

Our Bankrupt Elite

André Michaud

2nd Edition

Published by SRP Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 André Michaud

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SUMMARY

The deep roots of the 2012 Quebec crisis.

Cultural suicide by massive de-alphabetization of the population due to a severe lowering of the general knowledge base of the elite, caused by a decades long out of control degradation of the education system.

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The failure through ignorance of proper pedagogy by Quebec's pedagogues to address of the critical need for children to be taught to read and write properly before the end of the first year of primary school resulted after 40 years of neglect in 50% of Quebec active population being categorized as functionally illiterate in 2003 by the OECD despite systematic scholarization up to junior high school, with worse figures now taking shape for 2012.

The closing down in the 1960's of all traditional teachers training schools without integrating their high quality training programs into the university based replacement training faculties, combined with forced specialization starting at the beginning of senior high school at the expense of teaching a wide general knowledge base, resulted in all of the current Quebec elite having a general knowledge base not exceeding that of junior high school level of the rest of America, which severely hampers their ability to resolve social issues.

What is happening in Quebec should be a warning to all societies inclined to favor early specialization in their school system at the expense of the acquisition of a wide general knowledge base in secondary school.
Table of contents

Foreword

From Excellence to Mediocrity

Social awareness

The situation before the 1960's education reform

The 1960's education reform

The highway to intellectual and social bankruptcy

Disinformation on the part of the initiators of the 1960's education reform

The reason for closing down the classical course and the specialized teachers schools

The current state of education in quebec

State of University Teaching in 1999

The current situation

Strange directives to our teachers

The difficult teaching profession

A recent alarming sign

Analysis method

What question should be asked?

How to identify the source of the problem?

Severe Problems in our Universities

The Current State of Affairs

An international authority ignorant of past research

University circle insensitive to new ideas

Research hierarchy based on the level of entrenchment

Very costly wrong conclusion

The Causes

Error Noted Ages Ago

Recent Examples

The Consequences

University graduates unable of making the synthesis

The Consequences of Hyper Specialization

The Key to the Enigma

Knowledge base required to understand a problem

Knowledge base required to solve a problem

Objective comprehension

Comprehension of the elite

The Extremes

The Middle Ground

The inheritance of knowledge, left unattended

We educate technicians of knowledge

Scientific literature not very reliable

Only 20% of articles are apparently valid

60% of articles re-propose previously explored concepts

20% of articles are apparently fraudulent!

Growing difficulty in identifying reliable references

Articles difficult to evaluate by the specialists themselves

Fundamental research has become extremely difficult

Situation critical in the educational sciences

Hyperactivity

Dyslexia

The De-structuring of the Quebec society

Degrees awarded without merit!

Our education system, in the last throws of dismemberment

Comparison 1960 - 1998

Student repression in 1998

Inaction regarding the dropout rate

The real cause of discouragement of our children

Ritalin

How can a parent protect his child from the threat of Ritalin

Education is also degrading elsewhere

Our great universities, in the last throws of agony

Code of social behavior

Children growing up in unfavorable family circles

Could our elite's inaction be voluntary?

Strange views in the higher circles of research

Why such a contemptuous attitude?

The problem of hyper-specialization

The problem of insecurity related to under-financing

Economic performance since the "Quiet revolution"

Compensating self taught education

The recommendation of the High council for education

Unaware elite

Cultural suicide

Condescension or lack of understanding?

Our private schools network

Reintroduction

How to re-sensitize?

Chauchard's problem

How to proceed?

Last attempt at drawing attention of the elite

The impossibility of re-sensitizing the elite

Optimal entry point

The future of our children is in our hands

Why is it important to re-sensitize?

Why attempt to sensitize the population?

Evolution through accumulation of knowledge

The duty that must be associated to any power

Interpretation of Article 30

A Universal Academy of Sciences?

Conclusion

Egocentrism vs altruism

korzybski's approach

Collective egocentrism/altruism

Too harsh an analysis?

What does the future hold for us?

Appendix A

Attempt at re-sensitizing the university circle

First letter

Letter to presidents and department directors

Second letter

Letter to university professors

Result

Appendix B

The worrying state of education at the university level

Explanation

The Padfield ruling

Conclusion

Appendix C

Power and duty

Text of the Padfield ruling

Reflection on the text

Appendix D

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

REFERENCES

Reference Works

Articles from daily Le Soleil

Article from daily Le Devoir

Articles from daily Midi Libre

Article from daily Le Monde

Articles from weekly Les Affaires

Article from magazine Spectre

Article from magazine Québec Science

Article from Scientific American

Articles from magazine L'Actualité

Articles from Le journal de Québec
Foreword

Many thanks to Ginette Dumais, social worker, for the documentation she provided me with for this research project. Mrs. Dumais was busy for the past 5 years informing teenagers of the inner resources they naturally are endowed with to face potential drug and alcohol problems as well as of the socially available resources at their disposal.

As a member of a mental health prevention program, she wrote a brochure entitled "Me and My Mental Health" that was circulated in high schools for many years.

I also wish to emphasize the outstanding collaboration of René Angel, who from France, provided me with the better part of the information regarding the state of language teaching in his country and most importantly regarding the very effective early childhood language teaching methods of Glenn Doman and Jeanine Cougnenc, both of which are described in a separate book: The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence.

This analysis was carried out from 1996 to 1999, period during which the Quebec province administration was under the control of former premier Lucien Bouchard. It is in 1996 that this administration forced to retirement the last group of teachers trained in the traditional Specialized teachers schools that were closed down in the 1960's without their excellent pedagogy programs being integrated into those of the "Facultés des sciences de l'éducation" that then started to train teachers as the disastrous Parent education reform began being enforced, thus dealing the final deathblow to the traditional high quality teaching that our people had benefited from during the 330 previous years.

The first paper edition of the present work was sent to press in urgency in an unpolished version at the end of 1999 in an attempt to quickly draw attention to the negative consequences of the deterioration of the elementary and secondary programs in the province of Quebec as a combined result of the Parent reform and this forced hasty retirement.

This first edition did not become readily available for the general public since the distribution networks are a monopoly quite friendly to large editors, but leave no room for small editors not producing at least 4 novels each month.

It was circulated sufficiently however through targeted distribution to expected receptive decision-makers but without success, possibly due to the lack of polish of this first release or to some worry regarding the frustration that I did not hide in any way about the lack of awareness of our elite (whence the title of the book), or maybe because it simply made no sense to them as it was not originating from their circle, or worst of all maybe because these issues were of no interest to them.

Is it conceivable that at least a minority among the close to 200 members of our elite, chosen for their apparent open-mindedness, would not have read, even partially, such an extensively documented analysis, clearly at odds with the general default consensus on the state of our society and education system?

How should be interpreted the fact that none among those who must have read it even tried to bring these issues to the public sphere for debating, if only to demolishing their quite disquieting conclusions if they disagreed?

The reading of this book should allow clearly understanding the reasons for this silence.

The conversion of this now complete analysis to various eBook formats is occurring in 2012, that is 15 years after these last 8000 teachers trained in the former Specialized Teachers schools were retired, which means that the first contingents of students educated from the first year of elementary school after they retired, by teachers themselves educated from the first year of primary school in the education system put in place after the 1960's reform, are now at the doors of our universities.

Interestingly, an endless student strike involving precisely this group has been going on for months now with no end in sight in an atmosphere of growing social unease.

Newspeople and experts of all sorts are lost in conjecture as to the causes of this endless conflict:

"Nobody saw it coming and nobody imagined that it would last so long"

Author uncertain, comment collected by Le Devoir

Daily **Le Devoir** , June 18 of 2012

Why does the student conflict endure.

NOTE: For convenience, references to newspaper articles and other sources will be placed in line in the text right after the paragraph referring to it. For convenience also, the titles of articles in French will appear in English to maintain context, but the original titles are still be available in the Reference Section in chronological order.

The text of all articles referred to can be independently verified from the sources mentioned since all newspapers and magazines keep comprehensive archives.

Presently, without being able to predict the exact shape that the first serious social troubles would take, they were quite predictable 15 years ago already and it is just as easily predictable that more severe social troubles yet are just beginning in Quebec. I am afraid that chaos is looming in fact, while our political leaders strut around proudly, insensitive and indifferent to the difficulties of large segments of the population.

Indeed, a decades long accumulation of social inequities unresolved through inability or indifference by our elite, combined with a feeble literacy rate (50% of the Quebec population is now functionally illiterate and the other 50% including the elite, victim of a generalized lowering of its education level due to decades of out of control decadence of the education system) always historically constituted an explosive mix leading to the appearance of radical groups rallying all flavors of dissatisfaction. Once this wheel starts turning, it is very difficult to predict when it will stop.

The same newspeople and experts take righteous offence at some "behaviors" that, to quote them: "do not correspond to Quebec values".

One major question comes to mind regarding this remark:

"What Quebec values?"

They are no doubt alluding to those values that have not been formally taught in any of our schools for the past 50 years and not at all since the forced retirement of these last 8000 teachers stemming from the Specialized teachers schools. These values are then unknown by the immense majority of the new generations of the population since they never were taught to them.

Consequently, we are not witnessing here a clash between two generations of the same culture, but a clash between two cultures; the first quietly disappearing with the French-Canadian people, who by the way doesn't even remember its name, and a new culture not yet clearly defined now reaching maturity with this new generation and that couldn't care less for the nostalgic remnants of the deceased culture.

We will see also that the successive generations educated in the new system have been deprived of much more than the "Quebec values" of our offended "elite".

Quote from the first edition of this book:

Historically, our elite is not the first to commit such a cultural suicide. The Romans already paved the way as they forbid the teaching of the science of ancient Greece.

The quality of teaching progressively degraded so much that eventually no one was sufficiently well educated to rationally manage public affairs. The Roman Empire then progressively de-structured under the indifferent eye of those who glorified each other as being part of the Empire's "elite", while the Empire was in the last throws of collapsing.

Our Bankrupt Elite, 1999,

Chapter **Cultural Suicide**
From Excellence to Mediocrity

[Back to TOC]

"Materialistic orthodoxy is deeply rooted in scientists and philosophers alike and defends its articles of faith with a seldom equaled self-righteousness, even in the ancient days of religious dogmatism."

Sir John C. Eccles, 1993

Our vision of the world cannot reach beyond the extent of the knowledge that we allow ourselves to become aware of.

Social awareness

**Definition:**

Social awareness: awareness of the problems that ill adapted social structures inflict upon individuals who suffer from them.

The victims of these defective structures are obviously very aware of them, but they quickly learn that any improvement is totally out of their reach. But who then would be in a position to force an improvement of society's structures? Once all has been taken into account, the answer can be given in a few words: the elite of this society.

Now, how could we identify those who make up this elite? Let us attempt a definition:

Elite: Unstructured group of individuals mainly made up of a core of university graduates possessing doctor's or master's degrees in the various domains of intellectual and scientific knowledge, and whose actions or inactions, coordinated or not, determine the structures of that society.

But most members of this elite are generally quite well off, and never had to suffer much from these social structures that sometimes force large segments of the general population to suffer intolerable situations. So having no direct experience these structural deficiencies, social awareness must be developed through other means for them.

It may well be that the only possible avenue would then be acquiring a solid and wide-ranging general education, comparable to that provided at St. John's College, Annapolis, for example.

In the absence of direct experience, the feeling of personal responsibility that individuals develop with respect to social issues can only be linked to the extent of knowledge that this individual will acquire regarding humanity. Much progress and many important discoveries, that we will elaborate further on, have been made in this regard in the first half of the 20th century, but despite their importance for the progress of humanity, these discoveries seem to have generally escaped the attention of our university elite, due to inappropriate referencing.

This work is a post mortem, a metaphorical "Coroner's report" so to speak, meant to shed new light on the reasons why a vital element of this knowledge of Man was never widely taken into account in universities circles. It concerns a discovery on how the human intelligence works that should have induced dramatic improvements over time in teaching methods, which would in turn have brought about an increase in the level of social awareness of the elite as a whole, and of the feeling of personal responsibility of its members.

For a long time, specialists have wondered at what would be the long term consequences of the general hyper-specialization trend in all branches of university education that we have been witnessing since the start of the 20th century.

Paradoxically, the first victim of this trend was the only specialty that could have allowed analysis of these consequences, that is, sociology. Although he seldom was regarded as such, the last genuine universally knowledgeable sociologist was, in my opinion, Alfred Korzybski. After him, no university graduate ever had access again to a sufficiently vast pool of knowledge to allow further integrated analysis of universal social trends.

No one analyzes any more in integrated manner the impact of the excessive behaviors of some workers unions, or of the dramatically degraded quality of the education provided in some university faculties, of the quality of teaching methods, the consequences of the indifference of the elite of some societies on the state of their social structures, of the qualification of graduates, teachers, physicians, economists, etc. Discussion of these issues have become taboo.

As progress in fundamental research gradually came to a standstill as a direct result of hyper-specialization, funding began to be allocated almost exclusively, in the forties, to research promising quick results, typically applied research, because it had become critical for the reputation of more and more numerous scientists to have "something" to publish, whatever the objective value of the contents of the articles. This trend only grew over time, to the point that today where we are witnessing an all out rat race to publish anything at any cost (See Chapter Scientific Literature Not Very Reliable).

"It is pathetic, if not tragic, that society should invest millions of dollars to support such specialists who train future generations in maladjustment, just because they disregard the unavoidable neurolinguistic and neurosemantic effects of their teaching on the lives of their pupils.

Most scientists and educators are either entirely innocent of these problems, or indifferent and passive, or even in denial."

Alfred Korzybski, 1941

Science & Sanity

4th Edition 1958, page xxix

We now have at our disposal the perfect social case study, in the province of Quebec, Canada, a society that, for more than 40 years has been specializing its youth from the beginning of senior high school. It goes without saying that the bulk of the current scientific and intellectual elite of this society is a product of that system, with a formal general culture background not exceeding that of junior high school in the rest of America.

Moreover, the province of Québec is the only place in the world where teaching is forbidden by law for individuals possessing master's or doctor's degrees however qualified they may be in their fields, unless they are willing to sacrifice 4 more years to obtain a teacher's degree in one of Quebec's Faculté des sciences de l'éducation, only 2 of which being dedicated to specializing in any given field. Conversely, any teacher having gotten a degree in education is authorized to teach any subject, from pre-school to the end of high school, whatever field he specialized in. In fact, these teachers seldom teach in their own specialty due to their workers unions driven labor contracts.

It can be observed that the elite of this society has become virtually unaware of the severe problems that undermine it. How can individuals become socially aware, regardless of how many degrees they may have if the required information is not made available to them during their formal education?

Consequently, intransigence and intolerance, often under the guise of proud steadfastness, but which really is only blind stubbornness now pervades all levels of this society's social structure, and henceforth characterize relations between social groups.

At the time of conversion of this book to electronic formats (2012), it can observed that the situation described in this book only worsened as was easily predictable more than a decade before. It is perfectly exemplified by an endless and senseless conflict between some student unions and the local government.

Can we consider that we have socially hit bottom when school principals as well as teachers' unions, directly target their students to "pressure" their insensitive employer, the provincial government, in the context of their salary negotiations, a government that has become totally indifferent to all societal problems?

Daily **Le Soleil** , September 9, 1999

Call to Order: The Ministry Summons the School Principals' Bosses.

The problem of hyper-specialization at the university level is a worldwide tendency however, and wherever the reader of this study lives, he should worry and wonder at how far down the road to this ultimate dead end, the elite of his or her own society progressed. The degree of insensitivity of each local elite towards the problems of their own society appears to be a trustworthy telltale, but only a deep local analysis can reveal the extent of the damage.

The situation before the 1960's education reform

[Back to TOC]

The fundamental problem in Quebec revolves about a restructuring of the education system that occurred in the 1960's, As the first in a long series of improvised reforms, each new one meant to correct problems caused by the previous reforms, was being implemented. The traditional Quebec system, highly structured from the beginning of the primary to the end of high school, was quite on par quality wise with those of Ontario and most states in the US.

It was thus structured as a 7 years primary level going from grade 1 to grade 7; a senior high level comprising grades 8, 9 and 10; and a senior high level comprising grades 11 and 12, this final grade directly opening the door to the University level if the science-mathematics option had been chosen for grades 11 and 12.

I can vouch for this myself, having been accepted at the University of Ottawa after graduating from grade 12 option science-math. in Rimouski, Quebec in 1964.

As in the rest of America, the secondary level catered to the acquisition by all students of a wide spectrum base of general knowledge with no particular emphasis on any specific specialty, specialization being meant to be acquired later in Universities or trade schools.

Two other structures were also part of the province of Quebec education system and provided a sizable part of our elite with the highest level of general culture possible inspired by the best available in Europe, and that strongly contrasted with respect to university education, also readily available and whose programs were patterned on those of the rest of North-America:

1) An 8 years long **Classical course** , that the best students could enter after grade 7 of primary school and that provided the best and widest ranging general education, comparable in all respects to that provided at St. John's College at Annapolis and Santa Fe, for example, leading to a degree equivalent to the 3 years long first University cycle.

To give an idea of the level attained in this course, all graduates had studied classical humanities, literature and philosophy and could, among other things, fluently read Latin as well as ancient Greek that are the foundation of a large number of modern languages and cultures. This course provided basic education to a sizable part of our elite, including those who wanted to enter the religious communities, and many of those who wanted to teach.

The reader who may not have had the opportunity to benefit from such training may wonder at the usefulness of acquiring such knowledge. On top of letting students gather an enormous amount of information on the world at large and on the highest intellectual achievements of humanity, the acquisition of other languages and analysis of the writings of the great philosophers and authors of the past is a priceless training of an individual's ability to become aware of the fine nuances in complex situations.

As these abilities develop, individuals progressively leave behind dichotomic judgments that generally lead to irreconcilable differences in social relations as their ability increases to more clearly perceive the subtleties of complex situations precisely of the type occurring in social relations.

The interest of the **Classical course** for the Quebec society was that it provided an education of the highest possible level available to the more gifted students of all social classes immediately after primary school. Even gifted children of the poorest families had access, thanks to grants that became available for these special cases.

So before the 1960's reform we had available two separate courses starting at the end of primary school, a 5 years long general education secondary course in all respects comparable to those of the rest of America, leading to university for those who so chose and an 8 years long advanced general education course providing a level of education more advanced even than the first university cycle.

2) A network of **Specialized teachers schools** (Écoles normales) providing a 4 to 5 year long high dedicated quality specialized program that all teachers had to follow to completion to be allowed to teach.

On top of a solid training in pedagogy, the rest of the program was largely inspired by the Classical course for the humanities, literature et philosophy.

The 1960's education reform

[Back to TOC]

The primary reason for the 1960's reform was to allow more student the possibility to complete high school. Since a number of small villages on the territory had only a primary school, this forced families to send their children away to larger villages or towns for them to continue on to high school, typically to boarding schools.

This proved difficult and often financially impossible for poorer families, or for families with numerous children. But even in these remote villages, qualified teachers had at heart to teach properly how to read and write properly so they could complete elementary school with success.

Most villages with 5000 or more inhabitants also had high schools, but that generally did not go beyond the junior high level (9th graded and sometimes even the 10th grade was available) so that children also had to go boarding elsewhere to complete the senior high level (10th, 11th and 12th grades) (this was my own case).

To address these issues, it was decided to create a network of "regional" high schools (named "Polyvalentes") at reasonable distances from the greatest number of villages on the whole territory. A schools bus system would be set up to carry all students in the province.

An immense project, and highly commendable to start with.

However, the number of teachers available to teach the senior high level was clearly insufficient to allow integrating the senior high level into all such regional high schools. So it was decided to create an extra network of high schools that were named Collège d'Enseignement Général et Professionnel or ("Cegep" often shortened to "College" in everyday life) to replace the former senior high and trade schools. Some existing schools were expanded renamed, and others were relocated elsewhere on the territory.

This renaming scheme had however the unfortunate result that the whole population (including our elite apparently) soon forgot that the word "College" here in the province of Quebec means only "senior high school"

The primary level was shortened to 6 years in all elementary schools. Grade 7 was regrouped with grades 8, 9 and 10 of the former junior high level and a new grade (supposedly imported from the Classical course) was introduced for a total of 5 years in this level, that was named ¨Secondary level¨ and each grade in this level was renamed '' Secondary 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5''.

As previously mentioned, grades 11 and 12 of the traditional senior high system now belonged to the new local ''College'' level. They now had no very specific names other than nondescript "first year and second year of college" and were of course still required before acceptance at the University level.

In the enthusiasm of restructuration, it was also decided to reconsider in depth the complete teaching program.

The acquisition of a general knowledge base was restricted to the new Secondary level (remember that this level just about matches the Junior high school of the rest of North America). Specialization began then immediately at the beginning of the new College level (Senior High in the rest of America) for a duration of 2 years for those aiming at University and 3 years for those choosing one of the various trades.

I am very well informed as to what courses are taught in Cegeps since I followed a full time 3 years course in data processing in the early 1970's in one of them. Our children followed both a 2 years program leading to graduating from the first university cycle in the 1990's, and a 3 years trade program in the 2000's.

I was out of the country for almost one year in the mid 1960's when the reform started being implemented so I was not privy to the public discussions that took place at first. When I came back, I observed with great perplexity that on top of this major restructuring of traditional primary and secondary levels into new primary, secondary and college levels, both the Specialized teachers schools and the Classical course networks that, before the 1960's reform, offered to the general population the highest education levels in general knowledge and pedagogy then available in the province were being shut down completely!

As far as I could observe from outside the system, since I was already in the workplace, I could see no trace in the new Secondary and College levels of the classical humanities, and only watered down and optional copies of the high level literature and philosophy courses that were mandatory in the former junior and senior high school level!

I trusting however that the high level team driving the reform must have taken care somehow to integrate in university programs general education courses in these areas of a quality matching that of the Classical course and Specialized teachers schools, although I had a dim view of the fact that they were no more available in junior and senior high schools.

Already busy in the workplace as already mentioned, I ended up paying less attention at the time. Only much later did I realize that no! These subjects had never been integrated as general formation at the university level but remained only as specialties as before!

This came as a severe eye opener to me since this meant that from the mid-1960's on, except for those rare endlessly curious individuals who acquire wide general culture basis on their own, not a single university graduate in Quebec since early 1970's has had formal mandatory access to more than the bare bone general knowledge base given in the new secondary schools (junior high)!

As for the teachers program, from 1964 to the mid 1990's, their whole formation consisted in a minimal 3 years first cycle university course with two years specializing into one of the specialties required in primary and secondary levels (French, history, mathematics, physics...) plus one year in pedagogy. It seems then that from the mid 1960's on, not a single teacher has benefited from the solid formal training in pedagogy that was provided in the former specialized schools!

Confronted with the so obviously insufficient training of new teachers, a 4th year was belatedly added in 1995 after 10 generations of teachers had been graduated with only 3 years formation.

Note that I am fully aware of the official reassuring line to the effect that the new Secondary level was patterned on the Classical course. I am also fully aware of the official line to the effect that the Parent reform of the sixties was the greatest leap ever made in education in the province of Quebec that supposedly brought the local system on par with the best in the world!

Why is it then that no trace can be found anywhere at the secondary level and colleges of the humanities; no trace of the masterpieces of literature, and only a modicum of locally selected philosophy subjects, all of them optional courses? These subjects are taught only as chosen specialties at the university level instead of being the object of general education subjects?

Why is it that most university students graduate from the first cycle making more syntax and typo errors in short texts than the former elementary 7th grade students? How could everyone have forgotten that all graduates from the classical course could write quite elaborate texts without any errors in 3 languages!

I started to pay closer attention again as my own children proceeded through their primary and secondary education in the 1980's and 1990's, as I directly observed how poor the current program was compared to the one I had gone through in the 1950's and beginning of the 1960's and was utterly dismayed at the number of their teachers who seemed unable to write a note to parents without making numerous syntax and typo errors in rather short texts! How can these people teach properly to read and write to our children when they don't even know their own language?

We also had to teach cursive writing and the multiplication tables ourselves to our children. After a few questions around, we learned that this was not in the program! Why should cursive writing be mastered? Among other things, to be able to take notes more rapidly during courses than with block letters. Why should the multiplication tables be known by heart? Among other things, to be able to more easily calculate in everyday life of course!

So in 1996 I started paying very close attention and undertook to understand what had been happening to our education system. I spent the following 4 years exploring, gathering information, searching worldwide over the Internet for related data.

The highway to intellectual and social bankruptcy

[Back to TOC]

The chronology of the degradation of the Quebec school system is relatively simple to establish.

The new system started being implemented in 1964 in Secondary one and 1rst grade of primary schools. This means that in 1971, a first group of students entered university without having even heard of the humanities, having only vague knowledge that classical masterpieces of literature existed somewhere, that philosophy was an optional subject that most chose not to take and having no way to assess what they had been deprived of.

Three years later, that is in 1974, a first group of teachers having attended the new secondary system all the way graduated from the various Facultés des sciences de l'éducation and began to teach in primary and secondary schools

In 1970, the first group of children having followed all the way the new elementary course entered Secondary 1. But before going further, let us describe summarily what had happened to them over the previous 6 years in elementary school.

One of the main elements of the 1960's restructuring of the education system was the setting up of a Ministry of education to supervise the programs of the new system. A team of pedagogues graduated from our universities was hired to reorganize the new program.

In their enthusiasm for the restructuring and no doubt to demonstrate their knowledge, they decided to simply scrap the former primary and secondary schools programs and to rebuild a new program from scratch. This was for them the opportunity to experiment with many of their pet new theories, some quite ill advised that later needed to be discretely and drastically reviewed half hidden behind quite obvious face saving official lines.

One of the most ill advised decisions they made that still has not been reviewed in 2012 was to remove the obligation for all children to become proficient in reading before the end of the 1rst year of primary that had been a highly valued aim in the old system since it was well known that all children having become fluent readers in first grade easily progressed afterwards. Right here one can question the depth of knowledge of the team of pedagogues who took this decision and of those that still support it.

As a consequence, most children who had not mastered reading to a sufficient degree by the end of grade one were allowed to continue on to second grade and on. It goes without saying that they experienced great difficulty all through the remaining 5 years of primary, since it was already well known (except by our pedagogues apparently) that completing this training after 7 years of age is much more difficult than if it is mastered in due time. The references to the confirming formal research papers are regrouped in a separate work also available in eBook format: The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence.

So as this first group (and all groups afterward) started secondary school in 1970, a large number of which reading with great difficulty. The predictable outcome was that as they progressed to secondary 2 and on, more and more of them started dropping out, unable to follow those who could read easily.

In 1974, part of those who did not drop out of secondary entered Cegep (senior high) a number of which still having trouble reading and writing properly their own language, and in 1976, those who did not drop out of "college" (senior high) due to their difficulty reading were "ready" to enter all faculties of University, and here again, a number of which still had difficulty reading and writing properly!

In 1979, the first group of teachers who had attended the new system from grade 1 of primary school graduated, a number of which with difficulty due to their difficulty with the language and started entering the teaching profession, most of them never having been trained in proper writing techniques, never having heard of the humanities, reading very little if at all, with only vague notions of philosophy, and never having been given the training required to even assess what they had been deprived of.

As older teachers retired, these newly trained teachers progressively became the majority and effectively made up the totality of the teaching body in 1996 as Premier of the time Lucien Bouchard and his administration forced 8000 remaining teachers who had been trained in the old system to retire for budgetary reasons, that is 10% of the active teacher body, without any provision for replacement.

There were afterwards persistent rumours to the effect that hundreds of these retired teachers had to be very discretely rehired at double pay (their retirement pay plus their new pay) because the whole system was threatening to collapse under the strain of such a large number of teachers disappearing from the system. The same rumours circulated about a similar hush-hush double-pay rehire operation in the health system of hundreds of retired nurses after thousands had also been forced to retire due to the same budgetary cut operation.

Over the same period of time, 700 specialists in psychology, orthopedagogy, etc. that had to be gradually hired since the introduction of the new program in the 1960's, to help children who had begun to display adaptation and learning problems from the first years of the reform onwards, were laid off.

Of course, this is in no way a judgement call on the motivation and dedication of teachers formed in the new system, but dedication and motivation cannot replace knowledge and it is impossible for anyone to teach what one does not know or to use analysis tools that one has not been trained to master.

By depriving the general population of a formal access at the high school level to the humanities, classic literature and philosophy and by neglecting the proper teaching of reading and writing skills in early stages of primary school, our elite has been depriving itself of their benefits since all its members have no choice before entering University but to attend the very same primary and secondary schooling system that they have set up.

The consequences on the Quebec population are plain to see in the statistics of the OECD.

The OECD statistics of 2002 show that

While the rate of High School (senior high) dropping out decreased from 25% to 15% in Sweden and from 28% to 2% in Japan between 1982 and 1992, it increased from 27,5% in 1986 to more than 50% in 1999 in Quebec (junior high) according to the figure of the Quebec High Council for Education. At the CEGEP level (senior high) in the province of Quebec, 54% of boys and 39% of girls drop out without having obtained their diploma (DEC).

\- 33% of Quebec university student dropout without obtaining a degree, from the figure revealed by Pierre Fortin, professor at the UQAM in a radio comment made on June 11 of 2012.

Now let's see the figures for students who do obtain a diploma:

\- 52% of Quebec students do graduate from high school (junior high) while being functionally illiterate.

DEFINITION:

**Functional illiteracy** means for an individual that he is unable to understand the meaning of most written sentences and experiences enormous difficulties or is downright unable to use the information transmitted by these texts.

\- 38% of Quebec students do graduate from Cegeps (senior high) while functionally illiterate.

But one would have to be very naive in thinking that all students entering university after graduating from Cegep have total mastery of their mother tongue. Just like the level of literacy of the 50% functionally illiterate of our population, all having either dropped out or graduated from our school system goes from "totally illiterate" (7 to 10%) up to "able to read only in a limited number of situations"; the mastery of language of those entering university goes from "reading with difficulty" to total mastery for the thin slice of our population whose family circle favored this acquisition.

It is by the way common knowledge in the province of Quebec that the criterions of acceptance regarding mastery of language have been lowered more than once since the new education system has been put in place to allow a sufficient number of students to be admitted in the various faculties, including the Faculties for Educational sciences.

Teaching of the mother tongue has been so rotten in our school system since the 1960's reform that large segments of our active elite ended up deprived of the ability to clearly analyse situations more complex than everyday needs. What tool other than language would there be to think with!

For all those that the system failed to give a taste for reading, the inheritance was then of a limited vocabulary with words whose meanings remain uncertain and often unverified. Their analysis then end up approximate and their perception of nuances more difficult, which make them easier prey for discouragement and all shades of exploiters and manipulators. Isn't it common knowledge that an extended and precise vocabulary can be acquired only through reading?

Also from the OECD figures, it is observed that a staggering 48.6% of the Quebec active adult population (from 16 to 65 years old) were functionally illiterate in 2003, that is 2.7 million adults (a catastrophic increase from the already Disastrous 2 million people, that is 38% of the population observed in 1995), on an active adult population of 5.4 million and a total population between 7 and 8 millions.

This means that in barely 7 years since 1995, 700 000 more adults have been added to the group of those who have little chance of getting a decent job. That is, a staggering number of 100 000 functionally illiterate students, graduated or not have joined the group each year even when subtracting the adults that during these 7 years reached 66 years of age and ceased being counted as part of this group!

And there is no indication that this rate has been diminishing since 2003! Quite the contrary! In 2012, one child in 5 has now been "medically diagnosed" as being students handicapped or having learning or adaptation difficulties (EHDAA), which is a historical summit, an increase from 14,8% in 2004 to 20,1% today! A 1% increase per year since 2004! In some areas, the rate reaches an incredible 36,7%.

Daily Le journal de Québec, June 25, 2012

More students than ever in difficulty. Their number is climbing since 2004 in Quebec to reach record heights.

EHDAA: (Etudiant handicapé ou en difficulté d'adaptation ou d'apprentissage) Fictitious catchall "illness" unique to Quebec invented by "experts", that more than probably only hides their inability to comprehend that the failure of the system to teach children to read and write in due time is the most probable cause of this condition for the immense majority of these children.

Indeed, is it even conceivable that the number of children affected by a handicap or experiencing learning or adaptation difficulties in a normal population could jump by 5,3%, from 14,8% to 20.1% in the span of merely 8 years and that 50% of the same population, that has been systematically scholarized for the past 50 years could be functionally illiterate without the education system itself being a miserable failure? If such a glaring evidence is insufficient to cause all of our "experts" to snap out of their deep intellectual slumber, nothing will.

Through the fault of the conceited ignorants who piloted and managed our education system since 1964, we now hold the impressive record of standing at the bottom of the literacy scale of all industrialized countries except for the United-States, with half our population now illiterate, undermined and easy to influence!

Let us be very aware that in 2012, the first groups having followed the new secondary system from Secondary 1 and having entered University in 1970 (42 years ago) are only a few years short of the often mandatory retirement age of 65 (closer to 50 for civil servants). And that the first group having followed the new program from the first year of primary entered university in 1976 (36 years ago) are now in their fifties, which means that the majority of the active population, including university graduates in all specialties, have suffered the adverse consequences of the ill advised decisions taken by the Ministry of education team that piloted the 1960's reform, without having the possibility to even become aware of what they have been deprived of.

Just like the Internet and its benefits was missed by nobody in the 1980's when it did not exist, all of what the new system has caused to disappear from the collective awareness is not perceived as a loss by those who have never become aware of its existence, but its absence and consequences are real just the same.

Our elite has been regularly reminding us for past 40 years that completing secondary school was critically important to even think of getting a decent job and was mandatory to give access to College and then University! A totally normal line in all respects identical to the one that can be heard in the rest of the industrialized world.

But they very carefully keep under wrap the fact that high school completion in Quebec barely amounts to junior high school in the rest of America, and that what they name "college" is in fact only senior high school in the rest of America, the actual level universally considered (except in Quebec) as being required across the continent to even hope to get a decent job!

The illusion is made complete by the fact that while "college" refers in the the rest of America to the first university cycle, it only refers in Quebec only to senior high school, a deceptively subtle difference going mostly unnoticed by the Quebec general population due to the language barrier.

Disinformation on the part of the initiators of the 1960's education reform

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The initial disinformation to the effect that the new Secondary was inspired from the former Classical course, no doubt to lessen initial protests of those opposed to its withdrawal that was to be accomplished with the 1960's reform, was so effective that even the knowledge of the origin of the Cegeps has totally disappeared from the collective awareness.

More than once in newspapers and other media have we seen mentioned that Cegep were in reality a diluted form of university programs. What better proof of this ignorance of the past than this recent article from newspaper Le Soleil. The author, an economist and former secretary of the Conseil du Trésor of the Quebec government, and consequently a full-fledged member of our elite wrote, and I quote:

"Cegeps have been created to decentralize part of university programs."

