1. What do Women
Really Want? Can a
Canadian Headline Canadian Headline
“New Feminism”
Take Hold?
US TODAY
THE MAGAZINE OF THE HUMAN SCENE APRIL 2012
Best Selling
Author,
David
McRaney,
explains to
America
why God’s
children
have out

2. David McRaney on why we're
not as SMART as we think
As humans at the top of the food that as he travelled from school to school, none of the
chain, we're pretty sure we've got it schools are all that smart. In fact, upon careful
all figured out. We're logical and consideration, Bethany may be the least of the “not so
rational creatures, right? We know smart” culprits.
why we like certain foods, and why Bethany is at first glance, the school that looks the
we brush our teeth a certain way (no most .... Bethany after all is a total instituition, how
cavities!), and why we tear up at A smart can a total instituition be! These students are
League of Their Own (maybe?). We the poster children for dillusions, they don’t think, act,
can tell when we're lying to function as autonomous members of society. Totally
ourselves (hint: right now), and we brainwashed right? Perhaps, but lets not be to hasty to
can perform an accurate self- decided that they are the only ones walking and
evaluation (what do you mean I'm talking to the drum of a “higher power”.
not perfect?). When we find
Oh sure, when I first stepped foot in Bethany, I
ourselves in dire situations, we do
thought I was in the epitemy of “not so smart”
everything in our power to get out of
territory. No one
them.
here is thinking
Unfortunately, none of the above is true. These critically, no one
are everyday self-delusions that help us deal with here is raising
reality. As author David McRaney explains in his new above the
book, You Are Not So Smart, well, we are not so fallacies that
smart. The award-winning journalist has a passion for have us
exploring the lies we like to tell ourselves, and he convinced we
stopped by the Ministry of Education to discuss the are free being,
many flaws of the human brain and how this affects no on here has a minute defense against my book.
the education of our children.
.... I think is the better, smarter educational path,
McRaney's book started, like so many books these well, I’ll I have to say is “he is without sin cast the first
days do, as a blog that explored a growing body of stone”. Public schools you are definately not the
work that says people generally have no idea why we coveted “smart ones”.
act, think or feel the way we do. We don't even know
why we like what we like. McRaney wishes to extend Take for example, just three of my fallacies:
his theories about how we delude ourselves during the attention, priming, and the texas sharp shooter. They
course of our everyday life to how we are are all evident at Bethany, but here’s the thing, they
systematically deluding our children in schools. are equally, if not more evident in our cherished
public schools!
McRaney makes his first stop to Bethany
Academy Christian Fundamentalist school as he
figured this is where the grandest of dillusions of
occur. And yes, while McRaney concedes Bethany is
not fully aware other dellusions, he quickly notices

3. "It's just part of being a person," McRaney
pointed out. "But just knowing about these things can
help us change, in a way. The best thing to do would
be to admit our faults, and stop making choices in our
lives, and even in the policy of the public sphere, that
assume we are perfectly rational."
In other words, we should trust the science and
try to develop policies that will outsmart our future
selves. "We should build a world around the idea that
we are deluded and irrational," said McRaney. "We
should childproof our homes to keep our kids safe,
and we should childproof our lives against our own
selves."
Explain the Bethany
connection and public
school thing

