The Leipzig Connection (Basics in Education) - Softcover

Paolo Lioni

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0897390016 ISBN 13: 9780897390019

Publisher: Heron Books, 1993

Synopsis

In the shadows of the Bismarck’s totalitarian Germany in 1875, a little-known medical researcher laid the groundwork for a subject that in modern times was to bring American education to its knees--behavioral psychology. A latter-day disciple, B. F. Skinner, later wrote the book "Beyond Freedom and Dignity," arguing that such ancient conceptions as these are luxuries our brave new world can no longer afford. Another ardent follower--John Dewey, the "Father of American education"--took the new radical German redefinition of education to mean the reprograming of young brains and nervous systems, and applied it to his self-appointed task of creating in America the ideal socialist state. John D. Rockefeller, for purposes of his own, bankrolled what was in effect a hostile take-over of our educational establishment. "The Leipzig Connection" is a startling account of how and why these things came about. It lays out in concise detail the story of the development of the educational malaise which we have unknowingly dropped our children into, explaining not only declining SAT scores and the phenomenon of high school graduates who are barely literate, but also symptoms even more sinister: violence, prostitution and drug dealing in the schools, the self-mutilation of tattooing and body piercing, and teenage suicide.

About this title

About the Author

Paolo Lionni was born in Switzerland in 1938 and was educated there, in Italy, and in the U.S. (Brandeis University). During his lifetime he served as art director of several national magazines and his drawings, poetry, essays, and translations have been published in Europe, the U.S., and Mexico. For the last 15 years of his life, he was very active in the field of education promoting an alternative to the educational philosophies described in "The Leipzig Connection."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In the final years of the last century, a great transformation began in American education. By the end of the first world war, Americans would notice increasingly a change in the way their children were being educated. In the succeeding decades, the same schools that once nurtured the American dream would become infested with drugs and crime, and high schools would be graduating students who could barely read, spell, or do simple arithmetic.

This report details the origins of a national metamorphosis, yet it is hardly definitive. Major changes in American education, along the same lines as those described herein (and, in many cases, overlapping them), were wrought by the great Carnegie and Ford "philanthropies" and by a host of individuals (i.e., Col. Parker, Goddard, Terman, Yerkes, Binet, Piaget, Watson, Skinner, Freire, Illich, et. al.). Agencies other than those mentioned in the book also played major roles. Foremost among these undoubtedly is the august and hyperactive NEA with its National Training Labs, publisher of the "Journal of Applied Behavioral Science." Special mention should also be made of UNESCO's International Bureau of Education (formerly the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau), born in 1925 of a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

These initial and somewhat unexpected findings, however, incomplete, are released in order to help others analyze more clearly this tragic transformation of the national character. Further research has simply substantiated and enlarged upon the thesis of this work.

The ongoing debasement of philosophy and ethics, and its social consequences, is a tangled tale and, where references are not pursued or fully detailed, it is not because of an unwillingness to answer the questions raised rather it is from a desire to suggest a broader context within which the story unfolds. Those who contend, with Wilhelm Wundt, that history and its processes are responsible for the formation of individuals and their views (rather than the reverse) will undoubtedly find this approach unpalatable; then again, not everyone would want this tale untangled.

About this edition

• Publisher: Heron Books
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0897390016
• ISBN 13: 9780897390019
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 115