**Translation from "** Les Cegeps ont été créés afin de décentraliser une partie de l'enseignement universitaire."

Denis Bédard, 2012

Daily **Le Soleil** of June 10, 2012.

What if the students were right.

After having mentioned the sad rate of graduation in Québec universities, which is 25% lower than that of Ontario, he phrases the hope, formulated as a "utopian scheme", that our education system could possibly be better structured if the secondary levels of the Quebec system were modeled on those of Ontario!

Nothing in his article allows determining whether he is aware that this "utopian" secondary structure really was a reality in Quebec before the 1960's reform. In fact, all indications are to the contrary.

It is easy to understand this absence of relation to our past since from the middle of the 1960's our people's history, be it recent or past, has ceased being taught in our schools, let alone humanity's history.

For the past 40 years, neither is any form of social behavior code, with the result that relations between groups with diverging opinions regularly turn into free-for-alls with as a prominent model our National Assembly, formerly respectful, where some Members of Parliament seem to relish openly disrespecting their opponents at the every possible opportunity, inducing senseless chewing out rodeos generally grounded on gross exaggerations or flat out lies, reaching the limits of the intolerable and sometimes beyond.

These brawls have remained verbal for now, but for the first time in our history, death threats have begun to be publicly aired in answer to mere opinions without any substantial reaction from our elite.

The reason for closing down the Classical course and the Specialized teachers schools

I have wondered for decades as to why the Classical course was abandoned and the Specialized teachers' schools closed down during the reform of the 1960's. As already mentioned, the initial motives for the reform were totally rational and justified.

But everything became clearer to me as I finally understood that the process seems to have been high jacked at some point by a team of exalted dreamers from university circles, apparently motivated only by the monomaniac urge to eradicate at any cost all traces of the presence in the education system of the religious communities who, for historical reasons, had taken charge of educating the children of the province of Quebec.

From what I came to understand, in the severely restricted field of vision that their hyper-specialized education provided them with, the Classical course and the Specialized Teachers schools were the symbols of what they considered "the grip" of the religious communities on the education system, whence the totally irrational decision to simply shut them down without even taking care to set up an equal quality replacement.

Actually, most members of these religious communities were very qualified teachers with formal degrees before being religious. Entering these communities was at the time the only means that poor families had to let at least one of their children have the opportunity of acquiring a high level education either by entering the Classical course or the Specialized teachers schools, because if they applied, their education to full graduation of the Classical course or teacher status was entirely paid by the communities. Of course, only youngsters of better off families could afford on their own the Classical course or the specialized teachers schools. But both groups were equally dedicated and qualified to properly educate the children of our communities.

The current state of education in Quebec

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As already mentioned, for the 50 years that followed the 1960's reform, a university first cycle degree from one of Quebec's Faculté des sciences de l'éducation, was deemed sufficient to qualify as a teacher, 2 years of specialization plus 1 year of pedagogy. But a 4th year was added in 1995, to belatedly compensate for the obvious deficiencies of the 3 years course. The first group of teachers having benefited from this new formula graduated in 1999!

BUT, It so happens that the 270 elementary school teachers to be, and the 165 future secondary school teachers who had just graduated from Laval University were at great risk of not receiving their degree that year!

It so happens that the 425 principals of the Québec city area's public sector primary and secondary schools welcomed them by refusing to allow them to proceed to their mandatory field training period -1- as a pressure tactic against their employer (the government), who was dragging its feet in a negotiation to increase their salaries -2-. For more than four months, the principals refused to allow all 2000 Laval students in education into their mandatory training period.

-1- A future elementary or first cycle secondary school teacher must mandatorily complete 700 hours of training in the field as an integral part of his 4 years education program.

-2- Daily **Le Soleil** , August 18, 1999

Training Jeopardized: 400 Future Teachers Run the Risk of Not Receiving Their Diplomas.

Only after our government made concessions did they belatedly lift the boycott, too late for the future teachers to fully benefit from the critical first 2 weeks of the new school year.

It seems well established however that as full-fledged civil servants, all of these principals had full right to go on strike to pressure their employer in case of contractual dispute. But it seems that it is much more comfortable to proceed by "pressure tactics" on full salaries at the expense of the taxpayer by taking hostage defenceless teachers to be.

"We will never agree to pressure tactics that affect the students, young or old".

André Caron, President FCSQ, 1999

Daily Le Soleil, September 9, 1999

Call to Order: The Ministry Summons the School Principals' Bosses.

"It is unacceptable that people who should be role models take students as hostages and not respect agreements ".

Minister of Education, 1999

Daily **Le Soleil** , September 11, 1999

The boycott is over. The ministry settles with the 3600 school directors.

Apart from these timid admonitions, there was absolutely no reaction on the part of our elite to this intolerable behavior.

I am wondering if such a boycott would have been allowed in Ontario for example, or if it had started, if a very public outcry from some segments of the Ontario elite would not have shamed them into relenting.

It would also be very interesting if someone would explain to us how the new four years teachers program compares with that of the former Specialized teachers schools since that 13 years after the first 4 years trained teachers have entered the teaching profession (we are now in 2012), the situation keeps degrading.

Despite the catastrophic degradation in the quality of the education program imposed by the Ministry of education in our schools, the large number of our youth who succeed in finishing high school, Cegep and university, easily creates the illusion that all is well with our education system. Those who succeed easily are out of the bush, so to speak, because our school system takes relatively good care of children who do not experience learning problems. These students often complement on their own the too limited education formally provided by the system and become enlightened and valuable citizens in our society, but their numbers in our elite apparently remain perpetually under the threshold required for any coordinated corrective action to auto-initiate.

If it weren't for the too tenuous nature of the subject matter taught at all levels, and the too great extent, time-wise, of junior high school (extending over a period of 5 years instead of the usual 4, which includes the imported 7th grade of the primary), our system could even appear, at first glance, to compare well with education systems of other industrialized countries.

But, under a thin varnish of normalcy, we find a very sick society. Our healthcare system is collapsing to the point that sick people are being sent to other countries to have a chance of being cared for in a timeframe compatible with their survival. Our education system is so deeply degraded that half our children do not even reach the end of the most poorly programmed secondary school system in North America without anyone in our elite apparently understanding why.

How can our elite not be aware that all is not well with our society?

"Politicians, pedagogues and university graduates think that the system is good because it serves them well.".

Charles Caouette, 1992

Professor of Psychology of Education

at Montreal University.

Magazine **L'Actualité,** March 15, 1992

Tell Me Who You Are, I'll Tell You Why You Drop Out.

Seldom do we find mention of these 500 000 youngsters on a student population of barely more than 1 million, who find the going so difficult that they are practically condemned in advance to drop out before reaching Secondary 5, that is the first cycle of secondary everywhere else in America; many even as early as Secondary 1, that is the former 7th grade of the primary school, without anyone in our elite really addressing the issue even if the Law mandates that the government make certain that school attendance be respected until the age of 16 for all children.

What does the future hold for those 500 000 youngsters who have not benefitted from a normal intellectual awakening because the system let them down and that their parents, by the hundreds of thousands, often dropouts of previous generations, themselves let down by the same system, are unable to help them out with their school work?

The answer is quite simple:

NOTHING!
State of university teaching in 1999

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The current situation

"Those who walk slowly progress faster, if they follow the right path, than those who run but stray from it ([1], page 23)."

René Descartes, 1637

Proceeding as methodically as possible, I started by studying the effects, progressively inching my way towards the causes.

How is it that in 1999, such a large number of our children have quit school by the age of 16, without a diploma and without ever having properly been taught how to read and write? How is it that some of them quit with barely more than elementary schooling without our elite reacting to correct the problem? In 1991, 10,600 teenagers illegally quit school without anyone lifting a finger to address the problem.

Magazine **L'Actualité** March 15, 1992

The Anti-Dropout School? Yes, it is Possible!

Let us consider here that the Public School Law states that the authorities must mandatorily see to it that all children attend school up to the age of 16. How many more have quit during the following years without the authorities filling their obligation?

Why is it that so many grandmothers discover, with painful surprise, that their grandchild 7 years of age is totally unable to read her magnificent cursive writing, whereas most children could do it at the end of their first school year, 50 years ago?

Why is it that after completing junior high school, so many children experience so much difficulty in adapting to senior high school (Cegep)? Why is it that after completing Cegep quite often with great difficulty, so many of the very few who continue on to post-secondary schooling experience so much difficulty in adapting to University?

Why so much dropping out? More than 40% in junior and senior high school, which represents almost half of the student population, and 25% and more in our universities, which is the highest rate of all industrialized nations?

Magazine **L'Actualité** March 15, 1992

A Country sick of its Children.

Why are so many among our children victims of aggressions and acts of violence? We refer of course to the stealing of their clothes or other properties under threat of violence that the authorities discretely grace with the tame and reassuring term of "taxing" to avoid directly confronting the issue of aggression in schools. Don't we often notice that when people don't want to see the disturbing side of things, they often use names that do not remind us of their disturbing aspects.

So the authorities have readily adopted this reassuring term of uncertain origin, which is now in general use and that decriminalizes so to speak this type of aggression. We even seem to accept it with an attitude of vaguely resigned respect, no doubt through a parallel being unconsciously drawn with "taxation", a completely legal and normal practice of the various levels of government.

Why so many aggressions towards our young girls? Why so many suicides among our young? We apparently hold a dubious record in this area among all occidental countries.

Daily **Le Soleil** October 6, 1998

On the Bitterness of Youth Towards Their Elders.

When considering the situation as a whole, why do we find ourselves questioning the value of the teaching methods, and the real extent of knowledge that seems to have been put at the disposal of teachers or specialists as they were being educated?

Magazine **L'Actualité** March 15, 1992

A Child sick Country.

Strange directives to our teachers

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"Personal greed and selfishness are brazenly owned as principles of conduct. We shrug our shoulders in acquiescence and proclaim greed and selfishness to be the very core of human nature, take it for granted, and let it pass at that ([2], page 142)."

Alfred Korzybski, 1921

Hadn't it been for the dramatic consequences of some actions taken by certain unions, who directly target our children, their existence would not even have been mentioned in this book. We will not, therefore, linger on this subject, because these behaviors are an effect and not a cause, and it is the causes that we want to explore in this book.

More specifically here, what are we to think, for example, of the behavior of these senior high school (CEGEP) teachers, who have massively accepted to follow a strange directive from their union, requiring them to delay the delivery of students marks, even if they were perfectly aware of the serious consequences that such an action would have on students in difficulty?

Daily Le Soleil December 12, 1998

The Winter Session May be Delayed.

Presently, the students in difficulty were the only ones to suffer any damage, and everyone knew it in advance. The employer's total indifference for this type of action is no big secret, so why persist?

Could the teachers concerned have the impression that they had no other choice? Well, maybe they didn't. It must not be forgotten that all of them are also victims of the same inadequate primary and secondary school system that was put in place in the 1960's.

It must also be said that the Quebec Charter of right forces teachers to belong to unions and is thus in direct violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 20, Paragraph 2 that clearly recognizes to individuals the inalienable right to dissociate:

Article 20, Paragraph 2: " No one may be compelled to belong to an association."

It was far from the first time that Unions actions directly and selectively targeted our children. Many may recall this situation which occurred at a junior High School near Québec city where our children were massively deprived of all services, except for the bare minimal teaching allowed for in the union contract, to protest the fact that the school authorities had begun charging parking fees for the employees' vehicles. Does a simple parking problem justify depriving all of the school's children of part of their education for months on end?

This group of teachers proved totally deaf to all arguments even when confronted with the desperate pleas of the parents. All of this, of course, unfolding under the indifferent eyes of our scientific and intellectual elite! Who really suffered damage here? The employer? We all know how totally indifferent our political leaders are towards our children. No! Only the children have paid the high price here.

Well, copycats did not take long to appear! In many schools of the Montreal area, teachers have apparently begun to restrict their teaching to the bare minimum of 19 hours under which level they would be exposed to legal action.

We are even entitled to some novelty! All over Québec, invoking lack of time, thousands of teachers sent uncorrected children homeworks to the Minister of education, done by children who will never know the grades that they would have had, in order to pressure the Minister, because they apparently considered that their ration at the public funding trough was not increasing fast enough.

Daily **Le Soleil** May 14, 1999

Legault Condemns Taking Students Hostages as a Pressure Tactic.

For many months in 1999, all services were cut to students in most elementary and secondary schools all through the province; an action planned since February of 1999.

Daily **Le Soleil** February 18, 1999

The CEQ Plans Slowing Down Services.

The whole population could observe the teachers' unions leaders on TV as they sidestepped too direct questions from journalists and that with reassuring smiles, they asserted that they were doing all this for the good of education.

By their action, the Unions succeeded in having thousands of children, some as young as 12, stage protest demonstrations in the streets in September of 1999, without protective supervision, supposedly according to unions leaders, to support the teachers' claims in their salary negotiation, whereas the kids were simply protesting the hardship imposed on them by their teachers!

The result: hundreds of children were arrested, incarcerated in police stations like criminals, where outraged parents had to go sign for their release, after paying fines of over $100 per child.

Daily Le Soleil, September 24, 1999

School Boys and Girls Protest in Montréal: 270 Children Arrested.

Daily Le Soleil, September 24, 1999

The Premier, Parents and School Boards Blame Teachers.

As for the thousands of other children who protested, they got off with simple detention on top of other hardships that had been imposed on them.

On July 16, 1999, having a hard time believing what I was hearing, I clearly heard one of the unions leaders, her sight unwaveringly aimed at the public funding trough, declare outright during the daily news bulletin on TV, "The time is over when we will explain at length to children in difficulty!"

What a striking contrast in attitude with that of the teachers in this American elementary school, who sacrifice part of their pay to allow the school to purchase books for the pupils. $3,000.00 will be collected, which amount will be equaled by a contribution from the local city hall.

In the week that followed the arrest of these hundreds of children, another incident showed how deeply our elite underestimates our youth. I will not elaborate on the grossly derogatory remarks that many newsmen and women and members of our "elite" voiced regarding the thousands of children who protested. Obviously, many among them probably saw in the protest only a simple opportunity to skip school. But was it the case for most of them?

A few days after the arrests, thus being fully aware that at least detention and maybe worse was to be expected (Suspensions have been announced for some, and the civil authorities have effectively promised them fines, if they ever re-offended.), a group of about a hundred children from a high school, where extracurricular activities were not being boycotted by teachers, blocked a highway for 45 minutes, in order, according to them, to show solidarity with their comrades of the urban centers who were protesting the teachers' boycott.

Given that extracurricular activities had been maintained in their school, and that the children's self interest could thus not be the cause, the school's principal was at a loss to explain these children's behavior. Was it so difficult to think that these children may envision a societal project reaching beyond the simple satisfaction of petty personal needs? Something that seems hard to find in our elite, these days!

Daily Le Soleil, September 28, 1999

Route 138, Blocked by School Children.

"The school children who skip school to protest in the streets are only "exercising their citizen's rights (...) and taking the stage" to voice their discontent.

My view is that the generation currently holding power can hardly teach lessons."

Clairandrée Cauchy, 1999

President of the

Permanent Council for Youth

Daily Le Soleil, September 30, 1999

School Children Protest: The Permanent Council for Youth Approves.

Considering that our schools principals, our elite, struck mercilessly at the first generation of teachers who received 4 years of training instead of 3 during the previous 30 years, at a time when they were most vulnerable, should we be surprised that our teachers' unions' leaders should as mercilessly strike our children?

Just like the Quebec area school principals, as full-fledged civil servants, all of these teachers had full right to go on strike to pressure their employer in case of contractual dispute. But it seems that in their case also, proceeding by "pressure tactics" on full salaries at the expense of the taxpayer by taking their defenceless students hostage is much more comfortable.

Our school principals as well as the leaders of our teachers unions have stonewalled all protests and have remained completely indifferent to the irreversible social damages that their actions were causing.

There they are, the role models that our elite offers to our children in our education system! What a shame for our society!

Thirty years ago, teachers' unions began counting the time that would be allocated to educate our children in minutes, instead of hours! This year, education seems to have become a race to whom will do the least, while our government financially strangles the whole education system beyond the bounds of common sense.

But harm has been done, and I easily imagine the moral authority problems that our teachers will experience in the future over our children, whose rights they have so thoughtlessly trampled.

Should we be surprised that our school principals and teachers collectively succeed less and less in eliciting respect on the part of their pupils? I remember the days when teachers and principals unanimously inspired respect to all children, and with good reasons.

Daily Le Soleil June 17, 1999

In Junior High School, Teens Need Help From Adults.

Feeling victimized by a system that allows this type of abusive behavior towards them, should we be all that surprised that such acts of contempt regarding their fundamental rights could result in our children developing a negative attitude towards teachers and the authorities in general?

What are we to think also of the strange behavior of the leaders of this teachers' union who seem to persist in their intention to force the leveling of salaries as a function of the number of years of experience without consideration for the level of education of the teachers, against the clearly expressed will of its best educated members, and against sheer common sense?

Daily **Le Soleil** January 26, 1999

Education, the Price of Independance.

Considering also the accusing, self-righteous public outcries from the leaders of that same union towards the government regarding equal pay, I must say that I almost fell off my chair when I learned in a recent article that in the 1960's, it was a representative from that union who visited the Specialized teachers' school in Levis, to convince future female teachers to accept salaries lower than those of male teachers!

Daily Le Soleil November 3, 1998

Québec Students: ...,Depolitisized, Uncertain of the Future

But for the time being, if this union succeeds in having remuneration leveled without consideration for the quality of teachers' education, we must wonder to just what degree the quality of teaching will go on degrading for the next generation, that is, for our children's children, if the more educated are discouraged to the point of abandoning teaching?

What are we to think of the fact that such news in newspapers and on TV never gives rise to any reaction from our scientific and intellectual elite, just as for all the other articles quoted in this study.

These few observations, that anyone of us can make, metaphorically are only the waves on the surface of the ocean. What we really want to know, is the answer to the question: "What are the underlying causes of these waves?" The causes that we will identify in this study will be considered obvious by some, barely believable by others, and no doubt, totally incredible by the majority, but they are very real, and easy to verify.

We can also wonder why the study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was never integrated into the formal schooling program, as our government committed to in 1949. Was it deemed unimportant or rather dangerous for public quiet maybe, that our children and teachers become too deeply aware of the inalienable fundamental rights that the Declaration is deemed to guarantee them?

The Preamble of the Declaration clearly states:

"Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms, "

"The General Assembly Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."

Strangely, in the Spring of 1999, after our government decided not to help prevent the senior high school sector (Cegep) of the institution from closing its doors for good, I saw a copy of the Declaration posted to the back wall of a classroom in Le Petit Séminaire de Québec. An abandoned Declaration, on the wall of a school being abandoned. An omen for our children's future? I hope not!

The difficult teaching profession

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Those who are close to the teaching community fully realize to what extent it is difficult to teach in our days. Few individuals will choose teaching as a profession without profoundly enjoying one aspect or other of communicating knowledge to young minds. It is certain that discouragement, no matter the reasons, wreaks enormous havoc in the teaching community, but the dedication of teachers, on the whole, cannot be questioned.

Many of them are deeply aware of various aspects of the problems that we are exploring here, but the corrective actions that they take can only benefit the children they are in direct contact with, and this, only for the short period of time during which they actually are in contact.

Given the prevailing trends in the system however, they are unable to positively influence all children, because teachers are never consulted when the Ministry evaluates teaching methods or the contents of the programs. It is to be noted, that our ailing Health System is dealt with in exactly the same manner.

Daily Le Soleil April 7, 1999

Blind Service Cuts at Saint-François d'Assise Hospital.

"If I was the minister, I would close schools for one week and invite all the dropouts to come and explain to teachers what they have lived through. Afterwards, I would send the teachers for further training, not to talk about programs, but to learn how to inspire and communicate."

"When I look back at all that I have done, I feel that I was not a good professor according to the Ministry of Education's definition. But I am very happy that I wasn't."

Jeannine Brault, 1992

Magazine L'Actualité March 15, 1992

I have not been a good prof, but i am proud of it.

Another unexpected impression that the Ministry of education gave some educators is that the main objective of the Ministry might well never have been to provide the best possible education to our children, but rather to insure the smoothest possible management of the system.

Magazine L'Actualité March 15, 1992

The Anti-Dropout School? Yes, it is Possible!

Since the sixties, an uninterrupted flow of reforms have been imposed on the education system at such a pace that teachers and children alike have been unable to keep up. The degree of incoherence of this succession of reforms seems to be a clear indication that they must have been concocted by a "experts" who took their personal theories for reality, without ever having spoken to a dropout, an experienced teacher and without ever having ever taught, themselves.

Magazine **L'Actualité** March 15, 1992

A Child sick country.

"The ministry's programs overcome us. There were so many of them in the past few years that I had to buy a filing cabinet to file them away. Teachers have to do a lot of cramming. They don't even have time to stop and ask themselves if the child in front of them feels like crying."

Jeannine Brault, 1992

Magazine L'Actualité March 15, 1992

I Have Not Been a Good Prof, But I Am Proud of it.

One can get a clear idea of the remarkable planning abilities of the select group of experts who decide the intellectual future of our children when we observe that the Ministry of education forces schools to spend the total budget allocated to buy manuals that will support the coming reform before the new program is defined, and of course, before the pertaining manuals are published. If I have been correctly informed, at the time that this book goes to press (the Fall of 1999), the schools of the province will have spent between $10 and $20 per student to buy existing manuals that stand not the slightest chance of matching the future program!

Maybe time has come for our modern "Piagets" to come out of the closet and introduce themselves to us to explain what they really know about children's education. And please let no one let them get away with showing us their degrees! Let them show us their knowledge!

I saw some on television, and I could directly observe that for them, a qualification in "pedagogy" for a teacher, means knowing how to control groups of students, and above all, knowing how to decode and follow the ministry's procedures in order to teach the various subjects in class. This apparently is just about all that is being taught in our universities' Faculties of Educational Sciences, as far as pedagogy is concerned.

It should be particularly interesting to listen to the great "pedagogues" of the Ministry of education as they explain why the program, far from insuring that all children properly learn to read and write in first grade, does not even allow more than 1 out of 4 children to complete this training during the full 6 years of the elementary course!

The ignorance of our elementary school teachers regarding the need to teach children to read and write in first grade is so profound that a network of "Reading and Writing Clinics" is sprouting up through the province of Québec, to teach children how to read and write (at the parents expenses, of course) OUT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM.

Daily Le Soleil, August 8, 1999

Reading and Writing Clinics: A Proven Method.

In some elementary schools, the very alphabet is not taught before grade 2 or 3! The failure is absolute! How in the world can children be educated before they have properly learned to read and write? Let them come and explain how our youth, even before they begin using 2 digits to tell their age, can be prevented from thinking about drugs, violence and suicide when no one has shown them how to think, to take control of their lives!

It would be very enlightening to listen to their attempt at convincing us that our education system has not been butchered during the past 50 years, by the most pitiful collection of daydreamers that our universities have graduated in pedagogy, in their gross failure to replace the Specialized teachers schools.

It was the realization in September of 1996 that the specialized community had abandoned a line of fundamental research that should normally have had a positive impact on all of these problems that convinced me to undertake the present search for the causes of such neglect.

We will see that it is not possible to dissociate this problem from the extent of the knowledge base that each university graduate becomes aware of at the time of his education. The extent of this base can vary from one individual to the next and from one generation to the next, but not necessarily in the direction of growth, as might be anticipated.

Alarming signs even indicate that the quality of university education is already so degraded that the level of collective knowledge of our contemporary scientific and intellectual elite seems to have fallen under the threshold which would allow this problem to be effectively analyzed and understood.

Even those who are aware and clearly comprehend the major problems that plague our society, appear not to comprehend why our elite does not react when alarms are sounded.

A recent alarming sign

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A disquieting sign of this degradation was to be found in a recent article. It is a deceptively innocuous looking little detail that obviously attracted no attention at all.

Daily **Le Soleil** October 20, 1998

Very High Rate of Dropping Out in Our Schools. Students in techniques and sciences can't bear the strain.

If the newsperson really understood what a representative of the Council for Science and Technology told her, he was informing us that the members of the Council were down to considering that only an "unknown phenomenon" or simple "fate" explained why 70% of the students who went into science or technology ended up discouraged and quit!

For those who are not aware of the existence of this body, the Council for Science and Technology is a body created in 1983 to advise the Minister of Industry, Commerce, Science and Technology on the most appropriate manner to encourage scientific and technological development in the province of Québec.

Could we ask for a better starting point for our study on the quality of university teaching, than to evaluate the conclusions of a team of hand-picked university educated experts, to whom sufficient credibility is recognized for them to be appointed as government advisors in such a body? As our study progresses, we will gradually come to the surprising conclusion that they are quite representative of the best that our universities seem able to produce!

We have here a group of specialists, recruited among the cream of the crop of the elite of our society, who inform us of their inability to understand why our children abandon post-secondary education! Why this inability? Doesn't anyone in the general population, however little they read the papers, however little they observe what occurs in his own family, rather quickly perceives serious reasons for such a degradation?

One could observe, for starters, and this is perhaps the most disquieting bit, that they use a language that we readily associate with irrationality and anguish when faced with some unknowable cause. This is a language that we do not really expect from specialists who presumably have received the best, as far as university education goes, to take care of these issues, especially when they are speaking of something as simple and foreseeable as the level of dropping out of the technological and scientific courses!

Why such a language?

Allow me to mention that we are not in the Middle Ages any more, when scientists tended to explain all that was beyond their more limited knowledge, through magic and the paranormal! At the time of this article, we are in October of 1998, and we are talking of the very simple causes of the discouragement of the overwhelming majority of those of our children (7 out of 10) who had considered a career in the sciences or technology!

In retrospect, doesn't it leave us to ponder a bit about the fact that there was no reaction to this article on the part of our elite?

So what! Will you tell me. Well, here is the problem: for our elite to display some reaction, even of surprise, to a declaration of inability on the part of a group of hand-picked experts, it is imperative from the start that at least some elements of this elite possess the ability to perceive what is abnormal in such a declaration. The fact that it emanates from a group of experts especially mandated to suggest to our decision makers what approaches are best to direct our society towards technological and scientific progress, elicited no reaction at all!

You may tell me that an unfortunate slip is always possible and excusable, of course! But this analysis will show that such signals literally ooze out from every structure in our society. One can observe them almost daily in newspapers and on television!

John Saul, a reputable contemporary essayist, also finds very strange...

"... that at this XXth Century's end, we are witnessing a return to fate, a return to beliefs in inescapable forces that render action useless."

**John Saul,** Author of

**The Unconscious Civilization** , and

**The Doubter's** **Companion**

Daily Le Soleil November 1, 1998

Big Changes Without the Public's consent.

Innumerable examples can be found; from this psychologist, university professor, who claimed last summer in a newspaper, his deep conviction that all adults are potential sexual aggressors of children, especially men, or at the other extreme, this psychiatrist who claimed on television as recently as February 1999, that to prosecute a man who was in possession of photographic proof of sexual crimes committed against children constitutes a witch hunt.

Daily **Le Soleil** April 26, 1999

The Right to Juvenile Porno, in Court.

And let's not forget this neurobiologist who published a "scientific" article last year, asserting that women are less intelligent than men because they supposedly have 4 millions neurons less than men!

For information, even the number of 100 billion neurons, which is generally accepted in the scientific community for the human brain, is only an estimation. No one has ever physically counted the neurons in a human brain, no matter what anyone might say about it. Consequently, this relatively insignificant number of 4 million is obviously unfounded. The fact that no rectification was done by the specialized community is just one more sign of the worldwide deplorable state of university teaching. See Chapter Scientific literature not very reliable regarding the reliability of "scientific articles".

No rectification ever emanated from the specialized community!

We will see also in Chapter Strange Views in the Higher Circles of Research that I am not the first whose attention is attracted by the writings of the Council for Science and Technology.

During this study, we are going to examine and analyze declarations from university graduates who are at the forefront of our society, as well as some from internationally known university graduates. We will see that ignorance and narrowness of knowledge base is not restricted to a minor segment of the scientific and intellectual elite. It presently is a generalized trend the world over.

The situation is very serious and parents must react by taking charge themselves of the education of their children, because what is brewing right under our noses is without precedent, and the consequences are impossible to assess.

However, the symptoms are quite subtle and generally escape our attention except for a few apparently disconnected cases occurring over extended periods of time, which prevents us from establishing a global perspective. One thing is absolutely certain: the next generation, that of our children, will be at the heart of the social catastrophe that is being prepared right now. We will come back to this issue in Section Destructuring of the Quebec society.

Analysis method

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What question should be asked?

"Questioning everything or believing everything, are two equally convenient solutions, either one of which spares us the effort of thinking. ([3], page 24)"

Henri Poincaré, 1905

We find the same formulation on page 4 of Manhood of Humanity, published in 1921 by Alfred Korzybski, 19 years after the publication of **Science** and Hypothesis by Poincare. An untiring reader of everything that existed at the time regarding all sciences and profoundly adhering to the idea, but apparently not remembering its origin, Korzybski proposed it again without quoting Poincaré, despite the obvious fact that the latter's work is quite familiar to him. In fact, It is rather reassuring to glimpse the shadow of a scientist as universally respected as Poincaré in the background of Korzybski's thinking.

As we all know, going to extremes often leads to trouble. Experience quickly teaches that when presented with opposite options, the best option usually lies somewhere between two possible extremes, seldom at one of the extremes.

It seems obvious that we must look for middle grounds in everything. In general, common sense is our guide to determine where such middle ground is to be found. In the case of Poincaré's quote, no matter how we look at the meaning of the quote, middle ground seems to always lead to the following question:

"What should I believe?"

And this question appears to be appropriate to explore any aspect of life.

How to identify the source of the problem?

An examination of the state of education in elementary and secondary school ([4], Part 1 and Part 2) already turned our attention to universities to question what exactly was taught to those who are responsible of educating our children? The question is serious and sensitive, because it brings us to question the very knowledge of the professionals involved in education at all levels, even if it seems practically impossible that the concerned individuals would for a single moment, consider questioning the value of their own education or the extent of their knowledge base.

Despite the rigid constraints imposed on them by ill adapted and constantly changing programs from the Ministry of education and the inadequate methods that have become traditional, logic leads us to conclude that it is impossible that the quality of education given to our children in elementary and high school would not be directly related to the quality of education that the teachers themselves have received.

Moreover, the comments from the representative of the Council for Science and Technology lead us to question the knowledge base of the intellectual and scientific elite as a whole. An elite that did not react at every step of the progressive degradation of our education system. Except for a few weak sounding alarmed interrogations heard from time to time and that systematically remained unanswered, no solid protest ever materialized on the part of our elite.

Why?

An in-depth examination of the teaching methods in university circles brings us to become aware of the disastrous state of teaching at that level. It becomes easier then to make the connection between cause and effect. We are not talking here of some vague problem, but of a severe structural defect that sinks deep roots into the past and that had, over time, repercussions on the entire social structure.

These repercussions, already noticeable at the world level at the beginning of the century, were clearly exposed 80 years ago, but this exposure did not attract the attention of the intellectual and scientific elite of the time.

Why?

Can the general population do something to improve this situation? On the short term, certainly not! But in the long run, quite possibly.

Appendix B offers the text of a stage report made one year after the beginning of this exploration.

The conclusions drawn in this book are supported by two analyses carried out 80 years apart. The first can be found in Manhood of Humanity, published in 1921, written by Alfred Korzybski, founder of the Institute of General Semantics. The second was published in 1997 by anthropologist François Dumont, L'intégrité scientifique en zone grise, a straightforward look at the state of research in one of our universities, a study that in the same breath reveals the reasons for the practically total discontinuation of all fundamental research at that institution.

These two works confirm important segments of the conclusions drawn in the present analysis and show that the only evolution that occurred at the university level since the 1920's regarding this issue is a worsening of the problems noted in 1921. The fact that no reaction followed the publication of the extremely severe criticism of François Dumont is more than revealing.

Following this reading, I invite the reader to examine the society in which he lives and that foreshadows that which awaits our children.

Severe problems in our universities

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"Those amongst us who have faith in universities must not refrain from criticizing them for fear of weakening them, even more so in this period of crisis. This would be a disservice to them. ([5], page 80)"

John Saul, 1996

The critically important research that should have induced enormous progress in education methods were never taught in any university due to lack of proper referencing.

This is despite an important effort of sensitization undertaken by neurophysiologist Paul Chauchard in the 1940's and 50's, in order to raise the level of awareness of his colleagues regarding the functioning of the human thinking process.

Independently, Alfred Korzybski attempted for decades, from the 1920's up until the 1950's, to sensitize the elite to severe problems regarding teaching methods, and of the difficult to remedy the related psychological damage caused to the adult population, particularly to the elite, as a consequence of the use of these ill adapted teaching methods.

They did not succeed unfortunately, for it is a well established reality that individuals acting alone, however qualified they may recognize as being, seldom succeed in reversing widely established trends. They remained alone because in many fields, students are not even informed of the existence of important research which took place in the first half of the 20th century.

It seems that in all sectors of university education, professors and assistant-professors promote ideas that they themselves share and for which they receive grants, but generally do not say much of the research that is not going in the same direction, or of research that is not likely to beget grants ([6], pages 48 to 73 and page 87). Quite often, they themselves have never heard of that research from those who taught them.

"Our future teachers are educated by researchers in education who talk about their doctor's thesis! The majority of them have never taught to children. Instead of wondering what is wrong with the dropouts, we should wonder what is wrong with the school."

Charles Caouette, 1992

Magazine L'Actualité, March 15, 1992,

Tell Me Who You Are, I'll Tell You Why You Drop Out.

It is presently impossible for pedagogues, teachers and all flavors of specialists in education to have learned more than what the professors who taught them, gave them access to. The busy schedules of students leaves not time for them to explore much on their own outside the general directions that their courses lead them towards, and after they graduate, their mind is generally satisfied with the coherence that they came to accept and seldom look for alternatives.

A conspicuous case of rather generalized such acceptance without real re-questioning of the foundations is the prescription almost always for non medical reasons of Ritalin and other powerful drugs, to a frighteningly great number of "supposedly" agitated young children.

See chapter Ritalin and a Critical analysis of this research report on Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder **(RRSSS) in 1999.**

"Hyperactivity, at least what can be observed of it, could well be only a sign of lack of education."

**Dr Robert Dubé, 1999,** specialized pediatrician

for child development

at Sainte-Justine Hospital.

Daily **Le Soleil** April 28, 1999

Tying Them to Their Chairs?

