Octopus

The new forced schooling octopus taught anyone unable to escape its tentacles that inert knowledge - memorizing the dots - is the gold standard of intellectual achievement. Not connecting those dots. It set out to create a reflexive obedience to official directions as opposed to accepting responsibility for one's own learning.

These habit trainings are among the most important weapons of mass instruction. On the higher levels of the school pyramid, among those labeled "gifted" and "talented;' the standard is more sophisticated: there children are required to memorize both dots as well as what experts say is the correct way to connect those dots into narratives: even to memorize several conflicting expert analyses in a simulation of genuine critical thinking. Original thinking in dot connection is patronized at times, but always subtly discouraged. Twelve to twenty years of stupefying memorization drills weakens the hardiest intellects.

--John Taylor Gatto, "Weapons Of Mass Instruction", p. 16, 17