMille, the author talks about the state of balance needed between seven kinds of leaders to maintain freedom.  One of the seven leaders is educational leaders.  When any of the seven leaders combine their power with another's power imbalance is created and then their purpose in the community is skewed creating problems for the society.  We have definitely seen this happen.  In this case it seems that the government (one of the type of leaders) and teamed with several kinds of leaders to expand their power.  In the process we have weakened the power of the family hugely.  In this particular case the government leaders has combined with the educational leaders to expand their influence, changing the purposes of the education system.  The education systems' purpose is not to teaching thinking but to promote their personal agendas.    

Many people have pointed out the problems in the education system but nothing really has been done to restore its original purposes?  The original purposes are rarely even discussed.   Today's system is set up to hold and contain students for as long as possible.  Very little effort is spent on teaching reading and thinking skills.  If you don't believe me spend a couple of days in the classrooms and count up the minutes spent on teaching students to read especially those that struggle.   Then compare that with how many minutes they are away from home.   Of course that is Thomas Sowell's opinion that education programs should teach thinking.  Is there something more or better that we should be focused on?  I think so. 

Do we have clear guiding principles to lead us?  Are they the correct principles we should focus on or are they distractions from the best principles?  Do we know what success looks like for each of those guiding principles?  Did you know that education systems have worldviews also?  Which purpose do you think is the most important to support and why?

The education system has not failed because of lack of money!  The education system is a huge business with a lot of money flowing through it.   Any person who believes more money should be given to the system has not looked into how much money is being spent and measuring it with the results that are given.   

My belief at this point in time is that public (and charter) school is the last place you want to send your children.  It creates so much harm and so little good.     

For our book discussions we decided these definitions: 

​*Virtue was doing the right thing for the right reason or the habit of choosing to do the right things.  An internal state that may or may not be recognized by others as it is hard to measure well.   

*The vices are either an excess of the virtue or a deficiency. 

*Anti -virtue is defined as doing the wrong thing purposely but knowing the right thing. 

*A monster is a person that deviates from acceptable behavior.  Virtue>Vice>Anti-Virtue>Monster

This as been a very helpful way to look at decisions as we read and discuss.  What would you add?

As we are starting to wind down our discussion year it will be interesting to see how we incorporate these ideas further.  Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and Dracula are famous monster stories.   Now I have a whole new level of understanding about how these books influenced me and why there are valuable books to consider reading. 

​In his book ‘Dumbing us Down’ John Taylor Gatto shows how networks “drain the vitality from community and family” (p. 52).   In pondering his writings, I have come to believe that schools and networks are counterfeits of family and community.   Building strong families and communities is the most important work we can ever do. 
So much good occurs when families and communities are strong. People have purpose and belong.  Work serves people we know and love.  People have names, not numbers. In a strong family and community, every person matters and the whole person matters.  
The United States was established based on family and community.  We have since moved away from that home-centered focus. We have largely replaced families and community with networks.   
The results are devastating.  Isolation, loneliness, and depression have become more common than not.   We are fragmented, divided and often desperate.   Why is this so?
It is because Institutions and networks do not truly care about healthy, strong families and communities, but on what they can get from us. Their purpose is to ‘survive and grow’ (p. 65).  Their intention may not be destruction of the family and the community but that is what has happened. 
We are so focused on being part of the right networks and institutions that we have neglected the places where we find real worth and belonging.  We isolate ourselves in these networks. And we require our young children to isolate themselves! 
Starting with pre-school children are often isolated from their families and trained to stay with their group. They are regulated to compete with each other, to follow the rules and to receive their validation from their school networks.
If they “succeed” in school, they are promoted and sent to institutions of “higher education” whose primary purpose is to survive and grow.  If they do well in these institutions, they are promoted again. Their reward is to get to buy more stuff than those people who don’t perform as well.  Finally, once these superior achievers are worn out, they are isolated again in retirement “communities”. These are mostly pseudo communities composed of transients. 
A defining characteristic of these networks and institutions is this: we may believe we are part of a community but when we move out of those “communities” the people we know rarely continue to socialize with us. 
As a nation, we have tried to socially engineer “better families and communities” through school, networks and institutions. But those efforts have failed.  People are not better off; they are not happy or better educated.  They have not become their best selves.  Instead, we encounter many wounded and lonely people. 
It is time to return to family and community; time to read those books that show us how to build family and community; time to replace social counterfeits with the real thing.