Shouldn't a worried and aware parent deeply question this practice? We are dealing here with an amphetamine related drug that induces a strong psychological and physiological dependence. Must he accept, without a word, that his child be literally transformed into a junky, even legally, even for a "good motive", so to speak?

"We can tell in the very first grade which children will eventually drop out. There are no mediocre children. We manufacture them when we compare them to one another within a system where there is no room for differences."

Jeannine Brault, 1992

Magazine L'Actualité March 15, 1992

I Have Not Been a Good Prof, But I Am Proud of it.

It is easy to learn how to correctly awaken the intelligence of a child. When the proper approach is used, children gradually calm down and remain calm in correlation with the norms of their age, because they understand and control their environment better.

The results obtained with Glenn Doman's method on tens of thousands of children since the sixties even indicate that the ideal period to train children to read is between 9 months and 4 years of age, that is, at the same time as the child learns to speak!

The absolute prerequisite however is that the child benefits from the attention of one or more adults all through his childhood, preferably his mother and father, who will take care of the initial development of his verbal abilities, and by enlightened educators until a relatively advanced stage of his teens? Birds care for their little ones regarding feeding, security and supervision of flight training, until they can safely leave the nest. Shouldn't such a feat be easily achievable by the most evolved species of the planet?

Those who undertake actions in the right direction should not be discouraged if they do not get immediate results. The fact that this development is a slow process, like the growth of a tree, must always be kept in mind.

We are not talking here of any new technique to more easily detect learning problems in children! In reality, we simply have to collectively become aware of the normal functioning of the nervous system as it has been discovered to be, by researchers of the first half of the 20th century, and very simply do what is required for the child's mind to start working in the optimal manner that it is biologically designed to work, which will prevent the onset of problems.

The current state of affairs

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An international authority ignorant of past research

Gordon M. Shepherd, an internationally reputed neurobiologist, one of the pillars of American neurobiological science, wrote on page 3 of the Introduction of his book Neurobiology that one of the reasons that justify study of neurobiology is that...

"The brain is the organ through which we think. Some therefore think that this offers the supreme philosophical challenge: understanding how the brain can enable us to understand."

Gordon M. Shepherd, 1994

**Neurobiology** by G. Shepherd is one of the modern references of the field of neurobiology. His book was published in 1994, that is 65 years after Pavlov's discoveries.

This is fine and unsurprisingly expected in the intro of such a major textbook but he then goes on to add between parentheses:

"(If you already know the answer to this enigma, proceed directly to page 684!)"

In other words he was directing us to the last page of his book! At first, I took this as a joke, but as I read on, I discovered that effectively, not a word was said in his book of past discoveries on this subject.

Not a word in his supposedly leading edge book about the groundbreaking discoveries of Donald Hebb in the 1940's on the so obviously related working of neural networks.

The neocortex, which is the known seat of awareness and of all of the intellectual abilities of human beings is a 6-layer neural network; actually the most complex single structure in the known universe. Donald Hebb's research was published in his history making book The Organization of Behavior, Wiley, New York, 1949.

Not a word in G. Shepherd book about the groundbreaking discoveries of Ivan Pavlov on the relation between language (of which the neocortex is the seat) and conceptual thinking at the turn of the 1930's.

To his discharge, Pavlov wrote his material in German and Russian, languages that Shepherd presumably could not read. As far as I have been able to establish, his texts produced after 1928 were never translated to English. They were in fact only recently re-published in German by Dr Lothar Pickenhain: I. P. Pawlow, Gesammelte Werke, Ergon Verlag, 1998.

Not a word either about the groundbreaking discoveries of neurophysiologist Paul Chauchard who, pursuing Pavlov's line of research discovered in the 1940's and 50's the direct relation between the density of neuronal interconnections in the verbal areas of the neocortex that results from the level of mastery of all verbal abilities that individuals reach, and the level of intelligence that results from this building process.

To his discharge, Paul Chauchard's many books were written in French and never translated to English, a language that Dr. Shepherd presumably could not read. The Essence of Chauchard's discoveries are presented in his historical work Le cerveau et la conscience, Les Éditions du Seuil, France, 1960.

Not a word either of the work of Sir John C. Eccles, a prolific contemporary colleague neurophysiologist, particularly of his fully referenced synthesis on related past discoveries made in the first half of the 20th century. His synthesis is titled Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self, published in 1989.

All of these discoveries were even widely available in French speaking countries by means of numerous popularization works.

How could we explain that a world renowned leader in his field speaks of supreme philosophical challenge and of enigma on aspects of his own field about which everything has already been explored unbeknownst to him? Don't we find here the same language referring to some kind of unknowable that was served us by this representative from the Council for Science and Technology? (See Chapter A Recent Alarming Sign.)

It must be mentioned here that the province of Quebec has historically been in a unique situation with respect to European and American cultures. While the now defunct Classical course was largely patterned on the European cultural model and that its graduates made up a sizable part of our elite, our universities on their side traditionally aligned their programs on those of the rest of America and their graduates made up the rest of our elite.

But the mere existence of this elite graduated from the Classical course made the European scientific culture readily available to the general population in Quebec by means of numerous popularization works. This is what gave me easy access to European research in neurosciences despite the fact that I did not myself follow the Classical course.

On the other hand, the elite graduated from universities also made readily available the American research to the general population, by means of as numerous popularization works

But considering that the elite educated with the Classical course has now practically disappeared by attrition, it seems not so surprizing that our current scientists educated in the university circle would talk of "enigma", "unknown phenomenon" and "fatality" just like their American colleagues to describe what they can't describe or comprehend, as if such comprehension would forever remain out of reach. It is quite regrettable also that so many European scientists now consider the United-States as their primary source of knowledge, forgetting the so promising discoveries of their own scientists of the first half of the 20th century.

In the American neurosciences community particularly, the greatest specialists seem to condemn themselves to laboriously rediscover what was completely resolved many generations before by other American scientists in a very scientific manner, due to insufficient referencing.

For example, as incredible as this may seem, part of the American intellectual and scientific elite is fully aware of this situation! It is thoroughly addressed in an article of the April 1999 issue of Scientific American about the remarkable work of Alan Turing, a contemporary of Donald Hebb, whose results have all but been totally forgotten by the greatest contemporary specialist in his field. Our great contemporary "experts" in the domain of Artificial Intelligence are apparently well into their second cycle of complete amnesia and painstaking reinvention of Turing's discoveries, currently being followed by a pathetic new period of amnesia.

Revue **Scientific American** , April 1999

Alan Turing's forgotten Ideas in computer Science.

University circle insensitive to new ideas

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"For the superficial observer, scientific truth is out of reach of doubt."

Henri Poincaré

Contrary to popular belief, history has shown that nothing is more difficult to achieve than spreading a new idea, even if it is supported by irrefutable evidence.

It seems that some sort of "critical mass" must be achieved before an idea can irreversibly make its way into the collective consciousness of a group. Paradoxically, it is in the university circle that new ideas are the most difficult to propagate. Any researcher who made a discovery, the description of which is somewhat complex, or the implications somewhat abstract, and who attempted to promote such a discovery, can testify to this state of affairs.

It is an almost unsolvable problem that seems to be as old as humanity. Plato already spoke of it 2400 years ago (See Plato's Allegory of the Cave). We could summarize it as follows:

The deeper an individual thinks he understands a given subject, the more he tends to think that nothing of importance could have escaped him in this particular area.

The barrier is not located between his eyes and the information, but between his eyes and his critical mind.

Research hierarchy based on the level of entrenchment

It may come as a surprise that this is readily recognized as rampant by the scientific community. As incredible as it may seem, François Dumont has observed that this behavior even seems to be the main determinant of the structure of research hierarchy! ([6], page 120)

Through the ages, scientists have perfectly observed the phenomenon which reveals that as human beings age, they tend to become "entrenched in their certainties", to quote François Dumont. This would be one of the reasons why older scientists would tend to voluntarily let younger scientists "less or not yet entrenched in their certainties" take their place in active research while they themselves take charge of managing the projects.

But they have collectively drawn the erroneous conclusion that this is a natural outcome of aging, instead of drawing the correct conclusion that should be drawn in light of the work of Chauchard and Korzybski, which is that it is not an unavoidable outcome, but a personal voluntary semiconscious choice, that every individual gradually applies to every aspect of the concepts that he reflects upon.

As a consequence to this wrong conclusion, which is accepted by the scientific community as being the normal state of affairs, it is practically impossible to attract the attention of older specialists in any given field, to new important information regarding that field, if this information is not immediately obvious to them.

If deep thinking or questioning of accepted ideas is required, their minds close up and the wall becomes totally impenetrable. This is a catastrophic hurdle in some areas for any new valuable idea or discovery since that ALL peer review panels in these areas are made up of older scientists who are thus likely to reject almost automatically all material "out of the box proposed for formal publishing.

This is in fact what has been happening in fundamental physics since the mid-1950's, where all causality based articles have been (and still are) systematically rejected without any other access to formal publishing.

Very costly wrong conclusion

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This certainty of the scientific community has caused the key to understanding of the functioning of the thinking process, in other words, the greatest discovery in history, to collect dust for the past 70 years despite the dedicated efforts of French neurophysiologist Paul Chauchard. See the complete synthesis with complete formal references in separate work The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence.

The causes

"... Where a woman or a man who knows, would experience doubt and advance with precaution, our formidable specialized and technocratic elites, are protected by a childish shield of certainty." ([5], page 11)

John Saul, 1996

Error noted ages ago

Has the reader why Socrates never wrote? Why Descartes displayed such reluctance to explain his revolutionary scientific theories to his contemporaries? Surprising, isn't it, considering that his work was the starting point of all modern mathematics. To circumvent the problem being explored here, he had decided to publish only towards the end of his life.

Does the reader know that Newton's theory of gravitation ran the risk of not being published? Without the insistence and the encouragement of his friend, astronomer Edmund Halley, it seems quite possible that Principia Matematica might never have been written. Without Halley's intervention, we may have had to wait for decades or even centuries before someone else rediscovered that knowledge.

Newton never hid his visceral repulsion for the discussions and criticism that inevitably raged about any announcement of new scientific discoveries. Although he willingly spoke of his ideas to people close to him, he never hid his reluctance to defend his theories publicly.

He hated controversy so much, that during the period of time that he was a member of Parliament, he spoke only once in chamber, and it was simply to ask for a window to be opened.

Understanding the attitude prevailing in scientific circles, these great thinkers never hid the fact that they considered all attempts at communicating their knowledge to their colleagues as a waste of time, time that they considered precious and that they preferred to devote to continuing their reflection. Descartes was particularly direct and clear on this issue.

" **... I should absolutely not give consent that they my writings] be published during my lifetime, in order that neither opposition nor controversy, which they would perhaps be subjected to... give me any occasion to waste time that I have intended to use to educate myself." ([[1]**, page 84 **)**

René Descartes, 1637

Plato circumvented the issue by meticulously transmitting Socrates' message under the guise of a parable for future generations.

His great skill consisted in transmitting these ideas to the following generations in plain view of an elite who would not have hesitated to have him condemned to death, just as they did Socrates, if they had suspected if only for an instant, that he shared and propagated them.

Their inability to decode Plato's message and intentions was due to the simple fact that they did not master the only form of thinking that would have allowed them to do it, which is the manner of thinking that Socrates was teaching to the young generation. Hats off and thank you Plato!

Others, such as Gallileo and Giordano Bruno, paid a high price for insisting on defending their discoveries that were contrary to the views of the contemporary elite.

As incredible as this may sound, it seems that it always was systematically impossible for truly new ideas to gain credit in contemporary scientific communities. Almost without exception, new ideas have succeeded in being accepted only by the generations that followed.

A notorious exception was the case of Riemann's curved geometry. Hadn't it been, however, for the attentive ear that Carl Gauss lent him, whose mastery of 7 languages had sharpened the mind to a particularly high degree ([8], page 151), and who was the only one for a time to understand the idea, we can seriously wonder when this idea could have surfaced.

This opening automatically facilitated the acceptance of Lobachevski's hyperbolic geometry, which finally allowed Poincaré to correctly locate Euclid's geometry at the center, so to speak of all possible geometries, that of Riemann's pushing towards one of the extremes and that of Lobachevski pushing towards the other.

In some way, Einstein's theories could also be placed in the same category, hadn't it been for the fact that the inconsistencies that were becoming more and more obvious at that time in the then current theories had rendered contemporary physicists receptive to any new theory that could explain at least some of the more obvious defects.

Except for a few special cases of this type, the scientific community has accepted the validity of new ideas only when the scientists who were opposed were replaced by a new generation of younger scientists who invested effort in really studying the question.

In the past however, new discoveries were not lost in an unmanageable ocean of literature as is the case these days, and important texts effectively remained available for criticism and eventual thorough analysis by the upcoming generation.

But, why is it so difficult for new major discoveries to attract attention?

Recent examples

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"A new scientific truth doesn't triumph by convincing it opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents end up dying, and the following generation grows, becoming familiar with it."

Max Planck, 1900

In fundamental physics, during the 24 years that Maxwell spent elaborating his famous electromagnetic theory from 1845 to 1869 from a finding of his friend Faraday, he had to live through general indifference and even sarcasm from his peers, and even after he presented his theory in 1869. It took 20 more years before it was accepted as Hertz finally confirmed one of the theory's predictions in the 1880's ([9], page 60) and ([10], page 62).

Another example dates back to 1899. After 10 years of intense research, Max Planck proposed with full mathematical demonstration, that Wien's Law ([9], page 96) could be explained in a simple manner if light was made up in reality of a flow of separate particles. His conclusion was experimentally confirmed by Einstein a few years later. But at the moment of his announcement, it was faced with hostility from the physicists of his time, despite the fact that he was already a reputed physicist, because this idea was in apparent total contradiction with Maxwell's electromagnetic theory, which by then had been totally accepted:

" **Upsetting all admitted ideas, Planck's hypothesis was met with hostility by phys icists, who considered it a lucky, but totally arbitrary mathematical coincidence."** ( **[11]** , page 18)

Jean Mevel, 1964

As a further example, we could mention the names of Auguste Laurent and Charles Gerhardt who certainly are meaningless most readers, and for good reasons. These two men wasted their health trying to make the French scientific community accept the existence of the elements, the first of which was identified in 1808 thanks to the Dalton's work. They passed away in the 1850's after 20 years of futile efforts ([10], page 9).

The unscalable wall that they came up against as they tried to sensitize the French scientists of that time is very well known and is quite obvious through the answer that used to counter their endeavor:

"Auguste Comte taught us to be suspicious of hypothetical constructions. For us, only one thing counts: experience. When you can prove the existence of your atoms, we will talk about them."

As incredible as it may seem, in the 1880's, that is, 30 years after the death of Laurent and Gerhardt (72 years after the discovery of the first elements), not a word was spoken regarding the elements in French high schools ([10], page 9), whereas 80 of the 92 natural elements had already been identified without ambiguity, elsewhere in the world! ([12], page 35)

It is interesting to mention at this point what Henri Poincaré, who is regarded even today as having been the last great universal scientist ([3], Biography), thought in 1905 of the strange attitude of mathematician-philosopher Auguste Comte, inventor of sociology, who believed that any problem could be reduced to a question of numbers ([8], page 18) and who was the reference in the French scientific community of the time.

**"Auguste Comte said, I don't remember where, that attempts at understanding the internal structure of the Sun are useless endeavors because this knowledge could be of no use in Sociology. How could he be so nearsighted?"** ( **[13]** , page 121 **)**

In special issue No. 204, September of 1998 of the reputable French magazine Science & Vie, the Director of the Laboratoire de physiologie de la perception et de l'action at the Collège de France in Paris, declared on page 1:

"What does contemporary neurosciences reveal to us? That the need to coordinate actions is actually at the source of the highest cognitive functions of the human brain."

**Science & Vie**, hors série No. 204, page 1

Strangely, what this director seems to have just "discovered" in 1998 is precisely what Ivan Pavlov discovered 70 before and that led him to understand how conceptual thinking operates. See separate textbook The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence for complete formal references.

Reading the remainder of this special issue, it can be observed that 70 years after Pavlov's discoveries, 55 years after the work of Chauchard, no one in this group of the best French neuroscientists, who have worked as a team to fill this special issue of Science & Vie, knows anything more than the best American specialists regarding Pavlov's discoveries.

According to the contents of the articles, it is not at all obvious that they are anymore aware that the power of the brain is a consequence of the neurons working as a network, as seems to be hinted in that strange assertion on the part of the Director of the Laboratoire de physiologie de la perception et de l'action, that the individual neuron...

"...is, on its own, a "little brain"..."

**Science & Vie**, hors série No. 204, page 1

Already in the 1940's and 1950's, it was well understood that this was false:

**"The isolated nervous cell is in no way a little brain. Specialized in reception, emission or conduction of messages, it is only one element in a gigantic interconnected circuit... What allows the nervous-reflex command in the spinal cord or in the brain, is the harmonized associated functioning of all of the neurons."** ( **[14]** , page 52 **)**

Paul Chauchard, 1960

Let's emphasise here that there is no malice on the part of the scientists. As has already been mentioned, it is quite simply extremely difficult for individuals to consider questioning everything that they have come to believe over the course of a lifetime of study and reflection, and this, whatever the objective value of the concepts that have thus been studied and then make upthe foundation of that reflection.

**"Everyone carries in himself his own conception of the world, which is not so easy to get rid of." **( **[3]** , page 159 **)**

Henri Poincaré, 1902

The consequences

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University graduates unable of making the synthesis

"It is only in proportion as we learn to know the great facts of our human past and their causes that we are enabled to understand our human present, for the present is the child of the past.." ([2], page 171)

Alfred Korzybski, 1921

The biggest illusion of this XXth century's end is the belief that the whole of humanity's inheritance of knowledge has been taught to the elite and that this elite is more cultivated than ever.

In the general population, few people seem aware that most university graduates know nothing more as far as general knowledge base is concerned than the general population outside their narrow fields of specialization.

There are of course exceptions to this tendency, because personal tastes often cause many to broaden their knowledge to subjects others than their formal studies, but generally speaking, the common general knowledge base boils down to what people see on television.

Even sociologists, who supposedly study these questions, are under the impression that the knowledge base of the elite is increasing exponentially over time.

The consequences of hyper specialization

It is a fact that the inheritance of knowledge accumulated by humanity is vaster than ever. But, despite the fact that all of this knowledge is available, it is a profound illusion to believe that all of it is entirely taught to the elite. But, the fact that our elite has never been so numerous, does create the deceptive illusion that it is more knowledgeable than ever, each of its members knowing things that few other individuals know.

The problem is particularly acute in the province of Quebec, where the education system has been so structured 50 years ago, that the general knowledge base of the whole population never exceeds the level of junior high school in the rest of America, while at the same time putting the emphasis on specialized knowledge, which effectively compares well with what is taught elsewhere.

All additional general knowledge can be accumulated only through individual interest in reading on a wide spectrum of issues. This however can happen only for people who tend to read on their own literature more substantial than novels, this being said without minimizing the importance of reading novels, which are one of the best means for keeping a sharp mind on the long term.

The trend is worldwide however, and even as keen an observer of the scene as John Saul is taken in by that illusion:

**"Although our elite is more numerous and more cultivated than ever, and a lthough our knowledge of ourselves and of the world has never been so great, we apply ourselves to denying the use of public knowledge."** ( **[5]** , page 11)

John Saul, 1995

The state of knowledge in each specialty not being sufficiently synthesized, it ends up being spread among thousands of papers and textbooks, none of which make a coherent synthesis of the complete set of what has been discovered in the specialty.

At best, students become aware of only part of the knowledge available in their own field. To what degree will each student become personally aware of this problem? Good question!

The high performance levels reached by some students in their narrow specialties contribute to the reinforcement of this illusion, much like the excellent performance in mathematics and in the various sciences demonstrated by the best in junior high schools and Cegeps, contribute to constantly rekindle the illusion that teaching methods are excellent at these levels.

A clear indication to the contrary, however, is the general tendency in an alarming number of specialties to try solving problems by compiling statistics or by opinion polling rather than by analysis.

Given that we never hear of this problem, it may come as a surprise to the reader that the extremely narrow extent of the knowledge base being put at the disposal of each graduate in their specialty is well known to those who observe the scene:

" **Our actions are connected only to minuscule and narrow ribbons of specialized i nformation, grounded in general on a false notion of measure rather than knowledge - that is, an understanding of the general representation."** ( **[5]** , page 11)

John Saul, 1995

" **Because knowledge is divided into disciplines, fields, sub-fields, specialties and h yper-specialties, the available knowledge on any specific subjects is in the possession of only a handful of individuals."** ( **[6]** , page 168)

François Dumont, 1997

Those who are aware of the problem are lost in conjectures as to why sounding the alarm about this increasingly severe problem induces no reaction in those who seem to be in a position to implement corrective measures:

" **The statistics of our crisis, that are available to everyone ... are clear and unmerc iful. However, they unfold in front of us in newspapers, on television, in conversations, as if they were not reality. Or rather as if we were unable of converting that knowledge to action."** ( **[5]** , page 16)

John Saul, 1996

"Currently, there is an emergency regarding children in difficulty. It is necessary to have daily contact with them to feel the suffering that that they are experiencing, the behavioral problems that follow and the urgency to help them. Why is it so difficult for this cry for help to be heard, and to obtain the resources required to diminish this suffering?"

Daily **Le Soleil** April 14, 1999, page B11

Urgent Attention Required for Distressed Youth.

The authors are social workers working in various **Protection and Readaptations Centers** and **Youth Centers** in the province of Québec:

Suzanne Lessard, Gilles Martel, Denys Bélanger, Jean Routhier, Alain Cantin, Stéphane Caron, Mario Lehouiller, Jean Proulx, Louis Saint-Amant, Chantal Journault

The key to the enigma

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Let's now put some obvious fundamentals in perspective.

Knowledge base required to understand a problem

The simple fact of becoming aware of the existence of a problem does not mean in any way that we will have at our disposal, at that precise moment, all of the information that would be required to objectively understand it. Some level of comprehension is obviously reached, but there is no guarantee that the "understanding" part of the job is completely over.

Consequently, to give ourselves the chance of eventually reaching this objective understanding level, there is need to make certain that the extent of our knowledge on the problem at issue is really wide enough to make such understanding possible. Anything less is likely to lead to partial comprehension, which in turn gives rise to explanations involving "fate", or "unknown phenomena" to compensate for the missing elements, which is precisely what we are observing from the comments of our "experts" previously quoted.

Knowledge base required to solve a problem

On the other hand, even objective comprehension of a problem does not, in and of itself, automatically put the solution within reach. In order to have the possibility of perceiving this solution, it seems essential to become aware of the reference frame within which this problem lies. It is in relation to a lack in this respect that worried people become astonished at the lack of reaction on the part of the elite even when they confront it with a clear and objective explanation of serious issues.

Therefore, in order to objectively comprehend a problem and to eventually perceive its solution, it is mandatory to widen our own knowledge base beyond the extent of knowledge that first allowed objective comprehension proper of the problem.

Objective comprehension

When do we know that we have accumulated enough information?

Here lies the crux of the matter!

The "scientific" answer is related to the main characteristic of our neocortex, seat of our conceptual thinking.

Being a multilayer neural network, it systematically tends to offer us a coherence (perceived as an impression of having understood) out of any set of data that we assemble and submit to its entry layer. The minute sufficient information has been gathered for it to detect whatever coherence becomes possible, however incomplete the data set may be, a coherence will become available at the output layer (will draw our attention).

These coherences, even partial, tend to satisfy us and if we do not question them, we tend to stop accumulating more information on the issue at hand, even if a more precise and complete coherence could result unbeknownst to us from accumulating more information on this issue.

This characteristic of the neocortex leads us to easily become certain that we have completely understood an issue and/or its solution even if we are wrong and that more information would in reality be required for us to really understand all aspects of a problem and its solution.

In short, we must always be wary of any impression of certainty of having completely understood a problem that we are confronted with, and that of having accumulated enough information to develop an appropriate solution to this problem.

The rather puzzling answer, I must agree, is that we must never become certain of having accumulated enough information. There always comes a point however from which accumulating more information stops causing the most precise coherence reached to change any more. This is the point that must be reached.

Unfortunately, we cannot escape this operating mode because this is the only way that correlators operate, the human neocortex being the most complex in existence. For a detailed description, see separate work The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence.

Comprehension of the elite

The problem for the majority of our elite is that they do not possess, without their even knowing it, sufficient information to comprehend the issues that John Saul and many others very clearly have been explaining to them. The problem of John Saul and those worried others who objectively comprehend problems of our society but do not understand why no one reacts, is that they themselves do not possess enough information to clearly perceive why the elite does not react. In both cases, evidence indicates that the extent of the personal knowledge base of each of the individuals concerned is insufficient.

As incredible as it may seem, the simple inappropriate certainty mechanism previously described is apparently sufficient to unconsciously block the integration of pertinent information that could be at our disposal to re-question conclusions. It directly prevents us from increasing the extent of our knowledge. It will make us continue to rehash only the restricted information sets that we have already accepted as valid.

New information that we receive is then used only to confirm, without integrated analysis, one aspect or other of our limited comprehension on a given subject, or will merely increase the pool of would be "exceptions" that are scattered throughout our conclusions. Besides, the mere presence of "exceptions" in our thinking processes is an unmistakable indication that we are suffering from the "certainty illness", at least for these issues.

Individuals who naturally escape this trap, whether they have diplomas or not, can typically be found among those who have benefited from a very generalized education, those who are not specialized, or those who take direct interest in this issue of "certainty" and all of its implications.

The extremes

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"Science has mainly taught us how to measure the miserable extent of our knowledge compared to what we do not know." ([9], page 73)

Pierre Rousseau, 1941

At one extreme, some individuals perpetually doubt everything. At the other extreme, others become so anchored in their certainties that the very thought that they could have misunderstood something on certain issues will forever escape them to their last breath. Their certainties end up "sunk in reinforced concrete", as one of my friends puts it. All possible "in betweens" can obviously be met.

A direct correlation can apparently be made between the extent of the knowledge base of an individual and the degree of certainty that will eventually affect this individual. It appears, in a consistent manner, that the more an individual extends his general knowledge base, the more he will tend to become aware of the unfathomable extent of what he has not yet explored and of the potential impact that this unknown information could have on the conclusions that he has already drawn from what he has mastered to date.

Of course, it obviously is possible that individuals can directly understand the mechanism of doubt, or acquire it intuitively, regardless of the extent of their general knowledge base, because this mechanism is itself only one element of information among many others. It must also be taken into account that the degree of certainty regarding supposedly understood things will vary during the course of an individual's lifetime according to the particular circumstances that will influence the course of his life.

The whole gamut of possible cases can thus be found in every layer of society. It can therefore be observed, and this is not unexpected, that in the less educated layers, there seems to be a noted tendency towards "extreme certainty" end of our scale of possible cases. Strangely, the same tendency appeared to also be detectable in the best educated layers!

At first sight, this may seem inconsistent since we should be able to expect that the more formally highly educated an individual becomes, the more he should acquire the notion of doubt.

If we establish a scale on which the more educated layers of society can be found at one end and the less educated layers at the other end, we find the highest levels of certainty at both ends, with the notion of doubt being more easily detectable in the middle of the scale, in other words, in the layers possessing intermediate levels of education.

On the other hand, the only major difference between the intermediate levels, that correspond to high school and the more advanced levels, that corresponds to the university level, is the systematic specialization a that level.

From this last observation, the obvious reason that seemed to provide an explanation as to why the notion of doubt does not continue to grow as we advance towards the more educated layers of society can only be this specialization at the superior levels of education.

In other words, contrary to what should be occurring in a society possessing a properly structured education system, the extent of the general knowledge base of each individual, which is narrow in the less educated layers of society, which is far from unexpected, will widen in the middle layers, which is also expected, but tends to shrink again in the more educated layers, which is unexpected and quite abnormal!

The middle ground

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Some individuals with vast general cultures, but do not otherwise possess profound knowledge in any given field are surprised as they realize that they are able to draw rather elaborate conclusions on quite abstract problems, conclusions that often prove to be correct after verification but the foundations of which they experience difficulties in explaining, before verification.

These individuals are astonished to find that they can draw such precise conclusions despite the fact, in their own view, that they possess "only" general knowledge, however extensive it may be. In reality, it is precisely because their knowledge is so general and extensive that they are able of drawing such precise conclusions. For detailed explanation, see Theory of Discrete Attractors, Chapter Reasoning Method ([24]).

They have very simply become skilled at becoming aware of the coherences existing in large sets of elements. Afterwards, they can readily comprehend the repercussions of these conclusions in the narrow reference frames that are completely enclosed in the vast sets that have permitted them to draw the conclusions in the first place.

Mono-specialists, on the other hand, and for the same reason, will draw perfectly proper conclusions that pertain to situations completely enclosed within their narrow specialty, but they will experience great difficulties, lacking a sufficient number of reference points, to clearly assess the consequences of their conclusions if they impact events that are wider ranging than the narrow frame of their specialty.

The inheritance of knowledge, left unattended

But let us come back to the main issue.

In the current state of affairs, universities appear unable to manage and preserve the inheritance of knowledge acquired through the ages. Common sense and simple observation confirm this conclusion, because no one manages that inheritance since no synthesis of this inheritance is in existence ([6], page 144).

No mandatory course of general education is being taught to sufficiently inform students for them to acquire global comprehension of the research that was done in their own field, let alone in the gamut of other fields. In fact, the absence of coherent syntheses makes the very existence of such courses impossible.

Weekly **Les Affaires** January 9, 1999, page 5

The Companies Call for Qualified Employees.

The race to grab available grants and the pursuit of personal interest, that the method of financing imposes on the university communities ([6], Chapter 2) have so degraded the quality of teaching over time, that the level of general knowledge effectively taught to the elite tends to consistently remain below the level that would be required for the necessary syntheses to be made.

The problem seems particularly acute here in the province of Québec, where researchers have been faced, for decades now, with the obligation of fighting each other to grab shreds of the most anemic research budget in the occident.

We educate technicians of knowledge

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Universities busy themselves full throttle educating technicians of knowledge, systematically hyper-specialized in very narrow sub-domains of their fields of interest, but who are often totally ignorant of just about anything not directly pertaining to their narrow hyper-specialized sub-domain ([6], page 142).

We seem to be producing precision cogs for the consumer goods production machinery. How many polyvalent researchers possessing broad based knowledge actually come out of our universities? The answer is quite simple and inescapable: None! And this has been going on for generations!

These days, the only individuals who acquire a general knowledge base sufficiently broad to do fundamental research, are those who acquire this "extra" education on their own, outside the stifling framework of universities. Because, even if knowledge is divided up and is not taught in an integrated and coherent manner, it exists nonetheless and is available to anyone knowing how to retrieve it.

Even in the select group of those possessing master's, doctor's and post-doc degrees, among those we call the "elite", it would seem that a frenzied race to personal recognition, and ultimately to the Nobel prize, creates an atmosphere of pernicious competition, so much so, that important discoveries are constantly at risk of being shared only in a strategic manner, so as not to put at risk an eventual recognition of personal value, or not to cause prejudice to commercial ventures; at the risk of losing these discoveries if such a recognition doesn't come, or if a commercial venture is deemed unprofitable, which puts the line of research in question at risk of being abandoned for totally unjustifiable reasons. ([6], page 52)

Scientific literature not very reliable

University teaching is based on information and references available in formal peer reviewed papers but mostly from scientific textbooks and other works in print published by leading scientists. Financial imperatives as well as the turning wheel of scientists aging and retiring to be replaced by a new generation are such that new reference books are regularly edited to replace older ones that progressively vanish on the road to obsolescence.

To what degree is each new wave of reference books reliable? The contents of each of them certainly reflects its author's level of knowledge, but where does this knowledge comes from?

Few people are aware that more material is published worldwide every month nowadays (1999) than all that was published during first 50 years of the 20th century, in the form of articles and books concerning the various aspects of the sciences. In fact, no one reads more than an infinitesimal fraction of this material.

Only a fraction of those who do read these texts really find time to mentally integrate the totality of the small part of this information that they become acquainted with, an integration mandatory even before any attempt to verify its validity can be undertaken.

If one among them concludes that new piece of information is valuable and is worth promoting, he will be confronted with the same problem. Few people will even find the time to listen to what he has to say, and even fewer people will find the time to actively integrate it.

In 1997, there existed a minimum of 70,000 specialized scientific magazines in the world. The number of articles published is so huge that only 5,000 to 6,000 of them are presently consulted by the scientists themselves ([6], page 77).

According to François Dumont's study, it can observed that most of the published articles regarding alleged discoveries, are simply rehashed ideas previously explored by others, proposed in a slightly different manner, or outright falsehoods.

How are they to distinguish valuable articles from redundant or fraudulent ones? Not easily done! Because the authors of these articles have often become masters in the art of verbal side-skating ([6], page 89).

Only 20% of articles are apparently valid

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Only one scientific article in five apparently is valid and reflects real progress ([6], page 76). Does this mean that only 20% of the research being performed presently contributes to the advancement of knowledge? Not really! It's important to mention that almost all of this contribution pertains to development in applied research and not in fundamental research.

60% of articles re-propose previously explored concepts

Three articles out of five, that is 60% of the production, only re-offer known concepts, presented in such a way as to create the illusion that something new has been understood.

Is this to say that the scientists involved are not competent? Not necessarily! Many very capable researchers are very simply captive of mediocre projects that they do not control and that they depend on to earn a living and the recognition of their researcher's status.

20% of articles are apparently fraudulent!

A totally unacceptable situation however is that one out of five articles, that is 20% of the worldwide production of scientific articles apparently propose outright falsehoods that can only reflect ignorance or ill will of the authors!

Why does the scientific community tolerate such a large number of fraudulent articles published under the guise of science? Why are the scientific journals publishing them not publicly fingered so that every scientist is made aware of them?

Growing difficulty in identifying reliable references

The result of this flood of worthless articles, that is, an almost incredible amount of 4 out of 5 as revealed in François Dumont's analysis, all of them very difficult to evaluate, the volume of which has been increasing constantly since the 1950's, is that confusion has gradually gained ground in the minds of many scientists. The science of the upcoming generation of scientists is becoming uncertain, and finds its footing in verified references with more and more difficulty.

A study is published one day, apparently supported by an exhaustive research, asserting that a given product induces cancer. Six months later, another study from another part of the world, also supported by apparently exhaustive research, asserts the opposite!

Each new generation of scientists, if they are to guarantee the firmness of its science's foundation is practically forced to start exploring from scratch, because the current reference books are not guaranteed to correctly report all of what the preceding generations have succeeded in consolidating.

