I’m still reading Jacques Barzun’s book “From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present”. It’s the last of the 27 books John Taylor Gatto recommended reading (at the end of his “Underground History of American Education”) to give the reader a better sense of the historic context in which the American education system developed. His premise is to do a post mortem on the “Modern Era” which he says began around 1500 with the decay of medieval culture and the revolutionary impact of the Protestant Reformation, and has presumably now ended as we transitioning into a new era. Continue reading →