more Neil Postman quotes

Since our students will have watched approximately sixteen thousand (16,000) hours of television by high school's end, questions should have arisen, even in the minds of officials at the Department of Education, about who will teach our students how to look at television, and when not to, and with what critical equipment when they do. from: Amusing Ourselves To Death This is why I think it accurate to call television a curriculum. As I understand the word, a curriculum is a specially constructed information system whose purpose is to influence, train, teach or cultivate the mind and character of youth... I refer, first, to the fact that television's principal contribution to educational philosophy is the idea that teaching and entertainment are inseparable... The name we properly give to an education without prerequisites, perplexity, and exposition is entertainment. from: Amusing Ourselves To Death The problem, in any case, does not reside in what people watch. The problem is in that we watch... The desperate answer is to rely on the only mass medium of communication that, in theory, is capable of addressing the problem: Our schools. from: Amusing Ourselves To Death