Articles difficult to evaluate by the specialists themselves

Due to lack of time, specialists themselves often give up trying to verify the foundation of many articles relating to their own specialty.

The problem becomes totally unmanageable when they are faced with the prospect of verifying results exceeding however slightly the boundaries of their own narrow field of expertise. Indeed, there is no way to circumvent becoming relatively well informed in any given field in order to correctly assess confusing or fraudulent articles, which is made impossible through sheer lack of time as each person proceeds through normal life activities.

In fact, the difficulty that the established scientific community demonstrated all through history to correctly evaluate important new current discoveries may well have been due to this simple fact.

Any new discovery the explanation of which is however slightly complex stands off the beaten path by very nature, so, it is not at all impossible that at the time of such initial complex discovery, only the discoverer himself possessed a reference base sufficiently vast to understand it. History is literally stuffed with cases of this type.

Fundamental research has become extremely difficult

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Consequently, fundamental research has become extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, in some domains. This conclusion becomes obvious to anyone attempting to assess the state of research by exploring the incredible mass of so-called scientific articles being published each month in specialized publications.

In these conditions, it would appear impossible, over the course of generations, that unfounded concepts would not have infiltrated formal programs, to be then taught like real science to new students. The case seems flagrant in psychology, if we refer to very questionable articles in daily newspapers whose authors are university professors.

At the same time, perfectly founded concepts end up being completely neglected, because through chance particular interests of the various authors, they end up never being mentioned in recent works, which from that point on are used as references in teaching programs. This is the case for the work of Pavlov and Chauchard on conceptual thinking. Even Donald Hebb's directly related milestone discoveries on neural networks have gone down the road to oblivion, as well as the bulk of the discoveries that John Eccles synthesized in the 1990's. ([15])

The famous translations done by Anrep and Gantt in 1927 and 1928 of Pavlov's works, are no long available and there are currently no plan to have them reprinted. There practically exists nothing in French of the work of Pavlov. To my knowledge, the only recent reference work is a German reprint ([16]) of the research that Pavlov conducted during the last 7 years of his life, that is after 1928. There remains no currently referenced trace whatsoever in the scientific literature of Chauchard's works.

Situation critical in the educational sciences

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Not all specialties are affected by this problem, like medical research for example where steady progress can be observed. The picture is quite different however in other domains like psychology and education sciences.

In fundamental physics for example, a universal consensus developed around the more advanced theories of the time during the first 40 years of this century, at a time when fundamental research was reached its peak in this science. The establishment of such a universal orthodoxy in a given direction made exploration very difficult in directions not in agreement with these accepted theories, but had the merit to prevent any regression in this science, even if progress has stalled completely since the discovery of the tau particle in the 1970's.

We have not been as lucky in the educational sciences however, a field in which a vast consensus did not develop in the 1940's and 1950's as related sciences reached their peak, along with the work of Hebb and Chauchard, among others.

Several local orthodoxies progressively developed, each generally following the lead of very influential American schools of thought that have been hovering for the past 80 years at various pre-Pavlovian levels.

It would be quite interesting to discover the date of the last comparative synthesis of the best educative techniques or of the most advanced discoveries in psychology and the educational sciences.

A simple example:

It is considered difficult in the specialized community to diagnose cases of dyslexia before children reaches the age of 7. It can consequently be observed that Ritalin is being prescribed the most starting in 3rd grade to calm children down, that is, after they are already 8 years of age! See Analysis of a research report **from the Régie Régionale de la Santé et Services Sociaux (RRSSS), 1999.**

However, it was established in the 1950's that any child not having mastered reading and writing before the age of 7 will unavoidably experience difficulties in completing these trainings afterwards. See The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence for the bulk of formal references.

The physiological reason for this condition has been clearly brought to light regarding the construction of the brain by neurophysiologist Paul Chauchard in the 1950's as a result of Pavlov's work. But contemporary pedagogues have never heard about this.

"Intellectual abilities depend on the density of the cortical interconnections making up the nervous thinking network. The interior language, the human form of thinking, is dependent on cerebral complexity."

"The fundamental law of cerebral development demands that cerebral maturation always occur in a supportive environment not only a physical, but also cultural and affective. Nothing can be done before the time is ripe, but very soon, it is too late."

"At birth, the brain is incomplete and slowly structures during childhood and adolescence."

" **Anatomically speaking, a human brain isn't complete, meaning that a complete nervous network isn't present, until the age of 7." **( **[14]** , pages 38 to 52)

Paul Chauchard, 1960

We are not dealing here with speculations, but with the conclusions of the greatest French neurophysiologist, drawn after a thorough exploration of past research in his field, and supported by experimental research on a par with that of Pavlov.

The critical question now is the following: Is there any means to bring back into the scientific community these utterly important discoveries despite the hurdles previously described?

We will explore the possibilities in section Reintroduction.

Hyperactivity

Through sheer ignorance of these discoveries, could it be that children are diagnosed as hyperactive simply because they have become anxious precisely due to never having been taught how to express with ease in due time? The specialists know so little now regarding the physiology of development of the neocortex verbal areas that they are lost in conjectures as to the causes of what they call hyperactivity.

In most cases, the primary cause could simply be the lack of information on the part of the parents and educators in kindergarten and the first grade of elementary school regarding the importance of directly encouraging this awakening in all children before the age of 7. See A Future as an Heirloom, Chapter The Consequences of Insufficient Use of Language.

Like many teachers, many specialists are irretrievably convinced that children have fixed intellectual potentials that vary from one child to the next, and that nothing can be done to change it.

The loss of motivation in the teaching community has reached such a level for whatever reason, that many teachers no longer view teaching as a means of educating children on the proper manner of acquiring knowledge, but rather as some sort of laborious task during which the children must disturb them as little as possible while they fill their little brains as if they were empty jugs with more or less limited capacities.

Dyslexia

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Have they not also been diagnosing children as dyslexic only because they had not been taught soon enough for them to reach the level of ease regarding reading and writing, merely on account of ill adapted teaching methods? The children's capacities would then not be in question! See A Future as an Heirloom, Chapter Learning to Read and Write.

Let us state clearly here that the education specialists are not individually ignorant if we exclude the comprehension of the mechanisms of intelligence. Quite the contrary! Each in their field may even be hyperspecialized as already analyzed. They are collectively desperately searching for solutions to really help children. But all the good will in the world will not make the necessary knowledge appear in their minds if it was not taught to them at the time of their hyperspecialized education.

The division of knowledge into sub-specialties has reached such an extent in the educational sciences that each specialist has become unable of evaluating more than a fraction of the symptoms presented by children. Their diagnosis is necessarily partial and their remedy necessarily inappropriate.

The tragedy for our children is that even collectively, the level of knowledge that can be brought to bear by specialists during multispecialty meetings has become too restricted, because there is no specialists representing the abandoned knowledge. And this missing specialist, always absent at specialists' meetings can never bring his contribution to the table.

In the 1950's, when a child experienced difficulties in learning, a quite normal teacher with eyes wide open, and most importantly, with minimal knowledge of pedagogy, took charge of recuperating the situation by giving extra supervised exercises in reading and writing to the child.

But today, as the end result of decades of degradation in the quality of university taught teachers and education specialists programs, the whole education sector has become so ignorant of what it means to awaken a child's intelligence that children whose learning problems do not disappear by themselves are quickly perceived as hopeless cases that must be referred to physicians, to orthopedagogues or to psychologists.

Daily Le Soleil February 27, 1999

The End of a Myth in Education.

Even the basic knowledge of the importance of properly teaching children to read and write in first grade seems to have been lost! How could it even come to their minds that it would suffice to teach children to speak, read and write properly at the proper time for their budding little problems not to be allowed to develop in the first place since they would then be dealt with at the beginning.

The capacities of children are put in doubt, but teaching methods are never questioned and neither is the content or extent of knowledge of teachers and specialists. I have often heard this very question being asked by parents or journalists, each time to observe the educators skillfully sidesteping the issue and systematically pin the fault on parents or on the children themselves.

Even in thoroughly conducted studies of the students dropping out problem, the very idea that teaching methods could be at fault is not even considered.

Study done in 1997 on the population of recuperating dropouts of the school École Antoine Bernard in Carleton.

That the methods are adequate, is systematically considered a given.

It can be observed that the majority of children are real "chatter boxes" extremely curious about everything that comes to their attention when they begin school. But the fact that the majority of them are "extinguished" after just a few years is considered a normal stage of children's growth.

Those who have continued to progress normally are considered as gifted or genius material, whereas they really simply are normal and owe their intellectual survival uniquely to an intellectually stimulating family environment.

This state of affairs seems to have been stable for centuries and appears as one of the identifiable causes of the slow rhythm of progress in fundamental research in all fields, because the total number of individuals having benefited from optimal conditions of awakening of their mental abilities tends to increase very slowly due to the ignorance of specialists.

For all practical purposes, progress has become practically non-existent during the past 50 years, because of the impact of the degradation of the quality of the education of successive generations of students in all fields, to whom is offered from one generation to the next, an amount of general information steadily declining and which is now insufficient to allow real progress in many of the narrow hyperspecialized fields.

As incredible as this may seem, even the teaching activity itself has now become secondary in universities. The problem appears to be worldwide although more obvious in some countries.

" **For professors-researchers, teaching is a negligible quantity. Few of them really care about their teaching. How many among them have read or made concrete e fforts to improve their teaching?"** ( **[6]** , pages 93, 127 abd 129)

François Dumont, 1997

The cause and effect correlation can hardly be more clearly established. Is it really that surprising that important lines of research that receive no support from government grants could be abandoned when one observes the questionable quality of teaching in universities? The lack of any general education base at the university level itself compounds the effects of the very inadequate general education base provided to students at the elementary and high school levels.

It is well known that the immense majority of new graduates never even had to open a history book and are often not even up to date as to what happened in society barely 20 years before locally and worldwide.

In many cases, they do not even know the sequence of events that led to the major discoveries in their own field. What knowledge are they going to transmit to their successors for who will become university professors? What did those who transmitted their knowledge to them really know?

How can the situation be remedied?

A first step would certainly be taken if mastery of a second language became mandatory for admittance to post-secondary education. Likewise, the ability to read a third language should be mandatory for admittance to post-graduate studies, and finally, mastery of reading of a forth language should be mandatory for admittance to post master's education.

Such an approach would be easy to implement and supervise, and would allow graduates to become able to access research results originating from elsewhere in the world. Those who believe that English is the international language of science and that all important research has been translated to English are deeply delusional, particularly regarding research carried out in non-anglo countries in the first half of the 20th century.

For example, the only book currently in print that even hints at the work of the last years of Pavlov is written in German ([16]) and has been available only since 1998. For decades, NOTHING was available on the subject, neither in French nor in English. To my knowledge, the single previous book that spoke of it was written in French ([14]) and has been out of print since the mid sixties. I never came across any book written in English that even hinted at this research. Many other results of research conducted in Russian have never been translated.

Paul Chauchard's important research never was translated to any other language.

Deep verification of contemporary scientific literature has shown me that even the greatest specialists in neurosciences have never heard of the last 7 years of Pavlov's research, and the few who examined it have never really understood its real meaning.

To understand its real importance, one would have had to read and understand the important conclusions drawn by Donald Hebb on the functioning of multi-layered neural networks ([17]) and I found only vague references to his work in specialized reference books.

Moreover, one would have had to read and understand the conclusions of Chauchard who established the connection between intelligence and the structuring effect that Pavlov discovered was caused in the neocortex by the use of language.

It would have been necessary to read and understand the analysis methods of the Dutch Dijkstra and of the French Jean-Dominique Warnier, research that never was translated to English. See Theory of Discrete Attractors, Chapter Reasoning Method ([24]).

And finally, it would have been necessary to read and understand the second book of Korzybski on the relations between words and the real objects that they refer to, a work that constitutes a thorough exploration of concepts that were elaborated by Poincaré 30 years earlier. ([13], page 162 et chapitre XI)

Even great specialists like Sherrington, Eccles, and Popper, despite their obvious interest in the relationships between language and coherent thinking, seem unaware of the work of the last 7 years of Pavlov, or of that of Ebb and Chauchard, because they never make reference to it.
The de-structuring of the quebec society

Let us now proceed with the analysis of the state of Quebec sociedty left pending with Chapter A recent alarming sign.

Degrees awarded without merit!

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Since the 1960's reform, it seems that the number of failures in Québec's Cegeps (senior high) has direct repercussions on the size of the budget allocated to these institutions by the Ministry of Education.

This is the most pernicious time bomb that can be imagined. Its clockwork has been ticking in the background of our education system for more than 50 years.

Wasn't it unavoidable, in relation with the strangling collar of such financial management method that the management of these institutions would be forced willy-nilly, in certain circumstances, to prioritize the maintenance of the level of financing over the quality of education?

Isn't there reason to suspect that after 50 years of such practices, an indeterminate number of graduates having questionable knowledge could be found, spread all over the various fields of knowledge?

This problem is very real however, but nobody ever speaks about it publicly! Nobody seems to dare confront it! In the workplace, what professional aware of the situation would dare raise this issue at the risk of making a implacable enemy out of a colleague who could feel targeted?

It is easy of course to make such conjectures. How can it be believed that degrees could be handed out without merit in high school and even university?

Why then has a coroner severely blamed emergency physicians for the death of a young woman who received inadequate care, concluding that half of the physicians in emergency rooms do not have adequate training in trauma care (Advanced Trauma Life Support),whereas according to the president of l'Association des médecins d'urgence du Québec, most hospitals mandatorily demand this type of training as an explicit requirement for hiring.

"I am surprised at the numbers quoted by the coroner, stating that half of the emergency physicians do not have this training. Most hospitals demand the ATLS, which is a basic program in trauma care. In fact, many emergency physicians have training that goes beyond that."

Daily **Le Devoir** April 30, 1999

A Coroner Blames Emergency Room Physicians.

If all these physicians did in fact receive this training and were accredited, what exactly were they taught during their training? Who provided them with this training? Most importantly, what were the real qualifications of those who provided this training, and who gave them their credits?

To my knowledge, no inquiry was made on these issues, and if one was carried out, its conclusions were carefully kept secret. If there was no inquiry, let us ask ourselves why. If one was carried out, then why has nobody heard about it and what were its conclusions and the corrective measures taken if required?

Our education system, in the last throws of dismemberment

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"When constrained within universal norms, a poor schooling system offers poor children an impoverished education."

André Caron, 1998

Daily Le Soleil November 13, 1998

Is basic education still a priority?

In September of 1998, more than 900 professors had been laid off over a period of 2 years, from all universities in the province of Québec without any replacements being planned due to budget squeezing; a lay off forced on universities by the budget balancing policy of former prime minister Lucien Bouchard and his administration, that is, the equivalent of closing down Montreal University, or every component of l'Université du Québec.

Daily Le Soleil November 21, 1998

Educators Feel they have been Forgotten.

These layoffs are to be added to the 8000 elementary and secondary teachers that they forced to retire without replacement in 1996 for the same reason (see Chapter The highway to intellectual and social bankruptcy.

Why these cuts and layoffs?

One wonders of course about what logical reasons could motivate choices so damaging for the education system. The social problems are of such complexity these days, that the decision makers have no choice but to resort to all kinds of specialists to their efforts to obtain enlightened recommendations. The Council for Science and Technology and the High Council for Education are examples of such formally constituted experts committees. There are of course all flavors of informally assembled teams.

We analyzed earlier to what extent it is difficult for mono-specialists to foresee the long term consequences of their recommendations when the repercussions extend beyond the narrow frame of their specialty (See Chapter The Consequences of Hyper Specialisation). A consequence of this type of recommendations could recently be observed when our decision makers declared that the management of our universities should further increase their rationalization efforts.

Daily Le Soleil November 21, 1998, page A18

Educators Feel that they have been Forgotten.

There was an immediate protest from Laval University President, but less than one month later, another $10 million worth of student services was cut at Laval despite the fact that the president of the Conference of Presidents and Principals of Quebec Universities estimated that $400 million was needed on an immediate basis to insure the quality of university teaching in Québec!

Daily Le Soleil December 18, 1998, page A1

Shortfall Alert at Laval.

Some were very quick to put the blame on the universities presidents for the $300 million global deficit in all of Quebec's universities for academic year 1998-1999 and their alleged past "inability" to foresee or anticipate what is happening now, suggesting that the presidents should have taken advice from the crowds of experts that gravitate in university circles.

Daily Le Soleil January 9, 1999, page A16

University presidents confess.

The problem is that the decision makers at all levels took advice from so-called "experts" effectively educated in the same university circles and that the presidents had to make do with the budgets forced on them by the government's experts.

The Federation of School Boards, the Federation of Parents Committees, the Association of School Boards General Directors and their English counterpart worried of course about the $400 million cut for elementary and secondary schools and insisted that this money be immediately re-injected to merely to recuperate the services which have been cut to children in the past 4 years alone by the Bouchard administration.

"To reach the Canadian average, the State must reinvest $300 per student per year, explained André Caron, president of the Federation of School Boards."

André Caron, 1998

Daily Le Soleil November 18, 1998, page A14

Parents and School Boards Want More Money.

In full swing of an electoral campaign, the indifference born of unawareness of our decision makers was such that they "promised" a meager $50 millions to deal with the elementary and secondary school educational problems and $100 millions for Cegeps and universities, whereas in the course of the past 4 years alone, $1.5 billion was cut in the already insufficient education budget!

"... $10 per student. Mocked André Caron"

Daily Le Soleil November 21, 1998, page A18

Educators Feel that they have been Forgotten.

To the ears of our decision makers advisors whose lacking education does not allow long term forecast of the catastrophic consequences of these decisions for our people, an expression such as:

"... the critical state of Québec's universities."

even coming from Laval University president, can hardly be construed as anything more than a simple negotiation argument on the part of the university management.

They clearly understand that the president is speaking of the critical "financial" state of the university, the consequences of which are very visible and immediate, whereas in reality, he is speaking without the shadow of a doubt about the critical state of the quality of university education, the effects of which will become detectable only on the long term. But without their knowing it, this subtlety seems to lie beyond their understanding ability, due to the narrow extent of their knowledge base. What impact will these measures eventually have on the dropout and suicide rates?

In some of our senior high schools, children are now sent home when the teacher is ill. The authorities have decided not to pay for substitutes. The salaries metered out to university teachers in the province of Ontario are twice those given to the professors of our universities. The best teachers are leaving the province!

Ultimate absurdity! An irrational freeze on tuition fees that has been enforced for years against all common sense has been depriving our already financially strapped universities of their last recourse to finance decent education.

There are classes of 500 students per professor! For years now, the number of doctorate enrollments in all universities in Québec has been steadily dropping.

At Laval University, for example, the number of enrollments went from 54 in 1994 to 35 in 1997.

Daily **Le Soleil** October 7, 1998

Just like all the principals of our schools at all levels, the presidents of our universities appear to have become captains of inexorably sinking ships, rendered powerless, by a totally dehumanized system, to bring back to the forefront the quality of teaching that our children have a right to, and that was left behind 50 years ago without apparent hope of returning.

The repeated alarms sounded by those who are acutely aware of the problem are systematically ignored.

NOTHING seems to be able to swerve the direction of the flow of damaging decisions taken in an atmosphere of total insensitivity and unawareness concerning the irreversible nature of some damages.

Why?

In May of 1998, the "Association des Professeurs de Sciences du Québec" (APSQ) prepared a very pertinent series of recommendations pertaining to the most recent reform project of the Ministry of Education. These recommendations, judiciously explained by André Caillé, vice-president for the elementary level at the APSQ, are published in the October/ November 1998 issue of Spectre magazine.

"It is important that the school provides all children with a scientific education, and this, to complete the general education that each of them receives."

"It is the teachers, who are in constant contact with the students, who are in the best position to know what aspects of the proposed program are in fact feasible."

André Caillé, 1998

Magazine Spectre October-November 1998

Make them wonder! They will know no limit.

Students are forced into unbelievable levels of debts, reaching into the $60,000's, which they often have no hope of paying back before 10 to 15 years after they have finished their studies, which discourages middle income families to send their children to post-secondary education.

Daily **Le Soleil** July 31, 1999, page A11

More students have a hard time reimbursing their Loans.

In 1998, our education minister blocked all possibilities for students to declare bankruptcy during the first 10 years after they graduate

Why?

In November 1998, she eliminated without any warning the 6 months interest exemption period on students' loans for graduates! The interest now start to run as soon as students finish their education, whether they have found a job or not!

Daily Le Soleil November 7, 1998

Student loans. Class action.

Why?

No protest from parents, teachers, students or the general population had any noticeable effect.

Why?

Will we be the first industrialized nation who will succeed in completely destroying its own educational system just in time to start afresh in the year 2000?

In the meantime, the authorities are lost in conjectures as to the causes of the widespread decrease in the extent of our children's knowledge! Our elite grieves over the problem! The handpicked specialists of the Council for Science and Technology are lost in conjectures as to causes of the discouragement and the dropping out of 7 out of every 10 students in sciences and technology!

How can they be lost in conjectures as to the causes of such problems? What exactly have they been taught in university?

Is it not obvious that our decision makers do not have a sufficiently extended general education base for them to become aware of the incoherence of these decisions? Such a broad based education would allow them to send the bunch of experts who advise them back to their homework, but preferably, to their studies, so that they really become able of giving enlightened advice!

Réjean Pelletier, professor of political sciences at Laval University, observed with regret:

"Two hundred students squeezed into a classroom have less impact than 30 ill individuals on stretchers in an emergency room. Even if there are problems in our schools, the lives of the students are not in danger."

Daily **Le Soleil** November 21, 1998

Educators feel left out.

It is paradoxical and very instructive to observe that the very same day that Réjean Pelletier made this parallel, that is November 21 of 1998, two hundred "clients" of our health system, suffering from cancer, in danger of death, pushed by despair, spontaneously came to demand, in front of the National Assembly building, that they be taken care of, without anyone coming out to reassure them.

Daily **Le Soleil** November 22, 1998

When each day counts! Cancer doesn't wait.

One easily imagines then the impact of 30 anonymous sick persons endlessly waiting on stretchers in emergency corridor, let alone 200 anonymous students crowded together in a classroom!

Faced with the total absence of reaction to this cry for help from individuals in danger of death, isn't it quite obvious that the presidents of our universities, the principals of our primary and high schools, the parents' committees and the parents do not stand a chance of being heard, regarding problems of students whose lives are not in danger, if we make abstraction of the fact that the province of Quebec holds records in teenage suicide rates!

Comparison 1960 – 1998

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In a recent article, it is reported that 50% of the children quit school before the age of 15 in the 1960's.

Daily **Le Soleil** November 11, 1998

Québec Universities Threatened.

I have to bring to attention here that we lived then in a much less urbanized society and that in rural areas, schools typically offered only the junior high school education, that is up to grade 9, and that the issue then was not that children were dropping out of school, but only that it was logistically impossible for a great number to continue on past 9th grade.

I grew up far from large urban areas, so I know something about it.

Maintaining children in school beyond grade 7 in very small villages and grade 9 in larger villages was a luxury that many families could not afford. Only well off families or families who accepted making "big sacrifices", could send their children to boarding schools far from home, to complete high school and to eventually continue on to higher studies. But all those who went to school, even in the smallest villages, were entitled to quality education. In the fifties and sixties, no child quit school out of discouragement, like today!

Let's compare this with our current system, in a much more urbanized society. We have "benefited" for the past 50 years, from a so-called "complete" high school education, which is the equivalent to our former 9th grade education, out of which more than 4 children out of 10 simply quit out of discouragement before the age of 16, with less knowledge than those who completed the 9th grade in rural areas in the 1950's, for reasons that our experts lose themselves in conjectures about.

Before the 1960's reform, every day in class consisted of 7 hours of attendance and there were more than 200 days of schooling per year. But to make the comparison easier, let's suppose that it lasted 180 days as today. This means, that at the end of grade 9, each child then benefited from 11, 340 hours of schooling.

With the 1960's reform, under pressure from teachers' unions, 1.5 hour was cut from each day in class, beginning in grade 1, which brought teaching time down to 5.5 hours per day. If we make a rapid calculation, instead of 1,260 hours per school year, schooling time was reduced to 990 hours per year for each child. At the end of 11 years of schooling, which now brings us to the current end of junior high school in Quebec, each child has received only 10,890 hours of education, which is 450 hours less than was provided to children who completed grade 9 in the former system. Of course, this is true only for those who do complete junior high school. Those who drop out obviously receive much less education time.

This means that each child who finishes our current flavor of "high school" (presently junior high school) has received 82 days less schooling time than one who completed grade 9 in the old system.

From time to time, I read flattering studies on the quality of our education system done by young researchers who obviously have never heard of these figures.

See Chapter The 1960's education reform for more on the school structure that replaced the traditional system in operation before the reform.

These young researchers mainly forget to compare our system with the best systems that currently exist in the world. They appear to prudently compare our system to certain aspects of systems that are approximately equivalent, a bit better here, a bit less there, which maintains the illusion of comparable quality to what is provided else-where in the world.

Let us specify here that the 55 to 60% of our children who now succeed in completing junior high school, with their 10,890 hours of schooling received over a period of 11 years, end up with 3.5 years less schooling time based on hours count than the graduates of grade 12 in the 1960's, who had received on their part 15,120 hours of schooling.

The main result of the 1960's reform was to change what the Quebec population perceives as being "high school" from 15,120 hours before 1964 to 10,890 after 1964 in urban areas, where senior high school was always offered, and from 11,340 hours to 10,890 in non-urban areas, where only junior high school (up to grade 9) was offered.

The real disaster with regards to general knowledge base acquisition happens however for those who continue on to university education. If we consider that to go from this minimal high school course to university, only 4 sessions of 15 weeks, made up of at most 25 hours per week are required. This gives us a maximum of 1,500 hours. It can thus be observed that since the 1960's reform, a cumulative schooling time of only 12,390 hours is now required to enroll in university, which is 2,730 hours less than what was required before 1964.

And even with this 15,120 hours of schooling given us before 1964, if we wanted to enroll in university outside of the province of Québec, in Ontario for example, we had to attend a supplementary pre-university year to replace the 13th grade that was mandatory in Ontario until 1998.

What more were we taught during this additional 2,730 hours? Well, all those things that our population, including our university elite has been deprived of for the past 50 years!

In elementary school, we were taught to read and write until we mastered spelling correctly, we were given good working methods, a moral and social codes of behavior, as well as a beginning of general education, to render the transfer to junior high school easier. Children were prepared sufficiently well for them not to become discouraged as the material became progressively more complex.

In high school, we were given a general education, to which our children are not entitled to anymore. We were taught logic and the classics of literature, which rendered us able of developing enlightened opinions as to the relative quality of contemporary works, and on all aspects of life in general.

In short, we were taught all of those things that provide individuals with better control on their lives and to which our children have not been entitled to for the past 50 years.

All of this education was provided in regular secondary schools. For a description of the much deeper general education provided in the Classical course, also available as an alternate choice after primary school, see Chapter The situation before the 1960's education reform.

The reader may be surprised to learn that quality education is still available in our days in some public schools, but only for a privileged minority.

I invite parents who want to have an idea of what all children not having access to such schools are being deprived of, to inquire to the Montréal School Board as to the nature of the education provided in a school belonging to its jurisdiction, that is L'École Fernand-Seguin, 10050 Durham Street, Montréal, a public school for "gifted and talented students from 1st grade to the 6th grade", according to the terms of their brochure.

A brochure offered as aeparate page inserted in the October-November 1998 issue of Magazine Spectre.

The reader must be aware that it was an education of this quality that was provided by qualified teachers in all Quebec elementary schools before 1964.

I reproduce here the main objectives being offered in this school to only a few privileged children.

On an intellectual level, the school allows:

• to undertake a progressive introduction to scientific method;

• to put the emphasis on the superior processes of thought, such as: analysis, synthesis and evaluation;

• to put in place an enriched program;

• to examine in depth personal fields of interest through projects, research and participation in scientific expositions.

On a personal and social level, the school promotes:

• teamwork;

• the possibility of interacting on the social level and for school activities with children possessing comparable levels of skill;

• the independence of the child by allowing him to devote himself to research that interests him;

• the development of humanism and cooperative spirit.

In a recent article, Yves E. Beaudoin, general director of Le Collège de Lévis declared:

"Public school has become elitist."

Many public institutions in the Québec area have begun to follow the lead of l'École Fernand-Seguin. The main teachers'' union as well as the Higher Council for Education denounced this situation without any reservation, but not for the reason that we could imagine.

What these good people propose is what could be referred to as "adjusting to the lowest possible level", which means offering to all children courses that even children most disadvantaged on account of badly adapted teaching methods will easily comprehend. In short, according to them, it is important to offer the shabbiest education possible to all children, without any discrimination!

Daily **Le Soleil** February 27, 1999

Neither Better nor Worse, Only Different.

What a shame for our society, that starting with the high quality system that we had before 1964, where all children were provided with quality education, that our intellectual and scientific elite has let the situation degrade to such an extent that it seems natural now in our schools, to have security guards at the doors, and to offer quality courses only to a few privileged children while all the others are left on the wayside!

This is a regression over a period of 50 years that the general population is not guilty of, because it was imposed upon us by daydreaming mono-specialists who unfortunately gained the trust of our decision makers, probably due to the mere impression of competence that they projected on account of the unshakeable aura of certainty that they drew from their defectively narrow breadth of knowledge.

As for Cegeps, the figures reveal that the dropout rate reached 47.7% in 1996.

Daily Le Soleil Novermber 14, 1998, page A26

Cegep: an Alarming Rate of Dropping Out.

I strongly suspect that the $90.00 to $120.00 penalty that our Ministry of Education has been authorized by the Bouchard administration to charge every Cegep student for each failed course in any given session as an incentive to success would by now (1999) have caused this rate to climb above the 50% mark. I am anxious to see how successful this incentive to success campaign will have been!

Student repression in 1998

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On the other hand, a study of the Fédération des Cegeps reveals that 35% of senior high school students live in poverty or destitution.

Daily Le Soleil November 18, 1998

Students in the street to denounce their poverty.

The Movement for the Right to Education (MDE) staged a protest in front of the National Assembly building on November 18 of 1998, to denounce student poverty and to demand improvements to the student financial aid system from the Bouchard administration.

In the absence of a representative of the authority to receive their demand, and after having seen native people and pork producers obtain satisfaction for their grievances by blocking roads with impunity a few months before, many weeks in the first case, many days in the second, the students attempted the same tactic.

The whole student poverty case was then left to be handled by the riot squad!

In less than half an hour, the problem of student poverty was examined and dealt with by police clubs blows. We were even entitled to a police vehicle charging students, at a snowball's throw from the parliament building.

Daily Le Soleil November 20, 1998

Student Will Protest... Police Brutality.

Why?

In other words, we are back to the same numbers, and the same methods it would appear, as in the fifties, but without the quality! I am astonished, therefore, when two presidents and one principal of three of our largest universities assert in an article as they allude to the 1960's reform:

"The realizations of the quiet Revolution, in particular an investment in a massive catching up operation in education, has well served Québec."

Daily Le Soleil November 11, 1998

Québec Universities Threatened.

We have caught up with what, exactly? Could it be that these three gentlemen have never really paid attention to what had been happening in our society during the previous 40 years? I really don't see on what they stand to so blatantly rejoice, considering the dismal state of our education system!

Without their apparently ever becoming aware of it, our education system is crumbling in total confusion, from pre-school to university, and we would have benefited from a massive catching up in education! What is occurring today is not due to chance. It is the foreseeable result of the decisions made during the past 50 years!

"The risk is high that modifications of programs elaborated by a small group of individuals who are not very representative of the whole, could produce results that will be less than satisfactory when the programs are implemented."

André Caillé, 1998

Magazine Spectre October-November 1998

Make them wonder! They will know no limit.

Although this warning concerns a current problem (1999), it touches the crux of the fundamental problem in education. Historically, our children seem to have begun showing major difficulties from the moment that the Ministry of Education began implementing the new program in the 1960's. But how could it be explained to hyperspecialized experts, with limited horizons, that the exclusive use of hyperspecialized experts to modify something as delicate as an education system, can only create havoc?

How could it have been imagined for a single instant that the quality of children's education could be improved without at the very least maintaining the quality of the teachers training. The Specialized teachers' schools were closed down without transferring their excellent teacher training programs to the Facultés des sciences de l'éducation!

In the same article, it is mentioned that in the 1950's, only 7% of the population went to university, but the fact that a similar percentage of students graduated from the Classical course that was in all respects equivalent and even superior to the first university cycle. This makes the percentage of the population of the 1950's with university degree education closer to 15% than to 7%.

Not a word was mentioned either about the percentage of the current population that makes it to that level. We are speaking here of the French-Canadian population, of course. We already know that since the reform, a yearly average of more than 25% of the students dropped out of our universities (33% in 2012) and that for the past 5 years (in 1999), the enrollment has dropped by 10%.

Daily Le Soleil October 15, 1998

10% Less Enrollment in Québec Universities.

We know that in the United States, about 24% of the population finish College and that this percentage is about 17% for Canada. Figures seem much more difficult to obtain for Québec, although according to probabilities it must be somewhere around 10%, which stands lower than in the 1950's if the graduates from the Classical course are taken into account, and the statistics simply do not exist regarding the French-Canadian people in the rest of Canada. As I was doing my research over the Internet, I found no data whatsoever regarding the schooling level of our people in the other provinces.

Our education system has been converted into some sort of factory bent on producing graduates apparently molded to specification, to fit like precision cogs into the consumer products production machinery. But the number of "rejects" clearly shows that the "manufacturing methods" are not appropriate, because the raw material is of high quality, no matter what some educators, specialists and decision makers may think! Regarding the quality of the final product, though, it would seem more than doubtful that the cog factory would metaphorically qualify for the ISO-9002 certification!

Inaction regarding the dropout rate

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Let us say here that the Ministry of Education considers that a child has dropped out only after he has abandoned school for at least 2 years.

Daily **Le Soleil** November 14,1998

Cegeps: an Alarming Rate of Dropping Out.

What should we think of an education system in which a 14 years old child quit "secondary 3", to then be left fend for himself, without anyone intervening in a decisive manner to help him?

Let's consider here that even if the current "secondary 3" is the chronological equivalent of grade 9 elsewhere, from a pedagogical point of view, if a child quits before completing it, he does not even possess the equivalent of grade 8, that is, the first year of our former junior high school program.

I have personal knowledge of the case of a 17 year old boy who quit in secondary 3. He just returned to adult education, where he was categorized as being at the "pre-secondary" level, that is, the equivalent of primary school.

