Allow Me to Introduce Myself

[Objectivist]

If I could change one thing about the world with a wave of my hand it would be a change of how we educate our children.  they should be taught to reason.  They should be thought to think in terms of essentials and then they would be armed against philosophical garbage because they would be able to see the contradictions and stolen concepts involved.  

You got that right. Children should have a grasp of the basic logical fallacies and practice in correctly identifying them, before middle school in my view. Alas ... what we have at least in the US is nothing at all, and we will continue that way so long as conservative parents have anything to say about it. Religious totems and conservative policy shibboleths must NEVER be questioned or have to defend themselves on a level playing field. Ever.

My guess is that many teachers would not like that either. They would rather be automatically afforded unearned respect and deference by virtue of their position rather than have runny-nosed kids asking inconvenient questions. Most of those teachers would not themselves recognize a logical fallacy if it bit them in the ass.

We certainly have our work cut out for us.

I think it's even worse than having nothing here in the United States.  What we have is anti-conceptual education designed to create concrete-bound, range of the moment, feelings over facts mentalities.  The last thing they want is independent thinkers.  They teach everything as if it is a separate, perceptual concrete with no connection to anything.  One day they are talking about the french revolution and the next day Paul Revere and then onto ancient Rome.  In my whole school career from elementary through College, I was never taught what reason is or even given a definition.  It was just taken for granted that I knew, I guess.  Even in philosophy classes in college, it was never mentioned.  So yes we do have a lot of work to do.