In his book, INSULT TO INTELLIGENCE, containing much wisdom about the public schools, Frank Smith (PhD Harvard) makes one statement in particular that stands out. He says, "The hardest problem for the brain is not learning, but forgetting. No matter how hard we try, we can't deliberately forget something we have learned, and that is catastrophic ifwe learn that we can't learn."

One of the most powerful lessons schools teach children is "You are not a good learner." Despite the knowledge that children's brains are superb learning instruments, schools always claim that "failure" is a kind of sickness. Real or imaginary inadequacies are given clinical-sounding labels like "dyslexia," "ADHD," etc., to create the impression that physical abnormalities are involved. And yet, what is it the schools expect children to "succeed" at? Classrooms confront students with tedious, time-consuming and stressful nonsense, while rewarding and/or punishing their effort with pointless marks and grades.

Then there are others who have said, in various ways, "There has never been any relationship between school and what children are interested in learning."

Schools make people dependent and easy to control -- characteristics that are the exact opposite of education. This dependent attitude toward learning, once gained through the schooling experience (including, for some, being drugged), lasts all one's lifetime, destroying autonomous development or, in the words of veteran Jananese teacher Yoshio Kuryu, "contributing to the student's mental suicide" -- an end to thinking; a closing down.

That result, to some degree, is virtually guaranteed in government schools, where the ritual is boring and dull, the activities pointless, the expectations low, the rules anti-human, the atmosphere apathetic and coercive, the rewards artificial and irrelevant. And yet, under those ridiculous circumstances, if a child's behavior does not conform to an arbitrary standard, or if his/her interest is not engaged, and he/she does not learn a particular thing, the "problem" is always blamed on the child, never the school.

Everyone knows that the key to learning is interest -- not school induced "motivation." But when children are distracted or seem disinterested or fidgety, schools routinely decide that something is wrong with the child's brain, even though they have no evidence of it whatsoever.

Can we avoid any of the above madness? Maybe. Smith wrote aset of conditions that must exist in order to prevent the lesson, "I can't learn" from being learned." He called it the Learners' Manifesto, as follows:

1 The brain is always learning. We learn exactly what is demonstrated by people around us. Schools must stop trying to teach through pointless drills, activities and tests.

2 Learning does not require coercion or irrelevant reward. We fail to learn only if we are bored, or confused, or if we have been persuaded that learning will be difficult. Schools must be places where learning can take place naturally [by desire, not force].

3 Learning must be meaningful...schools must change themselves, not try to change us, to ensure we understand what we are expected to learn.

4 Learning is incidental. We learn while doing things that we find useful and interesting. Schools must stop creating environments where we cannot engage in sensible activities.

5 Learning is collaborative. We learn by apprenticing ourselves to people who practice what they teach [who don't just teach. If the child didn't learn, the teacher didn't teach]

6 The consequences of worthwhile learning are obvious [We use what we learn]. Schools, teachers and parents should not have to rely on marks, scores or tests to discover if we have learned.

7 Learning always involves feelings. We remember how we feel when we learn or fail to learn. Schools must not treat learners like machines.

8 Learning must be free of risk. If we are threatened by learning, then the learning will always threaten. Schools must recognize that continual testing [and many other of their practices] are intellectual harassment.

The lesson in Smith's list is that schools are bad places for learning, especially the public schools. They violate all of those recommendations, with every child, all the time. Smith's book describes what goes on in the typical school and sums it up best in one chapter, called The Nonsense Industry.