On the eve on the year 2000 then, with all that we know is required to get by in our modern society, our education system lets children possessing barely the equivalent of primary school education of the fifties, at the mercy of the outside world!

Our Ministry of Education allows many children to quit junior high school, without them even having learned to read and write properly. In a large number of public elementary schools, the teaching of reading and writing skills is so shabby that a large number of student entering high school are functionally unable to comprehend the meaning of texts on unfamiliar subjects, such as in history for example.

The university education provided to high school teachers is so insufficient that they cannot realize that when a child asks for an explanation on what a given sentence means, it is not necessarily because the child doesn't understand the individual words making up the sentence, but often because so few connections have been made in his mind between each of these words and the gamut of possible cases of use, that it is the sentence as a whole that remains meaningless for him.

This child will then require much more explaining for many sentences on unfamiliar issues to even understand the very meaning of sentences that the teacher will himself instantly comprehend at first glance, on account of his own reading skill and his familiarity with the subject.

Teachers could lose patience if they think that the child is doing this on purpose to attract attention, because it could appear inconceivable to them that a child could really not know how to read in our day and age half way or near the end of high school, whereas in reality the child could be functionally illiterate and really unable of perceiving without help the meaning of many sentences, on account of the so dismally small amount of reading and writing practice that he was exposed to all through elementary school.

The real cause of discouragement of our children

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In the wake of the 1960's reform, hundreds of thousands of horrified parents discovered that the teacher who had been teaching French to perfection for years, was now awkwardly teaching mathematics to their kid, a subject that she knew barely more about than her pupils, and that she never was attracted to.

The excellent science teacher was now laboriously teaching badminton and volleyball, the former English teacher was doing his best to teach geography, and the math teacher was now teaching French!

To inspire enthusiasm to children for any given subject, it is essential that teachers like the subjects that they teach. Now, for the past 50 years, all graduated teachers, whatever their specialties or personal tastes, are forced to teach the subjects that the authorities chose, without them having any say in the matter.

So, for the past 50 years, the majority of our teachers have been forced to teach subjects that often do not match their personal tastes. The result is that for the past 50 years, our children have often found themselves in classes given by teachers barely motivated, if at all, by the subject they were teaching, which is not very conducive to inspiring enthusiasm in the pupils.

This is why in the middle of the seventies, about 10 years after the reform, the level of dropout though discouragement of the first groups of children that had suffered this regime for years already reached an alarming level as they struggled through high school.

Ritalin

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Let us examine now the extremely serious problem of Ritalin prescription to our children.

From second grade on, begins for children who have not been taught to properly read and write in first grade, the round of visits to "specialists", every one more narrowly specialized than the next, all of them lost in conjectures as to the real causes of these children's problems: dyslexia, dysphasia, hyperactivity, etc., that is, anything but the true problem, and who end up in a pathetic admission of incapacity, by recommending Ritalin to deal with the issue without justifiable medical cause in most cases.

The treatment could appear less cruel than to physically tying them up to their chairs and gag them so they stop disturbing the class, but let us not delude ourselves, even if the handcuffs and gags are invisible, the result is exactly the same! Worse yet, they are deprived of the full enjoyment of what makes them whole human beings, that is, their full self awareness.

A study released on December 8 of 1998 reveals an increase of 400% in the number of prescriptions, between 1990 and 1997. Twice as many prescriptions to French-Canadian children than to English-Canadian children. The study also reveals that in no way does this medication increase children's ability to learn. Finally, the study concludes that prescription of Ritalin is a pretext to reduce services to children, and that the criteria for prescription are essentially non-medical.

See a Critical analysis of this research report on Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (RRSSS) in 1999.

The most recent figures indicate an increase of 567.8% between 1990 and 1998, the number of individual prescriptions going from 36,000 to 204,414.

Daily Le Soleil December 9, 1998

Too Much Ritalin, Too Quickly.

Daily **Le Soleil** April 28, 1999

Ritalin Children, Tomorrow's Duplessis' Children.

Compared with the high quality of intellectual awakening that was provided to our children in the 1950's and at the beginning of the 1960's, the intellectual destitution gradually descending upon French-Canadian children in the province of Québec since the 1960's reform on account of our educators ignorance, is terrible and continues to worsen. The number of cases of children silenced with Ritalin is only the tip of a gigantic iceberg that becomes visible in its entirety only to those who deeply analyze the situation as a whole.

According to a recognized American physician, attention disorders in children result from...

" an "anomaly of the prefrontal cortex" which causes in the child a certain incapacity of inner representation determined by language."

Daily Le Soleil April 26, 1999

Another expert suggests to slow down with Ritalin use

Isn't it strange that 40 years after Chauchard's discoveries regarding this, a reputable scientist still takes an effect for the cause regarding the structure of the verbal areas of the brain? Chauchard's findings conclusively confirm that it is precisely a lack in training to inner representation through language use that is the cause of this type of anomaly.

Even if today's neurophysiologists are perfectly aware that the construction of the synaptic links in the verbal areas of the neocortex is a process that extends over the whole period going from birth to the age of 7, none of them since Chauchard's research has been abandoned, seem to have become aware again that the final physiological configuration of the verbal areas in the neocortex is not of genetic origin but is physiologically determined by the manner in which language is acquired and used during that period.

If this comprehension had circulated sufficiently at the proper time in the specialized community, there is no doubt that educational methods would have been adapted, to the benefit of all children as far back as the 1960's.

"Once the medication has been prescribed, the child calms down and because of this, ceases having access to the ortho-pedagogue, or to the psycho-educator, whereas the medication enhances in no way his learning ability."

Pauline Gref, 1998, Co-author of the study

Daily Le Soleil December 9, 1998, page A12

Too Much Ritalin, Too Quickly.

The real problem can however be summarized very succinctly: each child is exposed to too few words and is too weakly sensitized to the myriad of shades of meaning that these words can express in correlation with the myriad of aspects of reality that they could possibly be used by him to describe, in relationship to the context of their use.

Deprived of the comprehension ability that only proper language training at the appropriate time can provide, the child himself is unable of understanding his own situation while adults openly discuss right in front of him his "intellectual limits" and behavioral problems which may have begun to appear as a result of his growing frustration at not being able to comprehend what is happening to him.

He does not understand the often impatient reactions of teachers whose help he is asking for, and who do not understand his distressing situation any more than himself. Often, totally losing confidence that he will at any point in time become able to understand why things seems so easy for others, but not for him, he ends up being completely discouraged and drops out, and the tragedy is that about 5 out of 10 of our children have been quitting school for exactly these reasons since the 1960's!

How can a parent protect his child from the threat of ritalin

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If a child is less than 7 years of age, it is easy to calm him down completely by making him reach the highest possible degree of ease regarding verbal expression. It is important for him to learn to read and write to the point where these activities become easy for him, as explained in the first section of the guide for parents titled A Future as an Heirloom.

The state of education at the elementary level being what it is however, it seems that the only foolproof protection would be to teach your child to read and write before he enters primary school. A number of methods are available on the market and any one of them will work fine if the parent and the child are at ease with it.

The more skillful a child will become at comprehending situations and at expressing his emotions, the calmer he will tend to become and the less at risk he will be of being noticed by these ignorants who use Ritalin to calm children considered too disturbing in class, and who have never been taught that children remain calm when they are properly educated.

If a child is more than 7 years of age, and problems have already begun to surface, I can only suggest to carefully read the first section of A Future as an Heirloom, and to judge for yourself what approach will be more appropriate in his case.

Education is also degrading elsewhere

It is deplorable besides to observe that the education system of Ontario, that I always considered a reference also seems to be in the process of degrading. Since 1992, the number of full time professors in Ontarian universities has decreased by 10%, whereas the population has not diminished, far from it.

In the United-Kingdom, the illiteracy rate is apparently rather high also. About 22% of the general population (28% of the female population against 19% of the male population) are apparently unable to compare two written pieces of information, to read a newspaper, to understand a schedule, or to fill a form.

Daily Le Monde, November 20, 1997

Illiteracy Reaches Alarming Proportions in the United-kingdom.

The state of affairs seems barely better in France. Despite an illiteracy rate apparently hovering at about 10% in the general population, the rise in illiteracy appears inexorable from studies involving army reading tests showing that from 18,5 to 22% of new army draftees are unable to understand written instructions.

Daily Le Monde, September 11, 1997

On child in Ten Experiences Reading Difficulties, According to a Study by the Insee.

The number of French children finishing elementary school without properly mastering reading and writing apparently reaches the 30% mark, according to newspaper articles that my French colleague René Angel provided me with, which is a tendency similar to that of Quebec.

In France also, the traditional specialized teachers schools (Écoles Normales d'Instituteurs) have been closed down at the beginning of the nineties to be replaced by university controlled Institutes (Instituts Universitaires de Formation des maîtres), where future teachers are not informed any more than here of the research that confirms the need for children to learn to read as soon as possible.

On a model strangely reminiscent of what was done in our own former specialized teacher's schools, the French Écoles Normales provided field oriented practical teaching, involving numerous training periods in special elementary schools, named "application schools", chosen for the quality of their teachers, who were named "training teachers". The teachers stemming from these schools understood pedagogy well, which is certainly not unrelated to the fact that such a low percentage of the adult French population suffered from illiteracy in the past.

On the other hand, in the new Instituts Universitaires de Formation des maîtres, that seem strangely similar to our own Facultées des Sciences de l'éducation, a much more theoretical teaching is provided just like here by university professor who generally have never set foot in an elementary or secondary school. A state of affairs that may not be unrelated to the fact that the percentage of French children coming out of elementary schools suffering from illiteracy rates catching up with ours.

The setting up of these Institutes did not occur without turmoil however, because it appears that a few influential dreamers succeeded just like here in imposing half-baked personal theories. A simple example: a few years ago, the students of one of these institutes had to resort to full strike to force their professors to cancel a course requiring them to learn modern dances. One can well wonder in what way such a course could help train future elementary school teachers, can't we!

There apparently is hope for France however, because contrary to what is happening here, where indifference and absolute blindness regarding this problem have characterized the attitude of our ministers of education for decades, the French minister of National Education, as well as the minister delegate to school teaching, seem to have become aware of the importance of pre-school in the acquisition of basic verbal training.

An ambitious project is in the process of being implemented in the school system, but it seems that success is not a done deal. It is practically certain that the project will be met with important resistance on the part of some of the ministry's high level advisors, who, just like here, are university trained dreamers loaded with degrees, convinced of their science, and also on the part of many teachers who, just like here, are prisoners of their certainties.

Daily Midi Libre, March 6, 1998

Ségolène Royal's Project.

Daily Midi Libre, March 6, 1998

Pre-School, Primordial Doorway to Knowledge.

In 1977, we had a foretaste of the severity of the reaction that can be expected, considering the uproar that followed the publication of the book L'apprentissage précoce de la lecture by Doctor Rachel Cohen, former pre-school teacher who eventually obtained her doctorate in educational sciences, and who conducted an exhaustive research on the subject.

She finally concluded that reading skills should preferably be acquired in pre-school. Many pre-school teachers retorted that "children have far more important things to do before learning to read", while first grade teachers argued that "if children know how to read as they enter first grade, what will there be left for them to do?"!

Psychologists, union leaders, politicians, in short the French elite as a whole seems to have united to fight her ideas. She remembers having been violently taken on during some conferences.

**"Exposing theoretical arguments, experience results from other countries, results obtained, was no use... The audience, with very few exceptions (luckily), remained deaf to my arguments."** ( **[18]** , page 1)

Rachel Cohen, 1992

Just like here, an important part of the French teachers' body do not believe, or do not know, that it is important to train children to read and write properly long before they reach the age of 7.

It is quite remarkable that 22 years after Doctor Cohen's book was published, the president of the Quebec Association for Pre-school Education declared as the first edition of this book was going to press that even if some teachers and parents would like that children knew their alphabet at the end of pre-school, she believes that the small ones have more important needs than to know how to count from one to ten and put 26 letters in order! Practically word for word, the argument that was used to counter Rachel Cohen's book, 22 years ago!

More, the vice-president of this association, that has the last word regarding pre-school education, is adamant:

"It is not the role of pre-school to teach children how to read and write."

October 16, 1999

Daily **Le Soleil** , October 16, 1999

Pre-School: Let's bring down schooling at any cost.

As we can see we are far from out of the bush here in Quebec!

In the United-States there seems to be hope. This summer, thousands of primary schools have offered summer classes to children who had not mastered reading and writing during their first grade, so they can begin grade 2 on the same footing as those who had already mastered reading and writing.

This move doesn't come any too soon, for a recent exhaustive survey conducted on 60,000 students of primary and secondary schools showed that 75% of American children were unable to properly write a coherent text or to fill the requirements of future employers, a situation worse yet than in Quebec.

Daily Le Soleil, October 3, 1999

75% of American Students Cannot Write Correctly.

Our great universities, in the last throws of agony

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When I began this analysis, three years ago, it seemed natural to begin by observing the university closest to my home. My intention was not to single it out as a scapegoat and it still is not. This institution that I always considered one of the best was very simply of easier access.

When François Dumont's analysis came to my attention, a bit by chance, many of my own conclusions were then solidly confirmed. Articles of a local daily newspaper provided me with the missing confirmations. Is what is occurring at this university representative of what is happening in all French-Canadian high learning institutions?

Well, we have a clear indication of the situation, as we read this declaration from Montreal University president in May of 1999:

"When we lose our professors and our researchers we lose the cream of the crop. Those who leave do not leave necessarily for reasons of salary, which is markedly higher elsewhere, but mainly because they perceive that the university no longer has the capacity to maintain a level of excellence.

(Under-financing in Québec's universities)... is a problem that will have serious repercussions in 10 to 15 years. Emptied of its most brilliant and creative elements, the Québec society is at risk of becoming a "dropout" society."

Robert Lacroix, 1999

Weekly Les Affaires May 15, 1999

Montreal University Loses its Best Professors.

Wasn't it a "diplomatic" way to formally inform us that the future generations of graduates are running the risk of not being taught by the best professors?

This was happening in 1999. So what is the situation 13 years later (we are in 2012) smack in the middle of the worse student strike of our history? Wasn't Robert Lacroix's estimation on the mark or not?

In one of our Faculties, the quality of teaching in the accounting sciences was so degraded in 1996, that barely 39.7% of the students successfully passed the exam of the Order of Chartered Accountants, comparatively to 51% for other universities of the province.

To students who worried and sounded the alarm, the vice-president countered that "the quality of education is maintained", while three of the professors who were to provide that education were about to take a sabbatical while the program that they were supposed to offer was not ready.

The students were so discouraged last fall that they considered pursuing their studies elsewhere. The students' association invited other universities to come and present them with their programs. We would have thought that the Order of Certified Accountants would give them their support! Quite the opposite! The Order actively urged the other universities to withdraw, which lead to the cancellation of the meeting that was to have taken place on December 4 of 1998!

Students' protests must be prudent however, practically anonymously in some cases to counter the possibility of negative consequences on an individual basis, because as we have seen from the protest of the Movement for the Right to Education, potential retribution is not a view of the mind when in our advanced twentieth century's end society, students dare demand that their rights be respected.

Daily Le Soleil November 20,1998, page A7

Student Will Protest... Police Brutality.

Daily Le Soleil December 2, 1998, page A6

Students Question Their Education.

Was the president himself in delusion regarding the current quality of teaching in his own university and the very existence of syntheses of accumulated knowledge, when he declared in Toronto:

"The very fabric of university teaching rests on the privileged relationship between professor and student, a relationship that allows the learning of this synthesis, analysis and critical assessment of knowledge, a human relationship that the Internet can not establish."

Daily Le Soleil January 10, 1999

Tomorrow's University.

Or is he alluding to the far past, or to an ideal future, with respect to what is occurring in his own university?

The very day that the meeting was to have taken place between the accounting sciences students and the representatives from other universities, 200 students were protesting in front of the Bonenfant building.

"The Library is burning!"

Daily Le Soleil December 5, 1998

Laval Students Fear for ... Their Library.

... were they chanting as they watched four of their own, costumed as administrators burn a pile of books!

Why? The Laval University Library, which was just ranked 2nd in Canada for it purchases in 1997-1998, and 9th for the number of books per student, has just seen its budget reduced by a third this year. Students' research is already suffering from the pinch. They demand the immediate reestablishment of the purchase budget to its former level of $6 million.

The library director, Claude Bonnelly, understands their plight, but he is powerless. He goes even so far as saying that $7 million would be required to simply maintain the purchasing power. Well, they all will have to manage with $4 million!

"It is a further step in the assassination of the university system."

Patrick Bacon, postgraduate student to masters degree, 1998

There is no reason to worry, according to the vice-president! Not a word from the president! Not a word from the 17 deans! Not a word from the Faculty Directors!

The number of lectures entrusted to often less qualified assistant-professors, especially in the first cycle, now reach the 60% mark in some programs, which had the president of the Fédération Québécoise des Professeurs d'Université (FQPPU) remark:

"the quality of students' education is not guaranteed by such a situation."

Roch Denis, 1998

Daily Le Soleil October 23, 1998

Too Many Assistant-Professors.

What does the future hold for our great institution? We get a glimpse in a recent article revealing that after having retired 160 professors since 1996, the authorities of one of our universities have set as an "essential" objective the retirement of 250 of the 1300 remaining professors of the institution in the next two years, to alleviate the salary mass and replace them with 100 youngsters who will be much less costly.

Daily Le Soleil May 1, 1999

250 Professors Forced to Retire.

On its side, the teachers' union's position is that this objective will be met "if their members' interests are satisfied." Not once was the word "student" mentioned in the article. Not once was the expression "quality of education" mentioned either.

Code of social behavior

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Among other ill advised decisions that were part of the package of the 1960's reform was the almost complete disappearance of any structured teaching of a code of positive social behavior, an important element of which was the teaching of the ground rules of respectful social interaction, as well as structured teaching of language.

These decisions have deprived the upcoming generations of important information meant to help each individual to develop an ability to clearly assess the social consequences of their own actions and on the social repercussions of the quality of the literature available to the general population.

There followed a weird trend of authors not very familiar with their own language, who began to produce literary works literally glorifying ignorance of the most rudimentary rules of spelling and grammar, literally promoting bad speech. Actually, having become unable to produce higher quality material due to the ill advised policies of the managers of education system, they set this new bottom as the new norm of popular literature.

Within fifteen years after the new program implementation, the first generation of authors emerging from this system, more limited in their ability to clearly assess the real impact of messages broadcast to the youth, but clearly sensing the profitability, began to offer texts for the young public in which they glorified hypocrisy, meanness, jealousy, rudeness and so on and so forth, which easily creates very conflicting situations that were very promising regarding audiences ratings.

I remember that these authors justified their borderline texts by arguing that they were only mirroring the behavior of our youth! What an delusion on their part, if they believed for one second that the enlightened segment of the audience saw anything more in this than strictly profiteering intentions!

In these shows, that continue to crowd prime time hours, they stage young comedians into pseudo-social parts of emotionally unbalanced teenagers, eternally involved in interpersonal relationships constantly pushed to intolerable limits, constantly pokerfaced, so to speak, never a smile, except to reveal cunning or sly intentions, or an unhealthy pleasure in the face of others' misfortunes, without any goal in life other than to satisfy their own immediate personal needs, without any other apparent communication means than verbal aggression!

No child dreams of becoming an aggressor, a thief, a murderer, a swindler. All of them dream of becoming astronauts, firemen, doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.

Today, this type of show, that directly targets our teenagers, has earned the respect of the industry! Their authors, well hidden behind the dubious "freedom of expression" shield, glorified by their peers for their success, throw without any restraint their moral rot to the faces of our children. I even wonder if the 500 words of vocabulary mark has ever been reached in the past 15 years in these programs, which in and of itself reveals quite a bit about the quality of the literary education of their authors.

Many general audience programs have finally joined the club, so to speak. I quickly mention this remarkable daily show where each act of verbal or physical aggression between the "guests" is acknowledged by frantic applause from a morbidly fascinated bulgy eyed crowd, who then chant the host's name, as if it were some sort of mantra.

All is not negative, however, on television. I am thinking of the show "Decibel", a wonderful local weekly program that presents us with young talents that dazzle us as they display the results of the years of hard work that they put into mastering their budding art.

But too few programs of this quality offer positive models to our young, and the negative trend seems to constantly dominate. Doesn't it look as if authors and broadcasters alike have mutually recognized each other the right to broadcast anything, as long as it pays, without giving consideration to the damage that could result for the children who are listening in?

Parents are often powerless when faced with such a tidal wave of examples of pseudo-social bad behavior uncompensated by an educative counterpart that would be as strongly supported by our elite, which renders more difficult for our youth the acquisition of an ability to more easily assess the moral value of these programs.

Here also, the authorities and experts are lost in conjectures as to the reasons why hypocrisy, meanness, jealousy, rudeness, and verbal and physical abuse, and particularly violence against women and the vulnerable is considered "normal" by so many youngsters and by so many adults who have developed this impression when they were younger.

It is easy to observe however that a large majority of our young do not adopt these negative behaviors for themselves. They make as clear a distinction as adults do of course between reality and fiction, and they generally perceive rather quickly that in "real life", contrary to the impression that these programs constantly project, extreme situations likely to induce negative reactions in unbalanced individuals tend to seldom occur in the course of an individual's life, instead of the infernal rate of many times per month, as in the "life" of the pseudo-characters of these programs.

They consider these models of behavior rather thoughtfully until they end up drawing a definite conclusion with respect to their own behavior, but the result is that they often consider these negative reactions as normal when they observe them in individuals experiencing hardship, and they could easily display a regrettable indulgence towards these reactions, which are, in fact, mere symptoms of immaturity.

Since the withdrawal of the courses of positive behavior codes, the rest of society provides them with very few models of such positive behavior, because the whole social structure, from top to bottom is now exclusively organized around the exchange of consumer goods and services that are neutral by nature in this respect. No human values whatsoever are conveyed in such structures, by very definition.

These days, the only real models of positive behavior that the young have access to, originate almost entirely from their immediate environment, as if this type of behavior was meant to apply only in this restricted circle.

Naturally, we are speaking of the family circle, of the circle of close friends and of the knowledge that they may acquire of mutual help associations which spontaneously appear in the general population, but to which the authorities or the elite never seem to be involved in.

There remains practically nothing of any socially structured teaching of this sort of positive behavior.

Children growing up in unfavorable family circles

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The most dramatic social problem however is the following. Children growing up in unfavorable family circles are, therefore, practically NEVER put in contact with positive models of behavior, since the reform of the sixties.

In their case, as well as in case where family circles are favorable but still fail to counteract so many negative influences, could we go so far as to wonder whether these negative behavior mongers could bear direct responsibility for a large part of the negative trends in society?

We hear that parents have the responsibility to supervise what their children listen to on television and to teach them to properly assess the value of the contents of these programs. I totally agree! But does this diminish to any degree the tremendous responsibility of the broadcasters and authors of these negative models, with respect to children whose parents do not supervise this aspect of their education for whatever reason? In this perspective, don't they appear as recklessly irresponsible opportunists?

Daily Le Soleil March 17, 1999

Polyvalente de Baie-Comeau (Junior High). As in "Virginie".

"Virginie" was a TV program meant for a teenage audience, one episode of the previous week featured some students in a "Polyvalente" who insulted some of their teachers over the Internet, and were then suspended from the school. In the program this brought about a "strike" in protest by all the other students in the school, resulting in a dramatic police intervention.

Well, guess what! One week later, a few students of the Baie-Comeau junior high school insulted a few of their teachers over the internet, which caused them to be suspended. 200 of the 1000 students of the school then stated a "revolt", refusing to attend their classes while remaining in the school just like on TV, which ended up after fruitless negociations in police intervention.

But even for attentive parents, it cannot be said that newspeople are of much help! How could we qualify the recent television trend that has newspeople apparently unaware to the point of stupidity, unexpectedly describing in news bulletins in the most excruciating details, the sexual escapades of individuals who attract media attention without any consideration to the fact that young children might be listening, depriving attentive parents of any means of intervention, as they are suddenly faced with a irrecoverable after the fact situations?

The American media are particularly pathetic in this regard with their sickly fascination for the abnormal, turning circles for months on end around the most recent atrocious crime or political scandal, as they wait for the next scandal.

For example, not a single week went by, for months after a tragic incident in a high school where many children were killed, during which I did not see the pictures of the responsible troubled mind youth on TV or in some newspaper or magazine, accompanied with a recap of the event, often combined with a recall of other tragic events of the same type. A sickly insistence that can hardly fail to induce copycat events!

What a strange profession that demands that newspeople totally stop using their common sense without anyone in our elite finding fault with it. The "right of the public to be informed" is such an easy horse to ride, and it serves the networks greed so well!

There exists however an article very clear on this issue in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Canada has adhered to, which is Article 29, Paragraph 2:

" In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."

For those who find interpreting this article difficult, it simply means that the duty of any individual is the right of others that their inalienable rights not be violated, or in still simpler terms, that the rights of any individual end where the rights of others begin.

All children need confirmation from society at large that the behavioral models that they are exposed to in their immediate family circle are normal. The way things are these days, lacking outside confirmation, positive behavioral models run the risk of appearing as parental delusions whereas negative behavioral patterns readily find full and complete confirmation, and can readily appear as the social norm in the eyes of those who are faced with only negative behavior at home.

It is very important to understand here that television programming is entirely in the hands of the elite, and children are as fully aware of this as the general population. No one in the general population can influence in any manner the contents of these programs. And no one will ever convince anyone that the messages broadcast on television, whether public or private, are not a reflection of what is considered acceptable, or at least tolerable, by the elite.

On the whole, the number of cases where they experience situations involving positive behavior is insufficient to convince them. How could they believe in them? How could they not suspect an ulterior motive, which is the norm for negative behavior?

School, which should normally be their salvation, by offering an attractive alternative to their possibly depressing family circle, provides them instead, since it has stopped playing its role in this respect, with a place where practically all excesses are allowed, where "gang mentality", so to speak, enters into action as soon as the smallest groups with mutually converging interests develops, which results, through "peer pressure", in behaviors that wouldn't even come to their minds if they were alone, or if they had the chance to develop the ability to easily assess situations, which would shield them from this type of pressure. At the limit, we see these groups making life a hell for all other children, despite the fact that they are in the minority.

Don't these extreme behaviors allow us to foresee what sort of hell will be the life of the children of these future parents to whom our education system proved unable of teaching how to express, and by the same token, how to control their frustrations? One can easily imagine that their fuses will be rather short when their small ones will irritate them even slightly! Couldn't this be the cause of the unbelievable increase in the level of violence against young children in our society? According to some, we apparently have caught up with the American "norm" in this respect!

The total insecurity in which our society maintains our children regarding their future can only induce self defense reactions that directly lead to the formation of gangs, and to the most outrageous expressions of vulgarity towards teachers.

Tragically, because they are often the only adults within their reach, and despite the fact that they are the only ones, when their own parents do not contribute, who can teach them how to think and provide them with the information required for their intellectual awakening, they often represent for them the world of adults who don't care, who do not seem to know any more than themselves what is going to happen to them, or who often appear completely indifferent to their plight.

Of course, each individual reacts in his own way in relation with his accumulated life's experiences, but in all cases, it is a very natural self defensive reaction induced by a fear of the future that grows over the years because they do not receive the information that would allow them to better understand, and to better take control of their own destiny.

The more fearful they become, the more aggressive they become, each in his own way, according to his dispositions. This is a very normal reaction that finds its roots in plain and simple conservation instinct. When the feeling of powerlessness reaches unbearable peaks, depression sets in, with its own set of associated consequences.

Must we really be surprised that many of these children, to whom our society has given no chance to integrate well, become adults displaying destructive behavioral patterns towards themselves, their immediate environment, or for society in general?

The authorities obviously worry at the level of hypocrisy, meanness, jealousy, rudeness, verbal and physical abuse that can be observed to be increasing in our society. In an attempt to counter the trend, they occasionally start sensitization campaigns, particularly regarding violence against women, but none of these higher ups appear to see the connection between the omnipresence in our society of negative behavioral models and the almost total absence of positive models. Our children very simply learn what we teach them!

Our young ones are not blind! Here is the question asked by a young girl to the leader of a campaign to denounce violence against women that was launched by our government in front of an impressive audience of fifty children of 13 and 14 years of age, who had been removed from their usual school activities to bolster up an electoral campaign.

-"Why do you make a campaign to fight violence against women, while you allow violence on television?"

The campaign leader's answer was modestly kept under wrap during the news bulletin on the following day.

In the article of a daily paper reporting the official promotion of this national campaign, were also reported a few cases of how school authorities take care of this type of problem in our schools:

Following the complaints of a young girl, who could no longer bear being constantly called a "harlot" and a "bitch" by a boy in a nearby school, the authorities transferred her to another school.

Following complaints of the mother of a young girl who is forced to attend the same "enriched" courses as a boy who had assaulted her during summer, the school authorities transferred her down to regular classes and deprived her of her physical education class!

Daily Le Soleil October 8, 1998

" **Slut, bitch". Daily Violence in Schools.**

What is happening in our schools? Aren't our good public schools, quite involuntarily I must admit, teaching our young girls that it is better for them to suffer than to complain, unless the harassment becomes totally unbearable, since the treatment they are dealt with by the authority confirms as early as adolescence that without even sheltering them from their aggressor's possible retaliations for having complained, the authorities themselves will trample their rights, in their concern not to infringe on those of the aggressors?

In the cases reported, the victims were never offered real protection from their aggressors.

Are we not teaching here to our teenage boys that they run little risk in case of bad behavior towards young girls? In the cases reported, the aggressors have never been inconvenienced in the least nor have they directly been prevented from continuing to harass their victims.

What a strange message to be coming from a society that claims its belief in the equality of women's rights! They push the victims aside! They let the aggressors roam unimpeded!

Are we not teaching our youth that the rights of aggressors are unconditionally protected by a society that doesn't seem to have any other course of action than to violate those of the victims?

Why?

What is wrong with our society?

How is it that only the victims appear to see the glaring injustice of such a system? Why isn't our elite intensely discussing this dramatic problem? Why this silence?

Parents are practically powerless to protect their children against violence in schools and no help whatsoever can be expected from school authorities unless situations become extreme. A case was reported of the father of a little boy who was banned from approaching his son's school in rather strange circumstances.

Since September, a group of young hotheads, some rather big, since they were doubling their sixth grade, have been terrorizing the other children in a school in the Quebec city area. At some point, this father could not tolerate any longer his son being brutalized almost every day, so he went to the authorities to complain.

Now, what happened in the principal's office for things to turn that sour for the father? Maybe this principal found intolerable that the father of one of his pupils would confront him with his responsibilities regarding violence in his own school? Obviously, the principal did not like his manners, because he had him legally interdicted under threats of fines.

Daily Le Soleil, October 10, 1999

He takes his son to school: Fined for $136.

I can easily imagine what could have happened in that principal's office, if he minimized the problem in front of this father, who might have been in no position to transfer his boy to another school, because we personally had to transfer our own daughter to a new school because the authorities of her own school refused to transfer her to a class where she would not have been forced to be in constant contact with hotheads who were making her life difficult.

So, it goes without saying that I totally support the action taken by this father to protect his son. In fact, I support all parents who act to protect their children against violence at school, and who refuse to turn a blind eye on this problem, like our indifferent sleepwalking elite, who constantly minimize it so as not to be forced to confront if.

In conclusion, our former education system, that of course needed a few adjustments, was simply and completely thrown away, and the whole system was reconstructed from scratch on very dubious foundations, because the quality of our children's education then left the first place that it previously occupied without any apparent hope of return.

Could our elite's inaction be voluntary?

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As he observed the scene, the following interrogation seems to have come very naturally to the mind of François Dumont as he considered the quality of education:

**"Either the ignorance of the population is fostered - so as to better control it - or knowledge acquisition is promoted so that our population is educated and can make clear enlightened democratic choices."** ( **[6]** , page 158)

François Dumont, 1997

It can be observed that knowledge is less and less circulated! We have heard for some time now of a formal project to cut all teaching of sciences in elementary school, and to considerably decrease it in high school.

The High Council for Education, a body of specialists, the level of expertise of which appears to match that of the members of the Council for Science and Technology, has just recommended not to increase the number of hours of maternal language teaching in high school to put an end to the enriched courses which have been set up to motivate and allow the more awakened children to progress faster.

Strangely, they converge here with the objectives of this teachers union that also works to eliminate the criterion of academic qualification in the assessment of the salaries of teachers. The ultimate objective of these people seems to be a downgrading of the quality of education to the lowest possible level, as quickly as possible.

Daily Le Soleil February 2, 1999

The High Council for Education in Self-Contradiction.

Strange views in the higher circles of research

"Belief in the inferiority of the masses became the unwritten law of the 'privileged classes'; it was forced upon, rubbed into, the subconscious mind of the masses by church and state alike, and was humbly and dumbly accepted by the 'lower order' as their 'destiny'. Ignorance was proclaimed as bliss." ([2], page 153)

Alfred Korzybski, 1921

According to the premises that seem to underlie the actions of the Council for Science and Technology, deep contempt seem to color the opinion of the higher circles of research regarding the general population.

Postulates that seem to underlie the action of the Council for Science and Technology ([6], page 178)

François Dumont draws this conclusion from his analysis of the notice entitled "Urgence technologique. Pour un Québec audacieux, compétitif et prospère" issued in 1993 by the Council for Science and Technology.

**First Postulate** : The population cannot understand by itself, people are unable of grasping complexity.

**Second Postulate** : We, the scientists, know what is good for you. Don't worry, we will take care of everything.

Why such a contemptuous attitude?

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It is to be hoped that not everyone working or collaborating with the Council would agree with this type of reasoning. We can wonder at such a strange perception on the part of people whose function is to examine social problems in view of proposing solutions.

Regarding the First Postulate, it is rather amusing to observe that speaking of "ability to grasp complexity", the very same Council for Science and Technology is so obviously lost in conjectures as to the rather obvious reasons for the 70% dropping out rate of students in sciences and technology courses, in high school as well as in college!

In the alarmed article mentioned in Chapter A Recent Alarming Sign, a representative from the Council concludes that this regression is worsened by "a phenomenon that they consider "unknown" or that they perceive as "fate"." According to him then, the members of the Council for Science and Technology don't have a clue as to what is occurring in our society!

Daily Le Soleil October 20, 1998, page A17

Very High Rate of Dropping Out in Our Schools. Students in techniques and sciences can't bear the strain.

Regarding the Second Postulate, considering the mess that "we, the scientists" seem to have let happen in our education system, worried parents may be well advised to directly take charge of the education of their children, and to no longer allow the scientists to "take care of everything"!

One could think, reading the very last paragraph of the article that something will finally be done to correct the situation!

