I didn't say journalists weren't allowed to write anything that has ever been written before. I do mean though that, this article is not "breaking news", and John Taylor Gatto has substantially more information about this subject than what was covered in the article. It's also too bad that the journalist did not cite Gatto.
It wasn't presented as breaking news. Salon is not the Associated Press, but a long form journalism publication. Also, if he never read Gatto, he still could have reached the same conclusion.
Heheheh, I find your comments interesting. I am not sure why you feel a need to defend the author's honor. I bring up Gatto's work because his conclusion is more far-reaching and in-depth than what this author wrote about in his article.
In any case, according to some of the other comments here, this journalist is less a journalist and more of an author who has done his own research and wrote an extensive book about it. In a way, the article promotes his book, or at least, it promotes his views.
Which, if true, would make the failure to cite Gatto's book even more interesting. It's possible that he did all this in-depth research and wrote a book without having once come across Gatto. I find that unlikely though, but hey, the world's a pretty big place. Lots of strange things are possible.
Speaking of "ground breaking", I've been reading something about the education system in ancient Sumer. I am not sure if they had compulsory education in Sumer, but they certainly have a sort of disciplinary-based education system that is eerily similar to our modern one. The connection is described in Gatto's book. The US compulsory education system was created and patterned off of the Hindu education system, one where a single upper-caste Brahamin can control a large classroom of lower-caste students. (The implication being, as this author has found out, the US education system is more about control and indoctrination and less about being given the knowledge and rational tools so one can be a free-thinking citizen). There is some interesting evidence that the Hindu people themselves, came out from a Mesopotamia civilization that had itself been derived from the Sumerian high civilization.
If that one is true, then we would have been thrashing about with this sort of education system for 6000 years now. Has it been working?
