Anti-Intellectualism, Terrorism, and Elections in Contemporary Education: a Discussion with Noam Chomsky
Washington DC based History Teacher Dan Falcone and New York City English Teacher Saul Isaacson sat down with Professor Noam Chomsky to discuss current issues in education and American domestic and foreign policy issues. They also discussed the place of the humanities in education and how it relates to activism, definitions of terrorism, and how education impacts the perceptions of the political process in the US.
Dan Falcone: We are here again at MIT to discuss education, history, and politics with Noam Chomsky. Thank you for having us. I was just wondering if you could discuss some of the challenges you hear about from the friends you have in the educational field?
Noam Chomsky: A friend of mine was doing some interesting work in Falmouth. He works in a Falmouth school system. He was a Harvard cognitive scientist, but he’s now working with the schools. He started working with the kids that they have in a special track. I forget what they call it, but the ones who aren’t academically functioning. And when he began to look into it, he found that these kids come to school on a bus with maybe an hour bus ride. They haven’t had breakfast. But when they come into school they go crazy and he started doing some really simple things like giving them candy because he discovered that they have a low glucose level. And that’s having an effect, and when they come into school instead of starting in a math class he just puts them somewhere where they can just go crazy and run around. He’s gotten to the point that these kids are out-performing the main kids in the main schools.
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