Last paragraph of the article:

"The majority of these youth, we have reasons to believe, effectively had at the beginning, the ability and motivation to follow such studies. A system that discourages so many hopes is a system that must be questioned."

14 years later (in 2012), no trace can be observed of these intents being converted into any action whatsoever! In reality, scientists are prisoners of a structure that renders them as powerless as the general population to modify things.

The problem seems to be twofold:

The problem of hyper-specialization

In the first place, just like the decision makers and educational circles specialists, it seems that the extent of general knowledge base of the members of the Council, each in his hyper-narrow specialized field, is very simply too restricted to allow them to really become aware of the problem as a whole, and this, even collectively.

Each of them is very aware of the consequences, but can only analyze them within the restricted frames allowed by the limited general knowledge base that they possess. Each of them then holds a small personalized piece of the puzzle, but they are often convinced that they see the whole puzzle. The conflicts that result from these various interpretations obviously paralyze the whole machine.

The problem of insecurity related to under-financing

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In the scientific community, a problem of chronic insecurity must also be considered. For decades now, the tiniest research budget in the industrialized world has been put at the disposal of our researchers. This resulted in our scientists taking on the habit of mutually tearing from each other's hands shreds of grants that were insufficient to insure the professional survival of every member of the group.

It is therefore not surprising that François Dumont would observed:

"Many clues tend to indicate that the regrouping of professors-researchers in a University Research Center is only meant to attract more money and not as we believed, to encourage collaboration between these specialists." ([6], page 51)

François Dumont, 1997

When people fight for their survival, they tend to save their own skin before taking care of that of others, and this is a natural reflex. How can it be expected that constructive collaboration could result when researchers are forced to mutually feed off of insufficient crumbs to "nourish" everyone. ([6], Chapter 2)

Our universities seem to have metaphorically become vast intellectual concentration camps for our professors and researchers.

They are metaphorically told: "We generously provide you each year with more than enough to live comfortably during nine months. Share it equitably amongst yourselves according to the value of each your research projects and bring us results that we can be proud, or else, we will be faced with the painful duty to reduce your ration. Be mindful not to forget, in your free time naturally, to educate quality graduates, to guarantee a quality upcoming generation!"

Now, why are our decision makers' advisors lost in conjectures as to why 1 out of 4 of our researchers has left the country 2 years after obtaining their doctor's degree, according to Statistics Canada?

Daily Le Soleil November 5, 1998

Controlling the Brain Drain.

For decades, our best elements have been leaving the country. The last case to date was Doctor Claude Bouchard, recognized worldwide for his work on obesity. He called it quit after 35 years at Laval University, bringing with him a dozen of his team members, and his $3 million grant that came from abroad anyway. He was offered on a silver platter an annual budget of $30 million at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana.

His thoughts as he commented his departure:

"Research, is always the last in line as far as priorities go here. And the situation isn't improving."

Daily Le Soleil April 29, 1999

Dr Bouchard Packs and Leaves.

Today, Doctor Bouchard leads a team of 1000 researchers in Louisiana.

Economic performance since the "quiet revolution"

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The reader probably has a good idea by now to what extent our experts can be off track as they regard the Parent reform in education that took shape during the so-called Quiet revolution of the 1960's in Quebec. Let us now examine the evolution of our economy since the 1960's.

Here again, just as the large number of students who successfully graduate creates the illusion that the education system is doing well, and the large number of university graduates, each more specialized than the next, creates the illusion that all of humanity's inheritance of knowledge is being transmitted to them, it appears that the large number of individuals who have enough money to live comfortably, combined with the unrealistic predictions of our economists, create the illusion that our economy is doing rather well.

Daily Le Soleil November 19, 1998

Québec Will Catch up to Canada in the Year 2000.

Although the degree of economic strength of our society is a bit off topic in this analysis, let us give it a quick run through anyway, because our society's economic hardships are a direct outcome of the pitiful quality of the education that our children have been provided with for decades.

If we look at the figures since 1961, the average economic growth in the province of Québec has held a steady 3%, which is .5% lower than that of Canada for the same period, which resulted in Québec representing only 21% of the Canadian GNP today compared to 25.3% in 1961. In short, we barely kept up with the increase in cost of living, while the rest of Canada progressed well beyond that of 1961!

Weekly Les Affaires December 5, 1998

Demography Hinders the Economy.

During the same period, our population went from 30% of the Canadian population in 1961 to 24.2% today, despite an absolute increase due to immigration, less rapid however than in the rest of Canada, because those who could leave the province, actually left Québec to go work elsewhere, and those who could not stayed to sink into poverty.

So, since the Quiet Revolution, we remain consistently far behind the rest of Canada regarding economic growth, and the widening of the gap has been even more dramatic in the past 2 years.

Daily Le Soleil November 23, 1998

Who does Parti québécois think we are?

In 2012, the mean net salary of a Quebec family of 2 or more persons is $58100 comparatively to that of neighboring Ontario of $69300 and $78100 for Alberta.

Daily Le Devoir June 19, 2012

Canadian families' income is not increasing.

We are by far, the most heavily taxed province in Canada. 180,000 individuals, almost 30% of our population, in the Québec city area alone, lived below the poverty line in 1999. The personal revenue of the immense majority of the population has not increased for the past 20 years with respect to the cost of living.

Daily Le Soleil November 30 1998

Boosting the economy by eliminating poverty.

Barely 10 years after the beginning of the Quiet Revolution, "whose achievements served Québec so well" according to some, our economy began to stagnate, never to recover again!

Daily Le Soleil November 11, 1998

Québec Universities Threatened.

Why?

What is the situation in 1998? 2.8% of Montreal's population and 6.8% of Québec city's population are homeless or are forced to visit soup kitchens, that find it more and more difficult to feed them all, because the pitiful welfare cheque that our government meters out to those among them who "still" have the right to receive it, is insufficient for them to eat or feed their children properly.

Daily **Le Soleil** November 26, 1998

Three times more vagrants in Québec than in Montréal.

The proportion of young people in this group is staggering: 8% of the homeless in Québec city are children (less than 18 years of age)!

Daily Le Soleil November 30, 1998

Boosting the economy by eliminating poverty.

As far back as 1990, 10% of Québec's homeless were young people aged 10 to 20!

Magazine L'Actualité November 15, 1991

The Invasion of Lost Children.

Half of the individuals who must rely on food banks are less than 30 years old, meaning that they were not yet born at the time of the reform of the 1960's. One third of those who visit these banks are children less than 18 years old. 10% of students in senior high school are totally destitute and must occasionally rely on food banks.

In the Québec city area alone, between 1992 and 1998, the Salvation Army had to increase its budget six-fold to cover the needs. Of the $2.5 million budget of the Québec city area, that originates exclusively from public donations and Salvation Army services, more than $1 million comes from the western provinces. A million thanks to our English-Canadian friends for their generosity towards our unfortunate, who are incomprehensibly left out in the cold by our own government.

Daily Le Soleil November 27, 1998

Growth of Help Must follow the Growth of Poverty.

What future awaits these children who often go to sleep on empty stomachs while their parents silently despair of ever finding work again? It seems to me very unlikely that they will have the right to attend l'École Fernand-Séguin! No hot meals at school for them, no school bus to pick them up if they live more than 1.6 kilometers away, as is offered to the privileged.

Daily Le Soleil October 15, 1998

Respect for Human Rights... Refusing Destitution.

Half of the destitute who owe their survival uniquely to meals provided by religious communities in the Québec city area, are mentally ill individuals who have been practically thrown out on the street by the authorities during an impressive "de-institutionalization" operation.

Since the "disengagement" of the state, religious communities spend $500 millions per year to help those without means, which includes payment of medication that the "de-institutionalized" are now unable of paying themselves.

You are not dreaming! According to this newspaper article, religious communities give half a billion dollars per year to help our poor!

Daily **Le Soleil** April 23, 1999

$500 Million Per Year to the Poor.

De-institutionalize: An economic term meaning: "To thrown out in the street a vulnerable and destitute individual from a psychiatric institution to balance a government budget."

Subsequent treatment is taken care of by community groups without means for cases of average severity and by police corps with bludgeon, taser or handgun for severe cases, because there simply exists no other means available to deal with violent mentally ill individuals who are repeatedly re-hospitalized since they are immediately thrown out again in the streets according a well established and unswervable protocols.

Those who are not barely surviving totally destitute in the streets live with their parents, many of whom live in constant terror that their schizophrenic child might one day aggress them, which happened more than once over the past few years with deadly outcome.

Patients who are hospitalized "in observation" for more than one day before being "set free" again with prescriptions that many are unable to buy and instructions that many are unable to follow, are left with sufficiently lacking supervision for many to have succeeded in commiting suicide or aggressing or even killing other patient of attendants as they wait for "assessment".

In the latter case, a patient with a known violence loaded past record killed two other patients over the course of many days without anyone noticing, before being caught in the act trying to kill a third one.

Daily Le journal de Québec, June 29, 2012

Violent and Paranoid. The double murder suspect in Notre-Dame hospital was fearing for his life, says a relative.

Such cases are far from uncommon in Quebec. Practically routine in fact! Seldom does a week go by without hearing about such cases.

Why? What is the level of competence of the "assessors" of these patients? And please don't show us their degrees. Show us their knowledge.

Strangely, no comment from the authorities or professionals concerned. All hospitals concerned simply hang up when newspeople call to get some information. No inquiry! Nothing!

There it is, the ultra modern psychiatric care system that our successive governments have implemented in replacement of the traditional institutions, that without being perfect, at least took reasonable care of mentally ill people.

Our government is totally insensitive to the fate of children who are destitute or victims of aggression. Our Health and Social Services minister is totally deaf to the calls for help of the 85 safe houses in the province who can no longer provide all the help required to women and children victims of violent husbands or fathers, on account of budgets cutbacks imposed by our government. For men in distress, there exists nothing at all!

Daily Le Soleil June 6, 1999

Safe Houses: Money Cruelly Lacking.

Never have our decision makers and their advisors even suspected that the bad quality of teaching of writing and reading skills, as well as the low level of general knowledge provided in our education system could be the cause.

Even the fact that tens of thousands of positions are vacant, positions that demand well educated candidates, able to read and understand instruction manuals on their own, to understand texts and procedures, of being able to properly write coherent reports, while hundreds of thousands of candidates come out of our schools badly educated, unable of read and understand instruction manuals or read texts and procedures on their own, and to properly write coherent reports, and who sink into chronic welfare, doesn't register!

On October 9th of 1998, the president of Matrox declared:

"the scarceness of well educated candidates in the Montreal area is one of the main reasons that urged us to open development centers outside of Québec and Canada."

Lorne Trottier, 1998

Daily Le Soleil October 9, 1998

Scarcity of graduates in Sciences and Technologies.

Absolutely no reaction from our elite!

Compensating self taught education

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In Québec, many of those who don't go beyond high school or Cegep very quickly become aware that in "real life", the meager knowledge base that they were given at school is downright insufficient and they often set out to complete the job by themselves. The surprising result is that many non-graduates in the Québec general population who nevertheless developed a taste for reading eventually set out to complete the job on their own and acquire general knowledge bases more extensive than that of many university graduates.

On the other hand, those who continue on to post-secondary education are generally too caught up in their specialized studies to be able to sacrifice much time to such an undertaking, if they even notice the problem. How else could it be explained then why even businessmen, who are usually quite indifferent to these considerations, now raise worried eyebrows when considering the profound lack of general culture in the latest crop of university graduates.

Weekly Les Affaires January 9, 1999

Businesses call for qualified employees.

Consequently, it seems quite unlikely that many individuals could be found within this budding elite, possessing the extent of general knowledge required to really become aware of the important conclusions of Pavlov and Chauchard.

This why I set upon popularizing their research in many books in the hope that they will thus become within reach of this non-graduate fringe endowed with wider general knowledge bases, who may possibly make a difference.

Many young graduates however who have come out of our universities in the past 40 years have not been deceived and fully realize, powerless, how much they have been cheated by the education system, particularly those who come in contact with graduates of the former Classical course.

The recommendation of the High council for education

With the defective general education base that they collectively had access to, is it really surprising that the hand-picked members of the High Council for Education have such faulty perception of the fundamental problem of the awakening of intelligence in children that they just recommended not to increase the currently insufficient number of teaching hours of the mother language?

How could they have heard of the importance of the mastery of language in regards to the ease of learning of any subject matter? Should we be surprised that they recommend to stop giving enriched courses to promising students?

The Council has just tabled a 100 pages opinion (that has been 1 year in preparation) meant for our Minister of Education, titled "For a better school performance of boys and girls ". According to this opinion, that observes that boys experience greater difficulties than girls in school, changing the school system or the contents of the programs is in no way considered to remedy the situation.

Daily Le Soleil, October 14, 1999

" **Boys must learn how to work", says a researcher.**

The main points of the conclusions of this team "experts" is that... "professional and social insertion now rests on a minimal requirement of secondary 5" (the equivalent of grade 9), ""Boys" often don't have the basic characteristics required to succeed. There is no need to change the school system.", and finally, apparently the most important conclusion of the Council: "The High Council for Education suggests a greater implication on the part of "daddies".".

And believe me, I am not making this up! These are verbatim quotations from the newspaper article!

Now, that a select panel of university graduates, our greatest experts in the educational sciences, could come up with such a pitiful load of crap after one full year of analysis is quite beyond me!

How tragic for our children!

Isn't it easier now to understand why these other hand-picked specialists from the Council for Science and Technology are completely lost in conjectures as to the reasons of the discouragement of our youth?

The problems of our society go far beyond in complexity than anything that they were taught how to analyze.

Unaware elite

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In short, we can see to what extent the presidents and principal of our three largest universities appear disconnected from reality, and not just slightly, regarding the "benefits" of the so-called "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960's in education as well as in the economic field. We are speaking here of the holders of the highest functions in the field of education. What were they taught for them to draw conclusions so disconnected from reality?

Daily Le Soleil November 11, 1998

Québec Universities Threatened.

Doesn't it seem obvious, that in their squeaky clean bubble, where everything is going rather well, that they have never had a simple conversation with a discouraged dropout, or with a 50 years old unemployed who sees the day coming when he will have to go on Welfare, and who has not yet finished bringing up his children, or with a single woman who can barely feed her children with her meager welfare cheque?

How many parents in the general population, who did not have the chance to go beyond grade 9 in the former system, and who spared nothing so that their children could finish high school in order to be better prepared for life, gradually realized with anger and confusion that their children, who brilliantly completed our local flavor of high school, have learned nothing more than themselves, even less in certain fields! This analysis should demonstrate that this is no illusion, but cold hard fact.

Considering besides, the irreparable damage caused by the insensitive bureaucratic monster named Ministry of Education, where no teacher nor pedagogue worthy of the name seem to ever have had a say when major decisions were taken, doesn't it look, irrespective of the supposedly enlightened opinion of our universities presidents, apparently universally shared by our elite, as if the reform of the 1960's could well have been the most gigantic deception that the French-Canadian people has suffered since the beginning of its history in 1668?

1668 is the year that Le Petit Séminaire de Québec was founded, where the Classical course was eventually developped, and by the same token, the year when our people started to have its own identity, thanks to a homegrown high level elite that from that moment on was being educated locally.

The only worthwhile realization of the Quiet Revolution, regarding education, appears to have been the creation of the many branches of the Université du Québec. It seems to me that we would have been much better off without the rest!

Cultural suicide

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Historically, our elite is not the first to commit such a cultural suicide. The Romans already paved the way when they forbid the teaching of the science of Ancient Greece ([8], page 50).

It must be said that the Romans didn't go half heartedly about it! The finishing touch to their "reform" was given when Hypathia, the last individual who dared rise in defense of teaching the science of the Greek was skinned alive! The quality of teaching progressively degraded so much, that eventually no one was sufficiently well educated to rationally manage the Empire's public affairs.

The Roman Empire then progressively de-structured under the indifferent eye of those who mutually glorifying each other as being part of the Empire's "elite", while the Empire was in the last throws of collapsing. There followed a period of obscurantism in Europe that took 1000 years to get out of! We were a little less excessive here in Québec in the 1960's, because we are much more civilized, aren't we! Instead of executing Hypathia, we simply stripped her of her right to teach in the public sector!

Previously, teaching was principally the concern of religious communities whose existence was the result of a common will on the part of their members to give quality teaching to the children of our people. Nothing was spared to insure that future teachers acquired an education on par with the best in Europe. When they were excluded from public teaching in the 1960's, by the same token the group of teachers collectively possessing the best education that our population had ever known was literally thrown out of the school system.

Whatever could be dug up, or outright fabricated, to put blame on these communities, the fact remains that they collectively maintained to the highest degree, a structured teaching of humanity's inheritance of accumulated knowledge that had no counterpart in university circles and that disappeared with them.

At that time, the contents of the teaching programs and the determination of what services should be made available to our children was not entrusted to economists, to specialists possessing narrowly restricted knowledge bases, and to union leaders, but to widely knowledgeable and enlightened pedagogues. Moreover, travelling mandated inspectors made certain that the quality of teaching was maintained even in the remotest schools of the province.

Two years ago, almost all of the remaining teachers who had benefited from the teaching of this true intellectual elite that has now disappeared, and the majority of whom possessed knowledge far beyond what is currently offered to any first cycle graduate in our universities, whatever our ignorant elite might think about it, were forced to retire.

It is even possible also, if the aims of the leaders of the main teacher's union are satisfied, that the remaining teachers who pushed their own education to the highest level possible may become discouraged, and end up abandoning the field!

Who will then be left to teach to the upcoming generations, and what will happen to our society? If I am wrong in my diagnosis, explain to me why, after close to 40 years of progressive degradation of education, the level of knowledge in the governmental administrative structure was already so impoverished that the decision makers emerging from this system had become unable of conceiving realistic social projects and that those in charge of implementing them had become totally unable of putting them into affect.

Daily **Le Soleil** February 18, 1999

Welfare Recipients, the Big Losers of the Reform.

Weekly **Les Affaires** March 13, 1999

Laval University Sinks Millions in a Computer System That Doesn't Work.

Daily **Le Soleil** March 17, 1999

The Controversy Subsists in the Cegep Sector.

A summit in collective incoherence and incompetence was without a doubt reached regarding the $5.00 daycare system ($7.00 in 2012), a program meant to help modest families. A recent fiscal analysis revealed that families earning less than $32,000, particularly single parent families, ended up being overcharged by about $1,000 on account of existing federal income tax criteria! Only families whose earnings exceed $50,000 benefit from the system!

Our good federal government remains strangely silent in the face of this shower of unexpected millions that now over-garnishes the public funding trough, coming out of the pockets of the poorest parents of the province of Québec.

Daily **Le Soleil** May 27, 1999

$5 Kindergarten is too expensive for the poor.

Let us think also of the unbelievable mess of the healthcare system, which is in the process of literally crumbling under our very eyes while patients die on waiting lists for cancer and heart treatment, and that our health minister, ex-education minister, her scarf artistically neglected on her shoulder, spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury offices equipped with silent toilets for her use in Québec and Montreal, under the benevolent eye of her boss, who, on his part, travels around the world, in his brand new plane, to praise the modernism of the Quebec society!

Daily **Le Soleil** , October 22, 1999

Not One, But Two New offices for Marois.

Daily Le Soleil, October 23, 1999

Pauline Marois' Lavishness.

How can it be that the enormous "progress" that our society has supposedly made since the Quiet Revolution has rendered our elite and our decision makers so incompetent that no replacement has been prepared to take up the load of the remaining struggling physicians and nurses who carry the whole system on their shoulders and end up being totally exhausted and progressively call it quits, as they vainly ask for relief?

Daily **Le Soleil** February 22, 1999

ER Care, tearing up Like the olympic stadium roof.

It is exactly what happened to the Roman Empire. At a certain level of degradation of the quality of their education system, no individual received sufficient knowledge to manage the Empire. So, it ended up collapsing!

Let us not delude ourselves. This is exactly what is occurring to our society.

The point of no return seems now to have been reached, because the current generation of graduates do not even know anymore the name, nor the history of our people. But most dramatically, even superficial verifications unequivocally confirm that they know NOTHING of Humanity's History.

How could they avoid repeating the mistakes of a past that they have never heard of! A dramatically high number of them did not even acquire the critically important taste for reading, which is the only entranceway to the treasure room containing the extraordinary inheritance of knowledge acquired by Humanity.

We can observe, besides, a profound loss of interest in the upcoming generation for advanced studies in engineering and data processing sciences. Local companies recruit engineers and data processing personnel by the hundreds from other countries while almost half of our children sink into ignorance and ensuing destitution.

Weekly Les Affaires February 27, 1999, page 23

Shortage of Engineers Foreseen.

Why?

It has become imperative to develop of a new elite that will be educated enough to take good care of our children.

The number of educated individuals aware of these problems is insufficient in the elite for real change to be initiated. A new elite must literally be "grown" from within aware families until a "critical mass" is reached that will allow progress to resume.

Condescension or lack of understanding?

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But let's come back a little to what could be construed as a condescending attitude on the part of the scientific circle.

I still have in mind interesting remarks made by one of my friends, a brilliantly resourceful and untiring inventor, regarding conversations he had on many occasions with graduates who marveled at the quality, complexity and novelty of his devices, that involved electronic components, sound effects, programmable components, mechanical, hydraulic, and pneumatic components. He recalls how smiles froze over and conversations turned short when, to their inquiry regarding what education he had to be able of conceiving such sophisticated devices, he simply answered that he had taught himself, at the "school of life".

This shows well how wide-ranging knowledge has become a rare commodity in the university sector, so much so that it appears disconcerting to these victims of mono-specialization who currently come out of our universities, especially when this broad based knowledge has so obviously been acquired outside their circle.

Instead of glorifying and seeking contact with such knowledge, graduates seem to become profoundly uneasy when faced with it. How can "ordinary people" know more than themselves, on any given subject? The mystery is boundless for them. Lack of understanding is total.

Unmistakable signs already indicate that the university circle is not even a player any more regarding the integration of scientific research done elsewhere in the world. Initiatives that traditionally stemmed from university circles are now frequently driven by parents who can wait no longer!

Let us quote the case of hyper-oxygenation through use of hyperbaric chambers to help children suffering from certain neurological problems, or the case of hyper-activation methods promoted and applied by the Pinochio Foundation to help children who are accidentally deprived of an independent capacity to acquire some fundamental training.

Daily Le Soleil April 4, 1999

First Scientific Study Conducted on Children.

The media people worry that these projects are not piloted by recognized professionals. Being unable to assess for themselves the objective value of these technologies on account of their own hyper-specialized education that apparently taught them only how to capture the public's attention, they tend to rely on the presence or not of recognized university graduates at the helm of such projects to determine whether they are valid or not. Failing this, projects automatically appear questionable from their viewpoint.

In cases where no recognized graduates are at the helm of projects that come to their attention, they do consult with knowledgeable professionals to have an opinion, but generally, even they seem to have become unable to assess the issues at hand, because the cases considered typically lay outside their own narrow field of expertise, and even if the research underlying these projects originates from universities in other countries, they apparently remain as suspicious of them as if they originated from the Amazonian jungle.

A one year project has just been started to evaluate the value of hyper-oxygenation with hyperbaric chambers. Half the children "treated" during this period will not be hyper-oxygenated, without the parents' knowledge to verify if the other half really benefits from the treatment! Are they used as guinea pigs? Why must half of these victims pay the price of the inability of our local scientists to evaluate results carried out and confirmed elsewhere by recognized specialists?

The most surprising case that I followed with interest during this analysis is that of people afflicted with fibromyalgia, a little known illness for which no cure is known that induces excruciating pain in the body. In the Québec city area alone between 1000 and 2000 individuals are affected. In the United States, no less than 5 million people are affected.

Daily Le Soleil July 24, 1999

Francine Duchesneau demands her right to health.

It seems also that there apparently is no research in progress to find a cure! Sylvie Bruyère, president of the Association de la fibromyalgie de Québec (AFRQ) is disconcerted by the indifference that she was faced with in the medical profession. Twice, she mailed 150 letters to physicians in an attempt to constitute a list of generalists who would be willing to follow the cases, but she did not receive a single answer! Not the slightest sign that her letters were even received! Nothing!

Our private schools network

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At first glance, it is very difficult to believe that our elite is not aware of the repercussions of the cuts made to the education budget, of the irreparable gradual disappearance of our centuries old network of top quality private schools that has progressively grown out of financial reach of the general population, of the disappearance of science teaching in elementary schools and its decrease in high school, on the degree of intellectual awakening of upcoming generations.

Weekly Les Affaires October 31, 1998, page 47

How can it be explained that by financially strangling them, our Ministry of Education has forced the closing down of a number of centuries old teaching institutions, like the Ursulines School, the Marie-Moisan School, the Marguerite-d'Youville High School, to name just a few, against all common sense even from a financial point of view.

Daily Le Soleil November 24, 1998

Making Room for "Petty Politics".

In the past 6 years alone, half of the boarding schools of the province have been forced to close their doors due to the financially strangling measures of our Ministry of Education.

Daily Le Soleil March 1, 1999

Boarding Schools: A Disappearing Tradition.

Our government will perhaps even succeed in forcing the closing down of the oldest high learning institution in North America. I am speaking here of Le Petit Séminaire de Québec, founded 325 years ago, some elements of which have been recognized by the UNESCO as an important part of the international heritage. The senior high school section of this national educational symbol is on the verge of closing its doors, on account of the total indifference of our elite.

Why this indifference? What other society in the world let their centuries old high learning institutions close down!

As a last resort, to prevent the inevitable closing down, despite the fact that such a solution guarantees a short term degradation of the quality of teaching due to the standardization which will become mandatory, the management of the school has been attempting for 2 years now, to associate with public sector institutions in order to survive.

Daily Le Soleil November 13, 1998

Le Petit Séminaire hands over its collegial section to Garneau.

A last ditch project had been prepared in close collaboration with Collège François-Xavier-Garneau and Laval University, to which our minister of education has opposed a final refusal on March 3 of 1999. According to a recent article, this refusal is all the more irrevocable because it is a "governmental decision" at the highest level, and this, for financial reasons, despite the government's budgetary surplus.

Daily Le Soleil March 5, 1999

Legault says no to Le Petit Séminaire de Québec.

Daily Le Soleil March 6, 1999

Séminaire de Québec. Too expensive a project.

Our government refuses 1 million dollars to save this institution, but agrees without any qualms to provide 8 million dollars per year to a group of multi-millionaire shareholders who lobbied to siphon off their share of the public funding trough to help them continue to pay millions in salaries to the athletes of a Montreal sports team, all of this as usual under the indifferent eye of our elite.

Paradoxically, at the very same moment that our leaders were giving away our public funds to multi-millionaires instead of massively reinvesting to insure the future of our children, 4000 students and teachers were shouting their anger in front of the Québec Parliament building to protest the deterioration of the whole education system.

Daily Le Soleil March 25, 1999

Thousands of students in the streets.

A greater number yet were doing the same in front of a Montréal building, siege of a federal government organism who had been refusing for 2 years to release more than $600 millions promised by the federal government to help our children to complete their education, despite a federal budgetary surplus running in the billions, a refusal justified by one of these stupid cock fights to which our politicians of both levels of governments have become addicted to over the decades.

I am positively certain that the dignified representatives of our elite, at both levels of government, have not understood the meaning of the few screams of barely restrained rage that resounded 13 years ago, despite the menacing presence of the riot squad. How could they have understood, they who know nothing of Mankind's History and who have never even glanced at the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Bridges are so irretrievably cut between our government, which is completely disconnected from reality and the education sector that no direct communication link seems to exist any more. The director of Le Petit Séminaire de Québec was reduced to writing an open letter in a newspaper to implore premier Lucien Bouchard of our government to intervene to prevent the irreparable from taking place, and to save the deepest root of the French-Canadian culture. A polite meeting ensued, which was concluded by a polite but final "no".

Daily Le Soleil March 10, 1999

Save Le Petit Séminaire!

Daily Le Soleil March 9, 1999

Séminaire de Québec. Dying after 331 years is out of the question.

Daily Le Soleil April 8, 1999

Still no Solution.

This indifference can be understood if we consider that for our elite, the word "culture" has referred for a long time uniquely to what is taking place in the entertainment circles. What do they care that the cornerstone of a culture of which they know nothing about and of which they have long ago ceased being a part of disappears!

Here again, no amount of protest had the slightest effect! Absolutely no reaction from our elite! As for the government, no hope seems to be permitted, for no one in the whole structure seems to be sufficiently well educated to understand the meaning of a quality education system for the future of a nation.

A few months from year 2000, despite the first budgetary surplus in 40 years, our government re-injects with apparently great pride a meaningless $82 million dollars from a balanced budget that reaches well above the 40 billion mark to improving our dying education system.

Daily Le Soleil March 13, 1999

"Losers" succeed. Children from poor neighborhoods defy statistics.

It is confirmed therefore that we are headed straight for disaster. Unless the parents themselves directly intervene, the next generation will lose the capacity to really take over, and our society will de-structure past the point of no return. Our culture will have disappeared.

It is worth considering whether it could simply be the attraction of the public funding trough, which is better and better garnished over the years, in proportion to the population's impoverishment that attracts them so inexorably, and keeps our elite so quiet regarding the degradation of the quality of our education system! After all, if too much money is diverted to educate our children, less will remain for the adults who are plugged to the trough, so to speak!

Daily Le Soleil March 22, 1999

The Employment Insurance Reform Creates Havoc.

A superficial analysis could even bring us to a very negative interpretation regarding the intentions at the highest levels, because it has been proved long ago that ignorant populations are easier to control than well educated populations ([6], page 158). I warmly recommend here reading the writings of Noam Chomsky to those who might be interested by this angle.
Reintroduction

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How to re-sensitize?

Chauchard's problem

"I have often explained some of my ideas to very articulate individuals, who, as I spoke to them, seemed to understand them very clearly. However, as they repeated them to others, I noticed that they almost always changed them in such a way that I could no longer recognize them as mine." ([1], page 86)

René Descartes, 1637

By a curious turn of events, Chauchard seems to have metaphorically found himself in a situation similar to that of Auguste Laurent and Charles Gerhardt (see Chapter Recent examples), regarding Pavlov's discoveries without realizing fully that research would not continue on after him.

I said "metaphorically", because despite his brilliant intelligence, it seems that he did not realize that his peers did not really understand the overall concept that he was discussing with them. Paradoxically, each single aspect of the question is quite easy to grasp and the scientists with whom he discussed quite obviously understood each of these separate aspects very clearly.

An in depth analysis tends to show that what could have misled Chauchard here was that since any of his colleagues so obviously understood any aspect of the question, it never became obvious to him that his peers might not necessarily have made the required connections between these various aspects, connections that must be made in order to really understand the overall concept.

To explain the difficulty, let's make a comparison with a large birthday cake that would rest in darkness on a table, and that would be covered by large number of birthday candles, each of which metaphorically representing one aspect of the overall concept. As long as all the candles are not lit at the same time, it is difficult to clearly distinguish the exact shape of the cake. Already being too narrowly specialized, it seems probable that for any one of Chauchard's peers, all of the candles were never lit at the same time.

How to proceed?

We have already seen that not many individuals are likely to deeply re-question issues that they consider certain, if the effort does not appear justified in any obvious manner. But in a case as complex as this one, the benefits of such an effort can NEVER become obvious before complete reconsideration. It is a vicious circle very difficult to escape. Poincaré wondered about this problem ([3], page 111).

Given the tendency of most members of our intellectual and scientific elite to think that they have understood everything in their respective fields, any piece of information that feels even remotely non-orthodox is immediately suspect. They naturally tend to go on doubting, and even fight confirmed discoveries, without even verifying to the possible detriment of the whole population who would benefit from such information, in the present case, to the detriment of children.

But, irrespective of this major issue, it seemed impossible to clearly explain this case without the interested individuals having the possibility of reflecting upon all aspects of the question through the medium of written accounts that would describe in detail every aspect of the question. This progressively developed into a project of writing a popularization trilogy followed by a formal synthesis regrouping all pertinent references to formal peer reviewed papers and other sources, to make the whole publicly available for the future.

In February 1997, six months after realizing that this important line of research had all but been forgotten by the scientific community, it appeared important to intervene immediately, so the first book was published Einstein's Operating System ([20]).

It was rapidly edited in French and English, under the pressure of a feeling of urgency, to guarantee that the fundamental conclusion would rapidly become available. Twelve months later, the main book, that is, the "Guide for Parents" entitled A Future as an Heirloom ([4]) was published. Then followed the last element of the trilogy Theory of Discrete Attractors ([24]), to give a working example usable by all of the logic of operation of the neocortex. Then came the formal synthesis The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence ([25]).

These books may possibly not be up to the formal standards that specialists may expect and respect, but not really being a writer nor an inner circle scientist, I nevertheless spared no effort to insure that they nevertheless cover all aspects of the big picture in such a way that it becomes understandable by anybody having a sufficiently vast general knowledge base.

Last attempt at drawing attention of the elite

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Even it my analysis clearly demonstrated that nothing could convince university circles to cast a look upon these so important discoveries, I nevertheless sent via e-mail at the end of July 1997, a personal letter via e-mail to all presidents and department heads of the department of psychology, linguistics and education sciences of all French-Canadian universities, 40 individual in all, followed in August of the same year by a second personal letter to 567 professors and junior lecturers of the same institutions. See Appendix A for the text of these letters.

Only one answer of interest was received, from the director of one of the Linguistics Departments, showing some interest, but no further development ensued.

But our efforts did not stop at these direct attempts at communication. Adds were posted in the magazines Spectre, Québec Science, and the special issue of a publication from the Association québécoise de pédagogie collégiale (ACPQ) announcing their 17th annual congress, without speaking of the thousands of brochures that were sent in most schools of the province during the past 2 years.

No reaction. No debate. Nothing seems to be able to awaken our elite's curiosity to this issue.

Chauchard failed, despite his stature. Even Einstein, recognized from the beginning of the 20th century as the greatest physicist of all times failed to draw attention to an important line of research: All physicists, without exception, even those who thought highly of him refused for the past 70 years to look in the direction that he was pointing in towards the end of his life, when he was overwhelmed by doubt regarding his own General Relativity theory and thought that there were correlations to be made between gravitation and electromagnetism ([19], page 391).

The totally foreseeable results of our attempts, as well as certain other in depth verifications, confirm uncontrovertibly that university graduates will not explore this case deeply enough for the light to turn on, so to speak, especially if we consider that such research could obtain no grants.

The impossibility of re-sensitizing the elite

Let us recall the attempts at sensitizing undertaken by Mrs. Bruyère, President of l'Association de la fibromyalgie de la région de Québec (AFRQ). Numerous other groups have attempted to sensitize our elite to various other problems, always obtaining the same result: No result!

