Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

“Educational reform is often construed as a technical problem. The curriculum project, which came into being during the new math era and which remains one of its enduring contributions to the curriculum field, was modeled consciously or unconsciously on the scientific and military projects of World War II and its aftermath that set out to harness the atom, cure disease, or put a satellite into space. A nation that can put a man on the moon ought to be able to reform its educational system—so goes the standard claim. But changing how and what mathematics is taught to our children is not a technical problem. It is a human problem that demands an understanding and appreciation of how people work together in classrooms to learn and teach and do mathematics. What brings them there? What is important to them? How can they be helped to do their work better? What does society want them to do with mathematics, what do they want to do, and how can these be reconciled? Why should they change what they are doing? These are the sorts of tough questions that were overlooked during the new math era but that anyone who would reform education must somehow address.” - From FIVE LESSONS FROM THE NEW MATH ERA by Jeremy Kilpatrick, University of Georgia

Yes, I’m still at the new math issue.

The quote above confirmed what might be the rationale for the seemingly irrational decisions that the most powerful entities in the world impose upon society. Indeed, educational reform (as all reform) is a human problem “that demands an understanding and appreciation of how people work together” - and the direction of that reform is clearly towards the most profitable, not for “our children”, but for the centralized, hierarchical corporate power and its bottomline considerations.

If the world’s greatest power can “harness the atom, put a satellite into space”, what more profit would it be to them to cure disease? Within the demands of business and gross capitalism, do you really think that curing disease is a primary goal?

I don’t think that Kilpatrick’s “tough questions” above were overlooked during the new math era. I believed they were addressed to enable a change that would weaken people’s abilities to think critically. I believe that the curriculum reform of that era brought about enormous talents in mathematics (as with my own personal experence and my experience with my 6-year old nephew, I believe that children respond quickly to abstract and conceptual approaches), and that these results posed a danger to the manipulative political and economic institutions currently in place.

If maths wasn’t simply about “1+1=2″ but was about numerical and spatial information, patterns, and relationships”, then learning math would bring about people who could see patterns and relationship among bits and masses of information. It is the ability to think critically and analytically. Nowadays, this thinking is dismissed as “conspiracy theory.”

A few months ago, I delivered a short lecture at UP and presented an illustration by Victor Papanek (1972) shoowing the relationships between “what people really need/want” and “what people are TOLD they need/want” and “how false goals are achieved.” Trevor remarked that the amazing thing about the illustration was that today the things that people are told they need/want are considered good and desirable things, and that the instruments of these false goals are just as good and desirable.

How true. For example, consider the difference between “work” (activity with meaning) and “job” (activity for status, money, profit and rewards).

What do people demand nowadays? “Work” or “job”?

I was surprised to see a number of locally manufactured products now carrying the label “sugar-free” since they have been using aspartame (or Nutrasweet) as artificial sweetener.

There is very strong evidence that aspartame is dangerous:

In 1991 the National Institutes of Health, a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, published a bibliography, *Adverse Effects of Aspartame*, listing not less than 167 reasons to avoid it.

Aspartame is an rDNA derivative, a combination of two amino acids (long supplied by a pair of Maryland biotechnology firms: Genex Corp. of Rockville and Purification Engineering in Baltimore.)

The Pentagon once listed it in an inventory of prospective biochemical warfare weapons submitted to Congress.

If you are taking aspartame, then you should reconsider: http://www.dorway.com/dblog/?p=35

But why are we seeing aspartame in so many food products today? Who told us that it is good for people who are dieting? For people who are diabetic? Who told us that we need it?

If true educational reform had taken place in the 50s and 60s, then we would have had true social reform, the political and economic spheres would’ve been very different, and we would know that so many of what we have been told to need and want and desire are false. Life would have been completely different.

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