#54: Michael Mendizza

#54: Michael Mendizza

Exploring 'Schooling' vs. Education with Michael Mendizza

Hey, everyone. In today's episode of "Conversations," I talk with my friend Michael Mendizza about schooling and the "miseducation" of our children. Our conversation revolved around understanding the difference between "conditioning" children as opposed to helping educate them.

Michael has decades of experience looking into this issue and has collaborated with most of the leading people who have worked on this question. His thesis is that schooling is essentially the process of conditioning children to believe in the tenets of modern culture, often at the cost of developing critical thinking and a path to freedom.  

In today's discussion, we explore what an education for true freedom would look like. Michael also has written a paper helping parents implement these principles. Anyone who is interested in education, children or has young children of their own will want to tune in to this interview.

Be well,
Tom

Comments 17

Lisa on

Been doing the homeschool for 3 years, yes, overcoming the parental conditioning is the hardest thing to do. We tend to think we have to follow the same stinking system we want to leave behind! thank you for this!

Anonymous on

Hello There,

To Everyone who has written for Michael’s information, please email CustomerSupport@DrTomCowan.com. We will be glad to email you a PDF that he provided to our team.

Warmly,
Customer Support

Stian on

Hi! Loved your talk on one of the most important topics we seriously need to address, if we are to change the direction of our global community.
I can’t seem to the list of books he was talking about. Where to find it please?

Scott Hall on

Amazing wonderful interview! Thank you!

Alison on

Wonderful discussion. I have young (10 yrs and younger) nieces and nephews and want so much for them to grow up in this way. Presenting information like this to their parents is touchy; they like the schools their children are being conditioned in. It’s the parents who have been conditioned that’s the problem.

Jimmy on

Very interesting discussion and this goes much further than just home schooling.In New Zealand home schooling is a popular alternative option to sending kids to state school. I think as it’s mentioned the difficulty is with any requirements to follow a curriculum or at in trying to show how the home teaching relates to the existing school curriculum..

Weslea Goble on

Can I have access to the bibliography that Mendizza talks about? Thanks

Dennis on

Tom, I thought there was going to be links provided to Michaels information?

Bianca Gadi on

Boy, do I wish had thought more about how to educate my children. this was an eyeopening super interesting conversation. my kids are in their thirties and turned out ok. my son, now a business man who graduated from Pepperdine, had fun all through his 12 years of school, not caring much about his homework. I got many calls from the schools to put him on medication, because he was disruptive. My anser to the teacher always was: I do not have these problems at home, and asked the teacher to do her job and keep my son interested and busy. Anyway, he started blooming in university and loves his business, industrial wholesaler for bearings. Soon, he will be a father, and I am going to send him and my daughter in law, who is a private school elementary teacher, this video. thank you very much for this inspiring talk.

Teri Lee Taylor on

Can you please provide me with the links and authors that he was referring to for parents to do our research & reprogramming with please !
Thanks!!

Angelika Vetter on

Hey guys…?
Im listening the talk and at the moment I’m at round 20 % through and I’m struggling with this preußischen system idea of producing soldiers. And what that has to do with you guys in the US. Is there some kind of information this ideas are based on?
Thx. Angie

Robert North on

Where can I find the list of books Michael Mendizza talks about please.

Kerry Blaine on

Do you have a copy of the bibliography mentioned in this podcast posted somewhere? Thanks!

SammieWalker on

This is an important conversation which I’m very concerned about too. I can’t bring this up with my own child on behalf of my grand daughter because she was too well conditioned in her college years. I didn’t want to send her off to college but the peer pressure along with social pressure overruled my concerns. She knew I was opposed and she didn’t actually want to move away yet but her father paid the bill and even our close trusting relationship couldn’t overcome those conditions. When she completed her 4 years of college she came home a very different girl
Than the one I dedicated 18 years to every day. She looked different and was on most ever level. It’s been a regret however, I know I did all I could do. We are still very close because I don’t over step my position as simply her mother. I realize I can’t actively do much for my
Granddaughter but I continue to hope things go differently. My granddaughter is now 14.years old and more like me than my daughter was. I hope we
All can make changes for all children. Thank you for this conversation
Sammie
Walker

David Hayes on

Great interview with Michael Mendizza.
I think of how diverse people have come to the same conclusion that the purpose of public schooling is to destroy imagination, prevent critical thinking, and condition children to do what they are told.
Maria Montessori was quoted even though she came from a religious perspective.
I thought of the cyberpunk book by Neal Stephenson called “Diamond Age” which has a very dark view of human nature and the world, but still recognizes that contact with a real person is different from just a curriculum and that the elite don’t want their children schooled in the same way as the non-elite.
Homeschooling in the Boston area, Cambridge public schools were supportive and welcoming (and do things like high school Opera performances) while most of the state is compulsory and attacks homeschoolers. Some homeschoolers, like myself, were religiously motivated. Others, like the family who were horrified by the success of that arch conservative, Barrack Obama, seemed politically motivated. But all agreed that they did not want conditioning for their children, but wanted true learning and play. One family ran a “class” on humor and how to write jokes because the daughter desired that.
The wonderful story of Polly Matzinger shows how schooling as conditioning goes all the way up through college, but that a person can make their way through the cracks to follow her or his own passion. https://www.famousscientists.org/polly-matzinger/

Leave a comment

Please note, comments must be approved before they are published