This lack of reaction may be linked to something simpler, in fact. Maybe a diagnosis of total admission of defeat on the part of our French-Canadian scientific community would strike closer to the bull's eye! The opinion of a pediatrician of the Center for Children's Development of Sainte-Justine Hospital is very symptomatic, in my view, of our scientific community's attitude regarding the intellectual development problems of our children.

According to him, attempting to understand each and every mechanism that causes each children's intellectual achievement is without much interest.

"We must accept the fact that we are all different, without necessarily looking for causes."

Magazine Québec Science of September 1999

School, a patchwork.

Optimal entry point

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In our days, re-sensitizing requires a different approach than that used by Laurent and Gerhardt. It was impossible for them to do otherwise than attempt to sensitize the scientists themselves, with all the difficulties that our analysis has revealed since the population on the whole had not generally learned to read at that time.

Today, the general population can read, and it is no longer necessary to confront the hermetically sealed and previously unavoidable bottleneck of the elite, who interpreted their position of control as giving them the right to determine what was good or bad for the entire population.

Nothing prevents us now from attempting to directly sensitize the general population to any given situation, a general population that knows how to read and is less specialized and consequently less entrenched in its certainties that our elite.

The future of our children is in our hands

As the knowledge of Pavlov's and Chauchard's discoveries progressively spread in the general population, one can hope that an increasing number of children will grow up in better intellectual conditions under the guidance of enlightened parents, and hopefully then, one day will come when the majority of the intellectual and scientific elite will be constituted of these children, who will have become socially aware adults capable of correctly assessing society's problems, because they will possess the required knowledge.

Nothing then will prevent a complete revision of teaching methods. From that moment on, even children emerging from family circles unfavorable to verbal awakening, will finally have access to the same intellectual awakening possibilities as those who are already favored in this respect in their family circle.

Why is it important to re-sensitize?

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Why attempt to sensitize the population?

"The evolution of our human development may be retarded, but it cannot be stopped." ([2], page lvii)

Alfred Korzybski, 1948

Korzybski was of the opinion that each generation could serve other purposes than simply beget the following generation of human beings, as if we were mere animals.

Why has Nature gifted us with a brain that permits such an extraordinary level of understanding? What is it expecting from us?

It seems indisputable that the potential of our species reaches far beyond simple perpetuation of the species. The natural and irrepressible sexual attraction genetically programmed in each of us already single-handedly insures this continuation.

So! What other purpose are we here to serve? Haven't we all wondered at this very question, at some point in our lives? Haven't many of us one day or another realized that our potential abilities reach far beyond what is necessary to simply insure our personal survival?

I must say that I totally share Korzybski's opinion. It is important and normal of course to adequately insure our personal survival and the welfare of our own children and immediate family. But once this survival and welfare are insured, as maturity sets in, isn't it also normal to turn our attention to other things? ([20], Chapter Philosophical considerations)

Evolution through accumulation of knowledge

We effectively have something that other animal species do not have. We have the capacity to integrate the sum of knowledge that previous generations have acquired, and to add what we succeed in understanding in addition to it, and to transmit the whole package to the upcoming generation, so that it can adapt still better to its environment.

However, this global integration and transmission of knowledge mechanism can operate optimally only if the education system prepares each generation to become able of doing such an integration, which is an unavoidable condition for any significant social progress.

Korzybski named "time-binding"this "global integration and transmission of knowledge mechanism" ([21], page 369).

On the other hand, if a qualified and eminent scientist such as Chauchard, or an efficient and energetic educator such as Korzybski have not succeeded in 30 years of effort to awaken "from the inside" the collective awareness of the elite of their time, so that education systems are adapted for that purpose, it is quite obvious that no one "from the outside" will succeed either.

It must be said here that the very intensity of Korzybski's interventions could have been perceived as nothing other than first level criticism against the system, because he didn't mince words, so to speak, as he verbally branded those whose actions he perceived as detrimental to the evolution of society. It can be said on the other hand that a more "diplomatic" approach wasn't more successful, as this was the approach used by Chauchard, but to no avail.

The duty that must be associated to any power

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One's duty is the right of others that their inalienable rights not be violated.

Article 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights implies an obligation that all articles of the Declaration be respected not only by the leaders of the signatory states, but also by any group or individual who is legally under the jurisdiction of these countries.

I invite those who might be interested to reflect upon the contents of Appendix C at the end of this book, where is reproduced an extract of a ruling that established that to any power conferred by a constitution, a duty was de facto legally associated if no specific mention to the contrary appeared in that constitution.

This ruling of the highest court of England respects the spirit of Article 30 of the Declaration to the letter, because it indirectly causes the British government to respect the spirit of Articles 29 and 30 in the case considered. But why draw such a parallel since these Articles are not referred to in the ruling. Presently, it seems to have been a simple case of convergence due to the fact that in both cases, the same concepts seem to have been examined to such an extent that final objective comprehension was achieved in both cases. The similarity of the conclusions brings then a solid confirmation that Article 30 of the Declaration was well founded.

It must be understood here that when we speak of power in this ruling, we speak of the power inherent to the authority bestowed by the constitution upon certain individuals, who, by this authority, manage the society that comes under the jurisdiction of that constitution, and de facto possess some power over the lives of other human beings, who fundamentally possess, besides, the same rights as their leaders.

Since it is not very realistic to demand from our leaders a behavior that we wouldn't adopt for ourselves, it may seem possible that the concept so profoundly explored by Lord Reid could apply to all levels of society.

If we look for an example that would be at the other extreme with respect to this case, of one or a few individuals exercising power over a large number individuals, we quite easily identify the most restricted case of this type of relationship as being the family.

In this last case also, it has been established long ago that a duty is de facto attached to the power bestowed upon the parents by the very state of dependency of their children with respect to them, that is, an obligation that commits the human being to the full extent of his means and knowledge, as modest as they may be.

We are therefore in a position to visualize here a scale at one end of which we find the power of parents over their children, and at the other end, the political power of leaders over an entire society.

All other possible cases of power that human beings can possess over other human beings, inevitably are to be found between these two extremes, and it could be argued that a duty would also be de facto associated with all of these intermediate powers, since this connection has been established as a matter of fact for the two extremes.

Consequently, it could be argued that beyond any egocentric consideration, as legitimate as it might be, just like parents bringing children into the world implicitly take upon themselves jointly and de facto, the responsibility of preparing them to fend for themselves in life, and that educators, by choosing this profession, implicitly and de facto assume jointly with the parents the responsibility of teaching them how to access humanity's inheritance of knowledge, which allows each generation to better adapt than the former, that the ultimate possessors of this knowledge, that is, the members of the intellectual and scientific elite, by acquiring this knowledge, implicitly and de facto assume the obligation to safeguard and spread it.

No excuse imaginable can be called upon to justify a member of the elite to legitimately shirk from this duty, by not systematically insuring that exact information is spread regarding verified knowledge which he knows of, and by extension, by not systematically insuring that false information regarding this knowledge is not publicly spread by others.

The analysis of this situation conducted in 1920 by Alfred Korzybski demonstrates however that what we could now perceive as a breach to this obligation was already a problem in the elite 90 years ago ([2], page 10).

Moreover, François Dumont's study demonstrates that it has practically become systematic in our contemporary elite ([6], page 158).

" **Whose fault is it? In a deep sense, it is the fault of none. Man started with no capital - on knowledge - with nothing but his physical strength and the natural stirring within of the capacity for binding time; and so he had to grope." ([2]**, page 179)

Alfred Korzybski, 1921

"The capacity for binding time": Korzybski's expression meaning "the tendency to acquire and transmit knowledge".

The confusion that prevails today in the field of education could then appear as the result of an accumulation of involuntary omissions of this nature, because if all members of the elite who had access to the discoveries of Pavlov and Chauchard had been aware of this duty, or had at their disposal a sufficiently broad personal base of knowledge, or had mastered the appropriate type of thinking process, there is no doubt in my mind that teaching methods would have been adapted many decades ago.

But we cannot really blame the colleagues of these great discoverers for not having understood concepts the extent of which their personal knowledge base didn't permit them to clearly assess.

The optimal type of thinking processes that these discoveries now put at our disposal that insures an increase in the extent of the knowledge base through re-questioning, in correlation with the awakening of an awareness of the duty that we just described and that occurs practically automatically as the knowledge base grows, should progressively spread and decrease over time the number of cases of this type.

Interpretation of Article 30

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Let us now analyze this intriguing Article 30:

"Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."

The manner in which Article 30 of the Declaration is formulated, by directly stating "... for any State, group or person", clearly indicates that the original signatories of the Declaration intended that groups and individuals be jointly bound with the State to uphold that article, which is an interpretative article that absolutely prohibits any restriction of the rights and liberties that are recognized by to Human beings in the Declaration and that are described as inalienable in the Preamble.

What makes these rights and liberties inalienable is the very fact that the signatories recognize by accepting Article 30 that they will violate the aforementioned article if they restrain in any manner the rights and liberties stated in the Declaration, which obviously includes the Preamble.

Consequently, the very act, for the legally constituted government of a country of having legally and formally recognized the Declaration resulted in de facto subordinating the laws of that country to the Declaration at the supranational level, in such a manner that no law of that country can limit in any manner the rights and liberties stated in the Declaration, without violating Article 30.

One can wonder however at the legitimacy of the right that the signatory authorities had to also commit the responsibility of subordinated groups and persons. To find the foundation of that legitimacy, we must consider Article 21, Paragraph 3 of the Declaration that explicitly states:

"The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

Consequently, all citizens of such a country who have the right to vote recognize by electing representatives that the government that will be elected represents them legally and that they accept to be subjected to the laws that will be officially passed by that government that also can engage in commitments that will bind them.

All groups who are legal emanations of such a government are of course de facto bound to respect the laws of the country, as well as all non-governmental groups who will obtain legal recognition, by virtue of the laws of that country.

It is through this device that groups, which includes all organisms emanating from the government and all legally constituted non-governmental associations, which includes all types of associations or companies as well as all individuals who have the right to vote, are legally and jointly bound by the Declaration with the State itself.

Consequently, it would seem that all individuals who have the right to vote, all legally constituted associations and companies or governmental agencies who violate or restrain in any manner, shape or form one of the rights or liberties stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights directly violates Article 30, and could be exposed to denunciation and legal action for this reason, by virtue of the country's laws or of any supranational laws to which the State has formally and legally adhered to, which includes all articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A Universal Academy of Sciences?

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It is imperative that fundamental research be resumed. But at the same time, in light of the considerations that have just been exposed, it seems more than doubtful that such a resumption could originate in university circles because no synthesis of knowledge project of any sort is currently being contemplated in any university ([6], page 142).

" **No serious project of popularizing knowledge exists that could integrate this knowledge. No work is in progress to reverse the process of knowledge specialization."** ( **[6]** , page 144)

François Dumont, 1997

The solution remains to be defined. Maybe it lies in the setting up on the Internet of a series of coherent syntheses of the various fields of knowledge, syntheses that would eventually become available in all languages, under strict supervision, and that no individual could falsify or corrupt. These syntheses could serve as stable reference frames to direct the research to areas that have not yet been explored in detail. A new structure, maybe some sort of Universal Academy of the Sciences that would be totally neutral and accountable to no outside authority, could maybe take charge of such a task.
Conclusion

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"To continue progressing, Man must re-shape himself, and he cannot reshape himself without suffering, because he is at the same time the marble and the sculptor."

Alexis Carrel

More than 90 years ago, Alfred Korzybski attempted to break through the wall of certainty of the scientific and intellectual elite of his time.

In 1920, he published Manhood of Humanity ([2]), the first of two books on this issue in which he identified the problem and proposed an approach to move society in directions more conducive to fully open up the minds of individuals.

As mentioned in the Preface of the Fourth Edition of Science & Sanity, published in 1958 ([21]), Korzybski was perfectly aware that the method he proposed to reach this goal was perhaps not optimal and could become the object of important modifications within an undefined span of time, but his global vision and ultimate objectives can hardly be questioned.

It had become clear to him that the human tendency to become certain of the validity of conclusions was preventing the introduction of new valuable ideas while preventing the eradication of damaging ideas ([2], page 93).

He was keenly aware that this intellectual opposition to progress, so to speak, underlied the orientation of social structures in directions in which the egocentrism of individuals and groups tended to become the norm and even ended up eliciting respect! The study of anthropologist François Dumont published in 1997 demonstrates unequivocally that nothing has changed in this respect.

In the beginning of the 1940's, after 20 years of futile attempts at sensitizing the specialized community to his approach, he fully realized that despite some progress, his ideas were not really spreading and his writings of the last 10 years before his sudden death in 1950, clearly show how acutely he was loosing patience and becoming bitter towards the specialized community, the more so since he perfectly understood that the only hurdle preventing progress of his ideas was in reality precisely the unbreakable wall of certainty that he was attempting to make the elite aware of and that we have exhaustively explored in the present analysis, and in Part 2 of A Future as an Heirloom, chapter The Major Handicap of "Certainty".

Egocentrism vs altruism

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However, while absolute egocentrism is normal and even healthy in children, if it remains too pervasive in individuals once adulthood is achieved, it becomes an indisputable sign of insecurity whether subjective or objective or of immaturity of the individuals concerned.

Altruism is not very popular in our days:

" **The coming of the great monotheistic religions coincided with the teaching of altr uistic behavior and, in spite of the numerous breaches and aggressions that it suffered, it still is on this behavior that our modern society is founded. Unfortunately, altruism doesn't sell very well with the media! Mother Theresa, in Calcutta, remains however an emblematic figure."** ( **[15]** , page 157)

Sir John C. Eccles, 1989

We observed ourselves how the media is definitely part of the problem, which confirms John Eccles' observations. See Chapters Code of social behavior and Children growing up in unfavorable family circles.

We have already explored the ins and the outs of the egocentrism/altruism scale in chapter Philosophical considerations in the book Einstein's operating system, as well as the relationship between this concept, the notion of self confidence, and the acquisition of logic in chapter The origins of logical reasoning in volume A Future as an Heirloom.

We have seen that the more a child takes control of his immediate environment, the more he feels secure and the more he naturally turns towards others. This is a natural tendency which is not such an obvious consequence of the fundamental instinct of conversation of our species. See Chapter The Origins of Egocentrism and Altruism in Einstein's operating system.

Now, this increase in self confidence, which is directly related to the impression of mastery of his environment that an individual may feel, is also directly related to the amount of information that he has become aware of regarding his environment. The more clearly a child understands his immediate environment, the more capable of surviving and prospering in it he will feel and ultimately the more he will feel able of taking control of it.

A better comprehension resulting in less efforts being spent to successfully insure his own welfare, the self confident individual will naturally tend to include other individuals or groups in the larger reference frame of all individuals the protection and well being of which he would like to contribute.

This impression of mastery of his environment is, however, totally subjective and each individual is subject to gross miscalculations in his evaluation of his own degree of mastery through underestimation or overestimation.

We often witness cases where an individual was, for example, certain that his job was insured for life and who suddenly finds himself unemployed, practically without hope of finding another job. Haven't we here a typical case of overestimation?

Or, at the complete opposite, a case of extreme underestimation where an individual possesses an immense wealth, but feels insecure to the point of going on raking material wealth in, so to speak, without regards to the consequences of his quest on individuals who are the instruments of his enrichment or who are direct or indirect victims of his enrichment.

The position that any individual thinks he occupies on the egocentrism/altruism scale ([20], Chapter Philosophical considerations) is strictly dependent on his subjective perception of his own degree of security. The quality of his actions in the reference frame of society however is completely dependent on his ability to evaluate situations with respect to the objective position that he really occupies on the scale.

Everyone must, of course, attempt to match his feeling of mastery over his environment with reality, that is, with the real extent of the information base that he possesses regarding reality. Interestingly, such an adjustment tends to occur almost automatically when an individual voluntarily undertakes to increase his information base.

So, the degree to which an individual really becomes aware of his real position on the scale, paradoxically depends on the real extent of his information base, and it is here that things become complicated, because if the information base is too restricted, the conclusions drawn, in conjunction with the illusory feeling of certainty of having drawn the "correct" conclusion, will almost guarantee that the individual will considerably overestimate the extent of that base. This is why it is imperative to keep at least a modicum of doubt regarding the accuracy of our conclusions.

In short, the subjective perception of the position that he occupies on this scale colors the decisions of the individual. But these decisions are necessarily taken according to the real information that is available to him. If this perception changes, the coloration associated to this new position will change accordingly for his future decisions and may even result in him possibly reconsidering past decisions made according to his old position if their implications do not conform to his new perspective.

It has been observed that a tendency to drift towards the altruism end of the scale is typically the sign of a greater feeling of personal security or of maturity, whereas a tendency for it to remain close to the egocentrism end of the scale, reflects rather, insecurity or immaturity.

Altruism founded on the assessment of an information base sufficiently widespread to permit it can be considered objective by contrast with altruism by conviction which is often encountered, and which is by no means to be considered of a lesser value, however.

It can be observed that for the majority of adults, this point progressively tends to stabilize somewhere in the central area of the scale, where an equilibrium of motivations can be found that is not conducive to generating conflicts, or inconveniences for others.

The most revealing indicator of this state of fact is the enormous generosity that the general population of all people on the planet demonstrate when the time comes to help those who have been deprived of everything on account of natural catastrophes, almost always for perfect strangers, and often for people who live in other countries. General populations therefore show a general and natural tendency to mutually help each other.

So, the tendency of motivation in adults to drift towards the central area of the scale is not likely to cause problems when the decisions of individuals affect only their immediate social environment. The situation is quite different however, for individuals who are in positions of authority, or for members of the elite, because their decisions are likely to affect large segments of the population. Let us recall that we have observed that the narrowness of extent of the base of knowledge available to the members of our elite often leads to inappropriate and often damaging decisions despite an impression and a will to the contrary on the part of the decision makers.

We have seen to what degree university education tends towards hyper-specialization, that is, the transmission to individuals of extremely narrow although deep information bases at the expense of wide-ranging basis of knowledge.

If we put in correlation the narrowness of the knowledge base that has been transmitted for decades now to the members of our elite, with the whole range of possible subjective overestimation that each individual subconsciously tends to make regarding his own degree of mastery over his environment, we come to understand much more clearly why so many damaging decisions have been made in all areas and in particular why our education system has degraded to such an extent.

It becomes easy then to understand that each individual's education should optimally include a general information base as wide-ranging and generalized as possible, and this, irrespective of whether or not this individual goes on to further specialize in one or more fields that are of interest to him.

Since a direct connection seems to exist between the extent of an individual knowledge base, the degree of conformity with reality that he will be able to reach in his assessments and the degree of objective altruism that becomes accessible to him, it can be seen that the foundation of this whole process definitely is the extent of an individual's knowledge base. Consequently, it appears desirable to socially intervene at that level by insuring that as many individuals as possible acquire as wide-ranging a general education as possible.

Consequently, an orientation of the social structures in directions that would be positive for all seems dependent on a move in this direction through the medium of modifying the education system.

Korzybski's approach

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"A large number of excitatory verbal signals come to us from the interior, with respect to sensations that come to us directly from the environment, and draw us away from reality. We must always remember this in order for our relation with reality not to be distorted." ([16], page 183)

Ivan Pavlov, 1934

Korzybski's approach ([21]) was grounded on the idea that it is possible to train any human being to think optimally on account of the manner in which the brain records information.

Contrary to what many seem to think in contemporary scientific circles, the functioning of the brain was already rather well understood in the 1920's and 1930's. It is besides, at that time that Pavlov understood that the use of language creates physical imprints that interconnect the various aspects of our re-collections, each imprint being associated to a word, the whole collection of which makes up the network of coherent connections between the various aspects of our recollections that allows coherent thinking.

In 1892 already, William James proposed a rather exact model of the manner in which the various aspects of our recollections could be mutually associated ([22], page 149).

Not only was Korzybski convinced of the boundless potential of every human being, he was profoundly convinced of the boundless potential of the entire human race.

To explain this concept, he made a parallel between the growth of an individual and that of the human species. Just like a child goes through a stage of walking on all four prior to succeeding in standing up to walk upright, he considered that the human species currently was at the stage of walking on all four, and proposed to educators an approach that, by improving the degree of clarity with which individuals perceived reality, would eventually lead, as the number of properly trained individuals reached some critical level, to the social structures being influenced in the right direction.

**"All through history, man has groped to find his place in the hierarchy of life, to di scover, so to say, his role in the "nature of things". To this end, he must first discover himself and his "essential nature" before he can fully realize himself -- then perhaps our civilizations will pass, by peaceful evolutions, from their childhood to the manhood of humanity."** ( **[2]** , page lv)

Alfred Korzybski

Korzybski was familiar with the work of Pavlov. In fact, he dedicated many chapters of his second book ([21], page 315 à 357) to correlate his own conclusions with Pavlov's discoveries. It seems however that he only had access to Anrep and Gantt's translations that were published in 1927 and 1928 in the United States.

These translations however could not possibly mention discoveries that were made after they were published. So, it appears certain that Korzybski was not informed of the discoveries that Pavlov made during the last 7 years of his life ([16], pages 391 and 392), that is, from 1929 to 1936, a period during which he understood and clearly described the second signalization system that use of language structures in the neocortex, because he makes no reference to it despite his obvious interest for Pavlov's work and despite the fact that Pavlov's discovery constitutes a glaring confirmation of his own conclusions.

Korzybski intuitively understood the understanding process:

**"Human intellect, be it that of an individual or that of the race, forms conclusions which have to be often revised before they correspond approximately to facts. What we call progress consists in coordinating ideas with realities."** ( **[2]** , page 28)

Alfred Korzybski, 1921

Such a confirmation however could have perhaps permitted him to advance one more step in his understanding the comprehension process, this time at the biological level, which would then have allowed him to comprehend how futile were his attempts at sensitizing the contemporary specialized community instead of aiming at the upcoming generation or the general population. The same thing could also be said of Chauchard regarding his lack of knowledge of Korzybski's work and of Donald Hebb's discoveries, because it is the correlation of the conclusions of these four discoverers that allow this comprehension.

The most revealing indication that the discoveries of these four scientists have not been correlated in the scientific community is the fact that Lothar Pickenhein, the only contemporary scientist who considers the research of the last 7 years of Pavlov sufficiently important to dedicate a book to it, came to the conclusion that when Pavlov used the expression "second signalization system", he was using it as a mere synonym for the word "language" ([16], page 392).

The fact that Pavlov was a physiologist and that he appeared to have been in the habit of expressing himself in quite simple terms, obviously did not make obvious to him that he must have been speaking without a shadow of a doubt about the biological functioning of the brain, and that he would not have used such a complex expression if he had really meant to say "language".

It seems quite obvious to me that he was speaking of the whole set of biological modifications that occur in the brain as a consequence of the use of the speech organs ([16], page 265), which Chauchard very clearly understood and explained, and not of language as such, as Doctor Pickenhein seems to conclude.

Collective egocentrism/altruism

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"The only feature common to all corporations is that the loyalty of their members goes first and foremost to the corporation and not to society as a whole." ([23])

John Saul, 1996

We have seen that the orientation of social structures in positive directions seems to be dependent on an evolution towards objective altruism by individuals, an evolution that depends on the broadening of the scope of individuals' extent of knowledge basis.

This is however only part of the solution, because society is not made up only of individuals, as we might be tempted to think. It is made up of individuals and groups whose members have common interests for certain aspects of their relationship with society.

The fathers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were perfectly aware of this state of fact as the formulation of Article 30 bears witness to.

Groups can be infinitely varied. They can be legally or informally constituted, temporary or permanent, positively oriented or totally antisocial.

Any society is an infinitely complex hierarchical assembly of groups mutually interconnected by overlapping or inclusion. The smallest element in such a structure is of course the individual, the smallest group is the family unit, and the most extensive group is society itself taken as a whole. The individual speaks for himself. Parents speak for the family. Representatives of intermediate size groups speak for their members. The government speaks for society.

If we expand the concept to its limit, we find that the largest group possible is Humanity as a whole, which includes all human societies whose top of the line representative could be seen as the Assembly of United Nations.

At all levels of this gigantic structure, groups are in more or less harmonious relation, often in open conflict, often in difficult relation, but always involving human beings who do their best to bring their contribution, all the while attempting to insure their personal survival and that of their loved ones, having for only tools the extent of their personal knowledge base and the subjective perception of their own position on the egocentrism/altruism scale.

Just as Korzybski drew a parallel between the level of maturity of humanity and that of a child, it is possible to draw a parallel between the degree of collective egocentrism/altruism of groups and that of individuals.

As for children, the feeling of security that the members of these groups have regarding the aspects of their relationship with society that adhesion of such groups represent for them is subjective and dependent on the degree of mastery over these aspects that belonging to these groups let them feel.

As for the degree of individual egocentrism/altruism that we have already explored, the degree of collective egocentrism/altruism that will be manifested by the members of a group regarding the relationships of the group with the rest of society is entirely dependent on that subjective perception.

Let us first clearly define our terms.

Collective Egocentrism: Behavior of the members of any group whose actions tend to favor the interests of the group or of members of the group without consideration for the consequences of these actions on the rest of society.

Without going all out to the other extreme of the scale of possible cases, where we would find extreme cases of collective altruism, it is now possible to define a position not conducive to conflicts and that can be located in the mid section of the scale:

Enlightened Collective Egocentrism/Altruism: Behavior of the members of any group whose actions tend to favor the interests of the group or of members of the group insofar as these actions are not detrimental to the rest of society.

This does not necessarily mean that all members of a group fundamentally adhere to the degree of general collective egocentrism/altruism that characterizes the actions of its members on behalf of the group.

It is obvious that the reason for belonging to a group is to be put in correlation with the various degrees of individual egocentrism/altruism of the individual members. However, in our modern societies, people often do not have much choice but to belong to some groups, like workers unions for instance, if their well being or that of their loved ones depend on it. They may even be in total disagreement in some instances with the general philosophies of a group that they belong to, but feel forced to belong anyway.

The general philosophies of groups that can be identified in our societies often have roots reaching far into the past, and these philosophies may have been developed at a time when the survival of the group regardless of repercussions on the rest of society was necessary.

The fact that society has evolved and perhaps no longer requires that these philosophies be centered as exclusively on the survival of the group has not automatically caused these philosophies to adapt to the possibly less threatening conditions of today.

Some drift with respect to the underlying philosophy of a group, could also have occurred under the influence of very articulate individuals whose degree of egocentrism/altruism was at odds with that of the group's philosophy, and whose extent of the personal knowledge base was too restricted to serve well the interests of the group. Could this be what occurred, for example, with these texts from the Council for Science and Technology that gave François Dumont such a bad impression?

It seems then desirable that the members of the various groups be induced from time to time to globally reassess this aspect of the question regarding their own group to determine whether the position of the group on the collective egocentrism/ altruism scale still conforms to the real needs of the group.

We now can see how correlating the personal motivations of each individual with the extent of each his personal knowledge base complicates the analysis. But in the same breath, it finally allows us to better encompass the whole question. In particular, it allows every individual who so desires to better understand how to proceed to identify their personal position the egocentrism/altruism scale through a more objective analysis of the extent of their personal knowledge base.

The fact that we all tend to stabilize in the central portion of the scale, and that the extent of our individual knowledge base is almost universally less far reaching than we personally think it may be should induce prudence in our conclusions. How many times have we heard, at times of failures: "I thought I was doing the right thing!", or "I was certain that I had made the right decision!"

The absence of general education, the trend to hyper-specialization and the certainty of possessing sufficient knowledge can now be put in correlation with the scale of all possible cases of egocentrism/altruism, to better understand the reasons of the inability of a majority of the members of our elite to properly analyze contemporary social problems and to perceive the long term consequences of their decisions. We are now going to examine the consequences of collective group egocentrism because this considerably worsens the consequences of the first three factors.

In social structures influenced by these factors in the non-optimized state that we know them to be in, any influential individual or powerful group, legally constituted or not, practically end up feeling endowed by default of an apparently inalienable and absolute right to take advantage of situations, so to speak, no matter what the consequences are for the rest of society, particularly for the most vulnerable elements of the population.

The situation becomes particularly difficult for the vulnerable elements of the population when the government itself of a country or one of its agencies is the guilty party. But governments are not always as respectful of the laws that they themselves have decreed or of the rulings of their own courts of justice, as the British government was, in the case of the Padfield ruling in Appendix C.

In these countries, the destitute and the vulnerable are roughly shoved aside. Ordinary citizens, individually or in groups, who are the victims of glaring injustices are often ignored and left to their fate, if they do not have the financial means to legally force the abusers to back off, and this, of course, if legal recourse is possible, under the indifferent eye and in the total silence of the intellectual and scientific elite, very often after having waited in vain for an answer from the authorities to which they were appealing to as a last resort.

Such a lack of response does not really reflect deep contempt for the vulnerable on whose fate children's well being often depend. In reality, it reflects profound incomprehension, which is the direct cause of this inaction on the part of the solicited individuals.

The study of periods in History when great intellectual and scientific progress was made show that this progress was the outcome of elements belonging to a more enlightened elite having a long term vision. I am thinking particularly of Newton's era, and of the Royal Society. But such progress would have been impossible if some of the leaders themselves of these societies had not been also enlightened and had not also had long term vision.

In democratic countries, we often hear "We have the leaders that we deserve!" But we must not be naive! No elected leader comes out of the general population. Without exception, all leaders belong to the elite. In real life then, this saying presently applies uniquely to the restricted frame of the elite.

As for the general population, the phrase "We have the leaders that the elite allows us to choose." appears to fit more closely to reality. The quality of these leaders cannot logically stand below what is considered as the lowest level acceptable by the majority of the members of the group from which they stem, neither above a level above which their initiatives would become "bothersome" for the group.

Even when an enlightened decision maker or advisor is chosen for a key position, his positive action is mandatorily limited by this insurmountable upper limit imposed on him by the elite. The surprise resignation of some decision makers or advisors whose long term vision was well known and appreciated by the general population can hardly be explained otherwise than by the fact that the circumstances of the moment may have made this upper limit intolerable for them.

This intolerance could, besides, run both ways. Decision makers or advisors having long term vision, are shown the door outright when they are too insistent with initiatives that cross this invisible upwards boundary. I am thinking here of the initiatives of judge Andrée Ruffo, and a few others.

The lower limit is seldom problematic, and is the cause of "resignations" that we could diplomatically qualify as "more or less voluntary". Not to be confused with the previously quoted cases.

It is often difficult to properly analyze from afar some apparently borderline cases that occurred in the past, but some others are clear as spring water, so to speak, no matter what the involved parties might say.

So, the decision makers of a society presently constitute only the tip of this metaphorical iceberg that we call the elite, and as we have seen, it is very easy for an attentive observer to make a clear idea of the quality of that elite by observing their reactions to the decisions of the decision makers stemming from it.

Decision makers who are exclusively tuned to the needs of the elite, even if the cause is a lack of vision due to a defective general education, will make decisions to their own benefit or to that of the elite, without regard for the needs of the general population or for possible negative consequences on social assets available to all. Whereas decision makers with a sufficiently broad-based education would rather tend to address these needs and to reinforce social assets, being fully aware that everyone will benefit, including themselves and the elite.

But what are we observing? An unspeakable situation of our government severely overtaxing families having young children and particularly single parent families. After having been publicly denounced by outraged fiscalists, our premier very candidly admitted, during a press conference in New York city that the Quebec government had been aware of the situation for 15 years!

Weekly Les Affaires April 17, 1999

Single Parent Families Experience Fiscal Tragedy.

Daily Le Soleil April16, 1999

Quebec Internal Revenue. Aberrations known for 15 years.

Does this mean that the succession of decision makers who have been aware of this over the course of the past 15 years have all considered such abuse normal? By not taking immediate action, haven't they automatically violated Article 30 of the Declaration for that whole period of time, as they maintained discriminatory fiscal policies that forced the children of the most vulnerable families of our society to live in still more unfavorable conditions in comparison to the children of the elite?

What about our federal government who has deprived tens of thousands of working mothers of any financial means with its indefensible Employment Insurance policies?

Article 25, Paragraph 2 of the Declaration is very clear on this account:

"Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."

Regarding access to education, our poor families are not alone experiencing difficulties. Even middle class families must pour out as much as $1000 per year to cover fees of all kinds so that their children are allowed to attend school in our "free" school system.

Daily Le Soleil, July 27, 1999

Families, Victims of the Hypocritical Fiscal System.

The scandalously anti-family fiscal policies of the Canada and Quebec governments are such that even middle class families are not entitled to any significant exemption for the enormous amounts of money that they must spend to allow their children to access post-secondary education.

Daily Le Soleil, July 16, 1999

The family, victim of the fiscal appetite of the Quebec government.

The fiscal policies of both levels of government are structured in such a manner that the federal and provincial public funding troughs act as communicating vessels. When whatever "help" is proudly and very publicly granted to parents by the politicians of either one of the two governments under the guise of an exemption or an allocation to supposedly favor access of their children to education it is public knowledge that the other government unobtrusively modifies (or does not modify, if appropriate) its own regulations so that the money goes to it rather than to the parents.

Daily Le Soleil, August 7, 1999

A Family Policy That Penalizes us.

Here in the province of Québec, only the well off families of our elite have an easy and unlimited access to the best schools and to higher education, if we exclude middle class parents who accept making enormous financial sacrifices to provide for their children's education, and youth who practically work full time to pay for a significant education that they use up their leisure time to acquire.

In short, we are back to exactly where we were in the fifties, regarding access to education! Access to elementary and high school is once again as costly, and access to higher studies is again as difficult as they were in the fifties! Allow me to point out that this is exactly the state of affairs that triggered the reform of the sixties.

Considering that most of our elite seems to be comfortably plugged to the brimming public funding trough, the level of which is dutifully maintained by the decision makers of both levels of governments who care apparently more for the needs of the elite than for those of the general population, isn't its silence regarding the unjust treatment of the children of the general population suddenly strangely eloquent?

In social structures such as those that develop in democratic countries, local "Charters of Human Rights" that the countries establish for their territory, run the risk of subtly becoming tools that protect in an absolute manner the rights of powerful individuals or groups that are in conflict with society, whether they are legally constituted or not. In the case of the province of Québec for example, through ignorance or otherwise, interpretative Articles 29 and 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have not been taken into account as its own charter was elaborated. Consequently, all of the "pertaining duties" are imposed by default and without recourse to the victims of these individuals or groups, and also to the authorities, who, while being misinformed regarding the importance of these interpretative articles, have the responsibility of enforcing the local charter.

Besides, isn't claiming that the "rights" of individuals be enforced in a society, instead of the rights and duties of individuals being enforced in accordance with Articles 29 and 30, an unmistakable sign of the immaturity of such a society. A sign that unequivocally confirms Korzybski's diagnosis?

The day the Declaration will begin being clearly explained to all children in our schools, we will witness the emergence of a new generation that will succeed in clearly associating a duty to all human rights. From that moment on, the victims of social inequity will see decision makers examine their complaints and propose acceptable and fair solutions to the parties involved.

Native peoples will no longer have to block a road for weeks on end, or pork producers for days on end, before decision makers examine their complaints and propose solutions acceptable to all parties involved. Those sick with cancer will no longer have to wait in vain for someone to come out of the parliament building to reassure them.

But above all, the problem of poverty and destitution of our students will no longer be addressed with blows from the police clubs of the riot squad (See Chapter Student Repression in 1998). Our schools' principals and the leaders of our teachers unions will no longer sacrifice the future of our children on the altar of collective greed and egocentrism. Finally, our teachers will be more compassionate for our children experiencing learning difficulties.

Too harsh an analysis?

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For thousands of years, each successive generation of the elite has fallen asleep as it bit into the apple of certainty and the kiss of doubt never succeeded in waking them up.

When we enter the hall of a great university, we see smiling people, students and teachers alike, busily hurrying on some errand, or leisurely strolling to a rest area, most of them apparently at peace with the world. Those who have quit, out of discouragement, are not there anymore. They are nowhere to be seen, but they do exist.

Let's observe this neurobiologist lost in his thoughts sipping coffee in the cafeteria. He thinks that all that would be needed to increase the intellectual performance of children experiencing learning problems would be to find some means to activate the genes in such a way that the synaptic interconnections between neurons will become bigger. You know that this is what he thinks, because that's exactly what he wrote in a science magazine. A professor who has been educated by ignorants and who has been hired by the university to teach what he knows to the next generation of neurobiologists. This is invisible but very real.

When you enter a shopping mall, you see smiling people with money to buy goods, but you do not see hungry people and destitute children. They are not here, but they exist.

Will this analysis have any impact on the current situation? Rest assured that it won't! This book is just a drop in the ocean of what is published every month.

For the reasons exposed here, and as incredible as this may appear to you, if you understand the seriousness of the problem, this analysis will induce at most one more of these futile debates that our elite has accustomed us to.

A few prima donnas will certainly be outraged that I dare formulate here certain truths. Well, I only took advantage of the inalienable right that has been given to every single one of us by Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!

According to my perception, few people will read this book to the end, but those who will may find here confirmation of enough information to eventually be part of the solution.

In my opinion, any attempt to publicly question local orthodoxies in matters of education is only going to be met with indifference, acrimonious discussions or aggressiveness on the part of those who are entrenched behind the certainty that they hold of the validity of their knowledge, which is the vast majority of our elite. From my point of view, the only intervention that has any chance of having an impact will be that which you will do regarding your own children and the results will be noticeable only in the long run.

The ultimate objective is, of course, the eventual establishment of an enlightened world orthodoxy regarding optimal educational methods, that is, an orthodoxy composed of individuals possessing knowledge sufficiently vast to remain uncompromising regarding the maintenance of valuable objectively acquired knowledge, while remaining open to examine in depth and to integrate any future new idea that could turn out to be valuable, without irrationally demanding proof of validity before consideration.

As the level of general knowledge progressively increases in the population, it is unavoidable that the strict orientation of society towards personal interest progressively fades and that children's interest progressively come to occupy the place that it deserves, particularly regarding actions from individuals or groups having a direct impact on them.

What does the future hold for us?

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At the rate that humanity currently degrades the biosphere, no one really knows how much time remains for us. The question is serious and the number of generations who will still be able to fully enjoy life on this planet can perhaps be counted on the fingers of one hand. We do not know.

Currently, no team of scientists, as determined as they may be, seem to collectively possess the required integration capacity to correctly assess the problem, because such a team would currently of necessity be made up of hyper-specialists.

It is urgent that the largest possible number of elements of the upcoming generation acquire the widest ranging general education possible in every domain of knowledge. They alone will collectively possess the analysis and integration abilities required to correctly assess such a complex issue and work out a solution.

The path to a solution to this problem involves a process of optimal education of the greatest number possible of children under the supervision of enlightened parents. These children will grow up being profoundly aware of the situation and will do the same with their own children.

**"Is this a dream? Yes, it's a dream, but a dream that will come true." **( **[2]** , page 200)

Alfred Korzybski, 1921

According to my analysis, if a sufficiently great number of individuals become sensitized over the course of time, at some point some sort of "critical mass" will eventually be reached in the elite, which will within a few generations, cause noticeable effects. The glorious day when Humanity will stand up and start walking upright may not be so far in the future.

So many things remain to be discovered! But there is no doubt in my mind that we collectively have the ability to conquer any problem no matter its complexity.

Like Sherrington, Eccles, Chauchard, and all those who marveled at the extreme complexity of the human neocortex, I come to the conclusion that it is impossible that this extraordinary object that took billions of years to develop, and that has been optimally conceived in all of its numerous aspects to permit coherent thinking and the greatest miracle of evolution, that is, self-awareness, could have happened only by chance.

It may be conceivable that atoms could have appeared in a natural manner, according to simple laws, from some fundamental energy. But how can we avoid sinking into absurdity if we try to imagine that a correlator such as the neocortex, which is incommensurably more complex than the full complement of computer networks that currently support the Internet, could have been the end product of some natural complexification process guided only by these simple laws?

This brings us to ask ourselves a few fundamental questions:

What are we?

Where are we?

Why are we here?

When I say "we" here, I am not referring to us individually, but to us the "Human Species".

The answers to these questions unavoidably involve increasing our awareness of reality as much as possible, and such an increase in awareness cannot be dissociated from an improvement of each individual's comprehension ability.

I invite you to participate. As modest as you may consider your condition, you have perhaps a more important role to play than you may think, a role as important in fact as that of any one else.
Appendix A

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Attempt at re-sensitizing the university circle

As explained in Chapter Last attempt at drawing attention of the elite, the reader will find here translations of two letters sent at the beginning of July 1997 to the people in charge of university teaching in all French-Canadian Universities, in an attempt to draw their attention to the work of Pavlov and Chauchard.

First letter

Here is a translation of the letter that was sent to all presidents, as well as to the Directors of the Departments of Psychology, Linguistics, and Educational Sciences, of the following universities:

Université Laval

Université de Montréal

Université de Sherbrooke

Université du Québec

University d'Ottawa

Université de Moncton

One letter was personally addressed to each president and each director of each of the departments concerned, meaning that it has been sent to approximately forty decision makers in our universities.

Letter to presidents and departments directors

SUBJECT: Pavlov's research

The name of Ivan Pavlov is no doubt familiar to you. Not knowing to what degree, allow me to briefly mention that he was a famous Russian scientist who lived from 1849 to 1936, and who received the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1904.

One of the important lines of research that he explored consisted in trying to understand the functioning of the thinking process in relation to language. His research was continued by Paul Chauchard, renowned neurophysiologist, who was at one point Director of research at l'École des Hautes Études in France during the 1950's.

Having become aware of this research at the beginning of the 60's, I pursued this line of reflection for reasons of personal interest during the following 35 years, a period during which I acquired a clear understanding of the concepts explained by Chauchard.

Obviously believing that the research was being continued, I eventually became less attentive to articles emanating from the scientific community on this subject, as I was captivated by other fields that also attracted by attention.

It finally dawned on me in the month of September 1996, as the end result of a period of incredulous surprise during which I verified the facts as thoroughly as possible, that this research was not continued in the specialized circles after Paul Chauchard retired.

After a period of reflection, I decided that I would attempt to bring this research back to the forefront. It seemed to me that the method easiest and most easily available to me would be to write a popularization work aimed at explaining this knowledge to interested individuals, which I did.

The formal launching of the book took place May 31, 1997 at an annual meeting of the MENSA-Québec group, at the invitation of the president of the group, Mrs. Jocelyne Saintonge (I am not a member of the group) (f1).

I invite you to read the text that was used on this occasion. The present invitation is a further step in the process of re-sensitizing that I have undertaken, this time, to re-sensitize the university circle to the question. I am gradually extending the same invitation to other French-Canadian universities.

If you conclude after reading this text that this is a sufficiently important issue to justify more in depth verification, contact me to let me know of your intention to follow up. I also intend to try having this text printed as an article in some newspapers.

In fact, if I do not succeed in awakening interest in the French-Canadian university circles, I am preparing to attempt, alone if I must, gradual re-sensitization at the international level, until I become convinced that an in depth and complete verification is being made.

It seems inconceivable to me that this research that appears to me of the utmost importance should be left ignored any longer, after 35 year of neglect.

Sincerely yours,

André Michaud, president

Service de Recherche Pédagogique

____________________________

(f1) Following our first attempt to publicize the book in the Québec city area, Mrs. Jocelyne Saintonge, then president of the group, showed interest in this book, and invited me to come and officially launch it at their reunion.

****

Second letter

Here is the text of an invitation extended to all university professors and assistant professors (those who were reachable through the Internet) of the Departments of Linguistics, Psychology and Educational Sciences of the same French-Canadian Universities. Each letter was personally addressed to each of them. Overall, 567 letters were sent to professors and assistant-professors.

Letter to university professors

Subject: The learning of language

A large number of people, specialists and non-specialists alike, are deeply aware of the importance of correct learning of language at a young age. Few, however, can explain the fundamental reasons for this necessity. Fewer yet, perceive the degree to which a number of social problems, that worry us all, are deeply rooted in a lack in this respect.

The fundamental reasons for this necessity have been identified as the end result of the research undertaken by Ivan Pavlov, Nobel Prize in 1904. This research has been continued by doctor Paul Chauchard who was Director of research at L'École des Hautes-Études in France in the 1950's.

A new popular work that contains this fundamental explanation is now available. It had been formally launched at the annual meeting of MENSA-Québec, on May 31, 1997.

I invite you to examine the texts that describe it on our Internet site.

The reflection effort which is required to completely integrate the explanation of the thinking process is important, but the intellectual benefits are in all respects worth the effort a hundred times over.

Regarding education at the pre-school and elementary school levels for example, the comprehension acquired can allow an individual possessing it to clearly analyze and define how the teaching methods should be adapted so that the LARGE MAJORITY of children will cease experiencing learning difficulties.

This person will then be able to base his or her contribution to the improvement of these methods on a set of objective and stable criteria.

Yours sincerely,

André Michaud, president

Service de Recherche Pédagogique

Result

Regarding the first letter, only one acknowledgement of reception of one of my letters was received from the director of one of the Linguistic departments, but no follow up ensued. No other answer ensued from the presidents, or from the other departments directors.

For the second letter, I received 5 answers in all, of which two merely asked me to remove the person's name from my list. Nothing more resulted from this invitation.
Appendix B

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The worrying state of education at the university level

As mentioned in Chapter How to identify the source of the problem, here is the translation of a short text used as a reference on September 15, 1997 to describe the worrying state of University education to a group of English-Canadian judges gathered in Québec city in the course of a French immersion program.

This presentation was made upon invitation from Mrs. Yolande Cloutier-Turcotte, Director of the Judges Language Training Program at the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.

In reference to the Québec International Book Fair on Human and Social Sciences that was to open a few days later, Mrs. Cloutier-Turcotte invited me to say a few words about the first book to be published to popularize the discoveries of Pavlov and Chauchard and that was to be offered to the public at this fair.

Over the course of the previous year as the book was taking shape, I had been asking questions to university graduates that I met, and most importantly, I had been closely analyzing the curriculum of a number of occidental universities that are widely available over the Internet, searching for traces of these discoveries, or alternately, find out the reasons why such important research has been neglected to the point of being completely forgotten. Some common grounds progressively emerged that could constitute the foundation of a valid explanation.

It was this issue that I chose to elaborate on.

Explanation

Here is briefly the state of affairs as it appeared to me.

Education at the university level appears be structured in such a manner as to favor extreme specialization in very narrow fields of the various domains of knowledge.

The time required to hyper-specialize during the period that each person allocates to formal education realistically leaves little time to allow this person to acquire a sufficiently wide ranging general education, even in his (or her) own domain of interest.

Given the narrowness of the line of knowledge that need be mastered to hyper-specialize in any direction, it seems realistic to think that lines of research not currently popular at any given moment will tend to be neglected and forgotten, even by scientists, because as time passes and generations of scientists come and go, these lines eventually cease being examined even summarily in the course of basic education.

I spoke with linguists who have never heard of Alfred Korzybski and of his important explorations of the relationship between language and objective reality.

I spoke with a doctor specializing in neurobiology who had never heard of Paul Chauchard, possibly the greatest French neurophysiologist, certainly one of the greatest in the world let alone of the extremely coherent synthesis that he made of the state of knowledge on the brain and mind.

I spoke with graduates in psychology for whom the name of Ivan Pavlov was totally unknown let alone his research on understanding the thinking process.

I am not surprised that people not specialized in a field would not know the names of scientists or the research already made in a field that they do not know. But I find totally abnormal and disquieting that graduates in any given field could never have heard even summarily about research carried out in their own field and that even the names of the scientists involved could often be unknown to them.

The only information that appears to be currently available regarding Pavlov's work seems to be the fact that he has explored animal behavior and that his research was the foundation of the behaviorist school of thought.

As far as I could ascertain, there seems to remain no trace in the currently available scientific literature of Pavlov's research on the human thinking process.

The Padfield ruling

To briefly return to the problem of general education at the university level, I can even refer to a case relating to law.

It is the case of the Padfield Ruling, a ruling rendered by Lord Reid (House of Lords and Privy Council, 1968), in the case of "Padfield vs. Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food."

See Appendix C for details on this ruling.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the problem appears to be worldwide and I believe it to be possible that other important research could also have been neglected and forgotten in the same manner. I know that others have the same worry, but no one seems to be able to trigger action.
Appendix C

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Power and duty

To complete our analysis of the problem of general education at the university level, we will examine an example relating to the practice of law.

I refer to the Padfield Ruling, "Padfield vs. Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food", rendered by Lord Reid (House of Lords and Privy Council, 1968).

This ruling was apparently given as an example for many years here in Québec in the course of lawyers' education. It stopped being quoted at some point however because it was no longer considered as "innovative".

In short, I observe that four important points are emphasized by this ruling.

1- It stipulates that the Minister has a duty to intervene every time there is a pertinent and substantial complaint that an agency created by his Ministry proceeds in a manner incompatible with the public interest.

2- The corner stone of this ruling is the notion that because it is not specifically mentioned in the British Law that the Minister does not have this duty, this duty _de facto_ exists.

3- Moreover, he ruled that if the Minister refuses to intervene and that this refusal results in countering the politics and the spirit of the Law by depriving the petitioner of a recourse that he was convinced that the Parliament had the intention that the petitioner had, he ruled that the court must then be entitled to intervene.

4- Finally he ruled that to determine if, in the frame of British Law, a duty is to be associated to a power, there is ample authority to go beyond the words that confer the power, to the general scope and objects of the Law in order to find what was intended, to determine what had been the intention, which seems to be applicable to any constitutive Law in any country where such a Law has been established.

In my opinion, a ruling that could be brought as an argument in cases where there is an allegation that a minister or a government agency has acted in a manner incompatible with the public interest or that could help to determine, in whatever reference frame, whether a duty is de facto associated with a power if there is no specific provision to the contrary, should not have been excluded and should continue to be part of the general education of lawyers.

Text of the Padfield ruling

Despite the fact that this case is rather technical and pertains to the decisions of a Board regulating agriculture in England, the principle explored here seems to have considerable social implications since it concerns the responsibility of governments towards the populations that fall under their jurisdiction.

This ruling throws me into a state of profound reflection and seems interesting enough to propose it here as an object of general reflection.

Padfield vs. Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

Reflection on the text

The notion that in the reference frame of the British law, a duty is de facto attached to a power is explored here in a masterful manner.

Profound reflection on this case shows that this decision is in perfect conformity with the spirit of interpretative Articles 29 and 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I become dreamy thinking of the type of society that could be ours if every country that signed the Declaration really began enforcing all of its Articles, in light of interpretative Articles 29 and 30.
Appendix D

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Universal declaration of human rights

**Preamble**

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friend-ly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, therefore,

The General Assembly,

Proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, nation-al or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.

2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

2. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

2. Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country.

3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reason-able limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

1. Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
References

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Reference works

[1] Discours de la méthode, René Descartes, Originalement publié en 1637, GF-Flammarion, Édition de 1992

**[2] Manhood of Humanity** , Alfred Korzybski, The Institute of General Semantics, Second Edition, First Printing 1921, Third Printing 1974

[3] La science et l'hypothèse, Henri Poincaré, Première publication 1902, Flammarion, 1968

**4]** [A Future as an Heirloom, André Michaud, SRP Books, 1999

**[5]** **The Unconscious Civilization** , John Saul, 1997

[6] L'intégrité scientifique en zone grise, François Dumont, Les Édition Deslandes, 1997

**[7] Neurobiology** , Gordon M. Shepherd, Oxford University Press, 1994

**[8] Mathematics** , David Bergamini, Life Science Library, 1963

[9] La lumière, Pierre Rousseau, Que sais-je #48, Presses Universitaires de France, 1944

[10] De l'atome à l'étoile, Pierre Rousseau, Que sais-je #2, Presses Universitaires de France, 1941

[11] Les ondes électromagnétiques, Jean Mevel, Que sais-je #99, Presses Universitaires de France, 1964

**[12] Matter** , Ralph E. Lapp, Life Science Library, 1963

[13] La valeur de la science, Henri Poincaré, Première publication 1905, Flammarion, 1970

[14] Le cerveau et la conscience, Paul Chauchard, Les Éditions du Seuil, 1960

**[15] Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self** , published in 1989

[16] I. P. Pawlow, Gesammelte Werke, Uber die Physiologie und Pathologie der höheren Nerventätigkeit, Lothar Pickenhein, Ergon Verlag, 1998

**[17] The Organization of Behavior** , Donald Hebb, Wiley, New York, 1949.

[18] L'apprentissage précoce de la lecture, Rachel Cohen, Presses Universitaires de France, 5e édition, 1992

**[19] Gravitation and Spacetime** , Hans C. Ohanian & Remo Ruffini, W. W. Norton & Company, 1994

**20]** [Einstein's Operating System, André Michaud, SRP Books, 1997

**[21] Science & Sanity**, Alfred Korzybski, The Institute of General Semantics, First Edition 1933, Fourth Edition 1958

**[22] An Introduction to Neural Networks** , James A. Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995

[23] The Doubter's Companion, John Saul, 1996

**24]** [Theory of Discrete Attractors, André Michaud, SRP Books, 1999

**25]** [The Neurolinguistic Foundation of Intelligence, André Michaud, SRP Books, 2003

Articles from daily Le Soleil

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(By order of dates)

Un bulletin pour les profs.

5 septembre 1998, page A13, Brigitte Breton

60 000 cégépiens ont boycotté les registres.

24 septembre 1998, page A13, Brigitte Breton

Sur l'amertume des jeunes envers leurs aînés.

6 octobre 1998, page B9, Éric Bédard

" **Salope, bitch". La violence au quotidien dans les écoles.**

8 octobre 1998, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Pénurie de diplômés en sciences et technologies.

9 octobre 1998, page A12, Montréal (PC)

Québec coupe dans l'alphabétisation.

13 octobre 1998, page A1, Anne-Marie Voisard

Le respect des droits de la personne ... refus de la misère.

15 octobre 1998, page B7, Claude Fillion

10% moins d'inscriptions dans les universités québécoises.

15 octobre 1998, page A11.

Taux d'abandons scolaire très élevés. Les étudiants en techniques et sciences ne tiennent pas le coup.

20 octobre 1998, page A17, Rolande Parent

Trop de chargés de cours.

23 octobre 1998, page A11, Brigitte Breton

Un grand virage fait sans l'accord du public.

1 novembre 1998, page A7, Jean-Simon Gagné

L'Étudiant québécois: ..., dépolitisé, incertain de l'avenir.

2 novembre 1998, page B11, Robert Lavoie

Les enseignants très scolarisés pénalisés.

3 novembre 1998, page B11, Francine Boulet

Pour contrer l'exode des cerveaux.

5 novembre 1998, page A10, Marie Tison

Une école pour raccrocheurs menacée.

6 novembre 1998, page A6, Guy Benjamin

Les déboires d'une étudiante.

6 novembre 1998, page B7, Marie-Josée Paquette

Prêts étudiants. Recours collectif.

7 novembre 1998, page A30, Montréal (PC)

Voter, un acte d'humiliation pour les analphabètes.

9 novembre 1998, page A11, Montréal (PC)

L'université, une priorité à l'heure du verdict électoral.

10 novembre 1998, page B9, Nikolas Ducharme/Daniel Baril

Dérogation possible pour l'école de raccrocheurs.

11 novembre 1998, page A6, Brigitte Breton

Les universités du Québec menacées.

11 novembre 1998, page B11, R.Lacroix/B.Shapiro/F.Tavenas

Le Petit Séminaire cède sa section collégiale à Garneau.

13 novembre 1998, page A5, Brigitte Breton

L'Éducation de base est-elle toujours une priorité?

13 novembre 1998, page B9, André Caron

Cegeps: proportion alarmante de décrocheurs.

14 novembre 1998, page A26, (PC)

John Saul, guérillero de la démocratie.

14 novembre 1998, page D17, Pierre-Paul Noreau

Les Américains courtisent les étudiants québécois.

14 novembre 1998, page A16, Brigitte Breton

Chrétien se fait le défenseur des droits de la personne.

15 novembre 1998, page A8, Singapour (PC)

Québec et Ottawa sur la même sellette devant l'ONU.

17 novembre 1998, page A16, Montréal (PC)

Les étudiants dans la rue pour dénoncer leur pauvreté.

18 novembre 1998, page A18, Brigitte Breton

Oubliés de la campagne. Les Cegeps s'inquiètent.

18 novembre 1998, page A14, Montréal (PC)

Parents et CS veulent plus d'argent.

18 novembre 1998, page A14, Montréal (PC)

Le Québec rattrapera le Canada en l'an 2000.

19 novembre 1998, page B3, Marie Tison

Les étudiants entendent se plaindre... brutalité policière.

20 novembre 1998, page A7, Isabelle Mathieu

Les acteurs du milieu de l'éducation se sentent oubliés.

21 novembre 1998, page A18, Brigitte Breton

Quand chaque jour compte. Le cancer n'attend pas.

22 novembre 1998, page A4, K.L.

Pour qui le Parti québécois nous prend-il?

23 novembre 1998, page B5, Gilbert Belzile

Faisons une place à la "petite politique".

24 novembre 1998, page B8, J.-Jacques Samson

Les oubliés de la campagne.

26 novembre 1998, page A12, Marie Caouette

Trois fois plus d'itinérants à Québec qu'à Montréal.

26 novembre 1998, page A13, Louise Lemieux

L'aide doit suivre la croissance de la pauvreté.

27 novembre 1998, page A4, Guy Benjamin

Bulletin de vote. Fini le cafouillis.

29 novembre 1998, page A5, Jean-Simon Gagné

Relancer l'économie en éliminant la pauvreté.

30 novembre 1998, page B7, Sylvio Blanchet

Des étudiants mettent en doute leur formation.

2 décembre 1998, page A6, Brigitte Breton

Alphabétisation. ... décréter des mesures d'urgence.

2 décembre 1998, page B9, Jean-Pierre Simard

La tâche avant l'équité salariale.

3 décembre 1998, page B8, Carl Desrochers

Problème d'équité salariale à l'université.

3 décembre 1998, page A6, Anne-Marie Voisard

Les étudiants de Laval craignent pour ... leur bibliothèque.

5 décembre 1998, page A3, Laura-Julie Perreault

Un rapport accablant de l'ONU contre le Canada.

5 décembre 1998, page A21, Londres (PC)

Rapport de l'ONU ... pauvreté. Québec... part du blâme.

7 décembre 1998, page A6, Montréal (PC)

Trop de Ritalin, trop vite.

9 décembre 1998, page A12, Montréal (PC)

À l'heure des choix.

11 décembre 1998, page B8, Laurier Boucher

La session d'hiver risque d'être retardée.

12 décembre 1998, page A26, Brigitte Breton

Chute du nombre d'enseignants à temps plein.

16 décembre 1998, page A13, Ottawa (PC)

Raccourcir les études postsecondaires.

17 décembre 1998, page B11, André Gosselin

Alerte au déficit à Laval.

18 décembre 1998, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Les enfants oubliés: une pauvreté qui fait honte.

23 décembre 1998, page B7, André Caron

Semaine de relâche imprévue.

6 janvier 1999, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Les recteurs se confessent.

9 Janvier 1999, page A16, André Bouchard

L'université de demain.

10 janvier 1999, page B2.

La scolarité, le prix de l'indépendance.

26 janvier 1999, page B6, Robert Martel

Le Conseil supérieur de l'éducation à contre-pied.

2 février 1999, page B8, Jean Martel

La CEQ songe à la grève du zèle.

18 février 1999, page A8, Gilbert Leduc

Le temps, c'est de l'argent. Elle poursuit l'université...

18 février 1999, page A3, Guy Benjamin

Les assistés sociaux, les grand perdants de la réforme.

18 février 1999, page A1, Jean-Marc Salvet

L'urgence déchire comme la toile du Stade olympique.

22 février 1999, page A1, Monique Giguère

Élèves performants seulement!

27 février 1999, page A17, Brigitte Breton

La fin d'un mythe en éducation.

27 février 1999, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Ni pire ni mieux, mais différente.

27 février 1999, page A17, Brigitte Breton

Pensionnaire: genre en voie de disparition.

1 mars 1999, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Legault dit non au Petit Séminaire.

5 mars 1999, page A7, Alain Bouchard

Séminaire de Québec. Un projet trop onéreux.

6 mars 1999, page A3, Brigitte Breton

Séminaire de Québec. Pas question de mourir après 331 ans.

9 mars 1999, page A3, Yves Therrien

Sauvez le Petit Séminaire!

10 mars 1999, page B13, Louis Bouchard, directeur général

Des perdants réussissent.

13 mars 1999, page A17, Anne-Marie Voisard

Trop peu, dit le milieu.

13 mars 1999, page A21, Brigitte Breton

La controverse continue dans le monde collégial.

17 mars 1999, page A16, Michel Corbeil

Polyvalente de Baie-Comeau. Comme dans "Virginie".

17 mars 1999, page A6, Steeve Paradis

Avenir du séminaire. Larose met de la pression.

19 mars 1999, page A4, Marie Caouette

La réforme de l'assurance emploi fait des ravages.

22 mars 1999, page A6, Denis Gauthier

Des milliers d'étudiants dans la rue.

25 mars 1999, page A7, Guy Benjamin

Pas de drame en éducation, croit le ministre Legault.

23 mars 1999, page A23, Québec (PC)

Quatre autres Cegeps s'opposent au projet.

29 mars 1999, page B8, Marcel Lafleur pour Jocelyn Benoit

1re étude scientifique menée chez l'enfant.

4 avril 1999, page B7, Louise Lemieux

Une coupe à blanc à l'hôpital Saint-François-d'Assise.

7 avril 1999, page B7, Yvon Morissette, Médecin et chef du service d'ORL

Toujours pas de solution.

8 avril 1999, page A7, Brigitte Breton

L'alphabétisation en chute libre.

11 avril 1999, page A6, Anne-Marie Voisard

Il y a urgence pour les jeunes en détresse.

14 avril 1999, page B11, Sylvain Lamontagne

Fisc québécois. Des aberrations connues depuis 15 ans.

16 avril 1999, page A9, New York (PC)

500 M$ par an aux pauvres.

23 avril 1999, page A5, Marie Caouette

Un autre expert suggère de mettre lapédale douce sur le Ritalin.

26 avril 1999, page A10, Carl Thériault

Le droit à la porno juvénile en cour.

26 avril 1999, page A8, Vancouver (PC)

Les jeunes Ritalin, enfants de Duplessis de demain.

28 avril 1999, page A1, Anne-Marie Voisard

Les "strapper" sur leur chaise?

28 avril 1999, page C1, Anne-Marie Voisard

Le Dr Bouchard part avec armes et bagages.

29 avril 1999, page A1, Monique Giguère

250 profs seraient mis à la retraite.

1 mai 1999, page A3, Brigitte Breton

Des millions perdus dans les classes trop nombreuses.

2 mai 1999, page A9, Montréal (PC)

Moisson Québec atteint les 100 tonnes de nourriture.

5 mai 1999, page A7, Monique Giguère

Legault dénonce la prise d'otage des étudiants comme moyen de pression.

14 mai 1999, page A8, Brigitte Breton

Les garderies à 5$ coûtent cher aux pauvres.

27 mai 1999, page A10, Montréal (PC)

Au secours des gars.

31 mai 1999, page A1, Mélanie Pageau

Mises en demeure aux parents.

3 juin 1999, page A12, Michel Corbeil

Maisons d'hébergement: L'argent manque cruellement.

6 juin 1999, page A2, Montréal (PC)

Cegeps: Des élèves qui se cherchent.

16 juin 1999, page A12, Montréal (PC)

Au secondaire, les ados ont besoin d'adultes pour les soutenir.

17 juin 1999, page B10, Jean Gauthier

Des enfants marqués au fer rouge.

19 juin 1999, page A23, Claudette Samson

Le Canada toujours bon premier.

11 juillet 1999, page A6, Nations Unies (PC)

La famille, victime de l'appétit fiscal du gouvernement québécois.

16 juillet 1999, page A17, Yvon Laviolette

Un médiateur spécial, svp.

23 juillet 1999, page A7, Jean-Marc Salvet

Francine Duchesneau réclame le droit à la santé.

24 juillet 1999, page A17, Monique Giguère

Les familles, victimes de l'hypocrisie du système fiscal.

27 juillet 1999, page A17, Denise Gendron Paquet

Plus d'édudiants éprouvent des difficultés à rembourser leur prêt.

31 juillet 1999, page A11, Ottawa (PC)

Une politique familiale qui nous pénalise.

7 août 1999, page A19, Natalie Guérin

La Clinique de lecture et d'écriture: une méthode qui a fait ses preuves.

8 août 1999, page D2

Stages compromis: 400 apprentis profs risquent de ne pas avoir de diplômes.

18 août 1999, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Rappel à l'ordre: Le ministère convoque les patrons des directeurs d'écoles.

9 septembre 1999, page A3, Brigitte Breton

Le boycott est levé. Le ministère s'entend avec les 3600 directeurs d'écoles.

11 septembre 1999, page A3, Brigitte Breton

Manifestations écolières à Montréal: 270 élèves arrêtés.

24 septembre 1999, page A1, Montréal (PC)

Le premier ministre, les parents et les CS blâment les profs.

24 septembre 1999, page A8, Michel Corbeil/Brigitte Breton

La 138 bloquée par des étudiants.

28 septembre 1999, page A9, Jean-François Néron

Débrayages d'élèves: Le Conseil permanent de la jeunesse approuve.

30 septembre 1999, page A10, Michel Corbeil

75% des élèves américains ne savent pas rédiger.

3 octobre 1999, page A14, Washington (AFP)

Il reconduit son fils à l'école: $136 d'amende.

10 octobre 1999, page A3, Michel Godin

" **Les gars doivent apprendre à travailler", dit une chercheuse.**

14 octobre 1999, page A1, Brigitte Breton

Maternelle: Haro sur la scolarisation à tout prix.

16 octobre 1999, page A21, Brigitte Breton

Pas un, mais deux nouveaux bureaux pour Marois.

22 octobre 1999, page A11, Michel Hébert

La maladie des grandeurs de Pauline Marois.

23 octobre 1999, page A20, Marc Théberge

Et si les étudiants avaient raison.

10 juin 2012, page 23, Denis Bédard

Article from daily Le Devoir

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Un coroner blâme les médecins d'urgence.

30 avril 1999, page A1, Isabelle Paré

Pourquoi le conflit étudiant perdure-t-il.

18 juin 2012, page A4

Le revenu des ménages canadiens ne progresse pas.

19 juin 2012, page A1,

Articles from daily Midi Libre

(By order of dates)

Les chantiers de Ségolène Royal.

6 mars 1998

L'école maternelle, maillon primordial du savoir.

6 mars 1998

Article from daily Le Monde

(By order of dates)

Un jeune sur dix rencontre des difficultés en lecture, selon une étude de l'Insee.

11 septembre 1997, Patrice de Beer

L'illettrisme atteint des proportions inquiétantes au Royaume-Uni.

20 novembre 1997, Patrice de Beer

Articles from weekly Les Affaires

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(By order of dates)

La démographie nuit à l'économie.

5 décembre 1998, page 12, Hélène Bégin

Les entreprises réclament des employés qualifiés.

9 janvier 1999, page 5, Martin Jolicoeur/Kathy Noël

Pénurie d'ingénieurs à l'horizon.

27 février 1999, page 23, Michel De Smet

L'Université Laval engouffre des millions dans un système informatique qui ne marche pas.

13 mars 1999, page 8, André Salwyn

Les chefs de famille monoparentale vivent une tragédie fiscale.

17 avril 1999, page 5, Claude Chiasson

L'Université de Montréal perd ses meilleurs professeurs.

15 mai 1999, page 21, (SD)

Les universités réclament 650 M$ pour se relever.

9 octobre 1999, page 8, Kathy Noël

Article from Magazine Spectre

**Émerveillez-les! Il n'y aura plus de limite.**

Octobre-novembre 1998, page 6, Françoise Lavigne

Article from magazine Québec Science

**L'école casse-tête.**

Septembre 1999, page 13, Marie Pier Elie

Article from Scientific American

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Alan Turing's Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science.

April 1999, page 98, B. Jack Copeland/Diane Proudfoot

Articles from magazine l'Actualité

(By order of dates)

L'invasion des enfants perdus.

15 novembre 1991, page 93, Francine Bordeleau

Dis-moi qui tu es, je te dirai pourquoi tu décroches.

15 mars 1992, page 32, Dominique Demers

Je n'ai pas été un bon prof, mais j'en suis bien heureuse.

15 mars 1992, page 30, Jeannine Brault

L'école antidécrochage? Oui, ça se peut!

15 mars 1992, page 35, Michelin Lavoie

Un pays malade de ses enfants.

15 mars 1992, page 26, Dominique Demers

Articles from Le journal de Québec

(Par ordre de dates)

Plus d'élèves en difficulté que jamais.

25 juin 2012, page 3, Nicolas Saillant

Violent and Paranoïaque. Le suspect du double meurtre à l'hôpital Notre-Dame craignait de se faire tuer, selon un de ses proches.

29 juin 2012, page 6, Éric Thibault