4. MCRANEY TALKS Christians (p.17) , and that “very American society does not have
ABOUT few of the teachers acknowledge the time or opportunity to pay
BETHANY’S any social life outside the Bethany attention to anything outside the
ATTENTION church community” (p.71). focus of popular culture and
Describing Bethany teachers in consumption. We are surrounded
In my book, (You Are Not So his book, Peshkin (1986) quotes a by consistent, strategic, biased
Smart) I talk about the teacher who admits: “Church and messaging from pop music,
misconceptions we all have church friends take all my television, internet,
related to attention. We think we time” (p.71). The limited and advertisements, shopping malls,
see everything going on before us, focused attention of teachers is designer clothes, cars, soft drinks,
but we are really only aware of a translated to Bethany students fast foods, multimedia marketing
small amount of what we take in, with a strict teaching style that and branding strategies and
and even less is processed and attempts to control everything labels. Industries collaborate to
remembered by our conscious that “comes through the eye ensure consistency in messaging.
minds. When we focus our gate” (Peshkin, 1986, p.74). This We build our identities with these
attention on teaching style, combined with the products, define ourselves by the
o n e t h i n g, homogenous environments of labels we choose, and then see our
everything church, home and school, ensure choices validated and associations
else blurs into the reinforcement and reinforced everywhere we go.
the periphery perpetuation of a worldview with Surrounded by messages about
( M c R a n e y, limited focus. consumer behaviour, it is no
2011, p.220). wonder that many of us maintain
This is The thing is, if you a limited worldview with a focus
apparent at Bethany Baptist think Bethany teachers on attaining more stuff as our
Academy: where teachers are so
and students are the goal in life.
busy with church obligations and
living within such limited social only ones who
circles, that they never have the maintain worldviews “PUT QUOTE FROM
time or the opportunity to pay with limited focus, PHILOSOPHER OR
attention to anything else. For
then you are not so SOMETHING OF
example, in his ethnographic
research, Peshkin (1986) uncovers smart. THE SORT....”
that Bethany Baptist Academy Much of our secular
employs only bor n-again humanist, mainstream North
Shortly after the World War 2, [people] were figuring out how to ramp up the [U.S.] economy. Retailing
analyst Victor Lebow articulated the solution that has become the norm for the whole system. He said: “Our
enormously productive economy. . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the
buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual
satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need
things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-
accelerating rate.”
WWW.STORYOFSTUFF.COM

5. Priming its halls. Reading about priming is part of institutional
Bethany, it can be easy for one life
Another common
to say to its students, you are
misconception that is quite
not so smart.
apparent when reading
Peskin’s ethnography is the However, while it
priming fallacy. In my book, I can be argued that Bethany is
explain how most individuals priming their students for a life
believe that they are aware of piety, our more secular
when their behavior is being schools are just as guilty as
influenced, but in reality they priming our students for a life
have no idea of the constant of secular humanism and
nudging they receive from the servitude to the state. It is very
ideas formed in their easy to imagine that the
unconscious mind (McRaney, students at BBA are simply
p.???). From the very first brainwashed and that those of
chapters of Peshkin’s God us outside their system are
Choice (1986) it quickly clearly able to see this, but let’s
becomes evident that students compare the reality of what
at Bethany Baptist Academy happens in the Public School
are victims of this fallacy. system in Ontario, for
According to Peshkin (1986), example, and how it aligns
from the moment a Bethany with what’s happening at BBA.
student enters its doors, they With its emphasis on Canadian
are bombarded with one History, Canadian Geography,
constant message: their and Civics – all compulsory
purpose in life is to serve the subjects—the province seeks to
Lord. Every aspect of Bethany establish a commitment to
life serves to emphasize this nationalism. In the end, what
message: from curriculum it all comes down to is service.
design, to Chapel sermons, Whether or not a student is
extracurricular & church being brought up in a secular
activities, reading and music or religious environment, they
materials available, to social are all being primed for
events. These kids do not stand obedience and servitude. The
a chance! By the time they only difference is that Bethany
graduate from BBA, most is creating workers who will
students will have completely serve the Lord, while the
inter nalized the school’s Public School systems are
message, and its influence will creating workers who will serve
c o n t i nu e t o s h a p e t h e i r the State. Perhaps we could
behavior long after they have 5 a d d s o m e s t u f f o n h ow

6. Te x a s Sharp
Shooter

7. MCRANEY TALKS TO PESHKIN
ABOUT HIS BETHANY ETHNOGRAPHY
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urna, vitae sodales et ut facilisis dignissim,
imperdiet in diam, quisque adipiscing.

8. MCRANEY ARGUES THAT
HUMILITY IS THE PATH TO
BEING SMARTER
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9. THE Contributors “finding yourself quote”
Put cycle here........
GRID
Write about The
Grid........

10. Farewell from SWG 1...
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mauris a, tortor eu vel. ridiculus. Eget nascetur aenean sodales
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gravida. Malesuada viverra integer
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nec nulla quis, morbi ac. Congue in
egestas ac ornare nibh, nunc eu aliquam
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pede, vel libero mauris suscipit sit. Ligula sit, eget euismod, luctus lectus eros
dolor vel ipsum posuere consequat vestibulum eu hac pede, neque.
SWG 1
Sesame Street
TO:
Professor Barlosky
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON