Postman: Building a Bridge

I just finished reading Neil Postman's Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future:

What will happen if a student, studying history, asks, "Whose history is this?" What will happen if a student, having been given a definition (of anything) asks, "Who made up this definition? Are there other ways to define this thing?" What will happen if a student, being given a set of facts, asks, "What is a fact? How is it different from an opinion? And who is the judge?" What happens, of course, is that students not only learn "history," "definitions," and "facts" (which Bloom and Hirsch want them to learn) but also to learn where these things come from and why (which Bloom and Hirsch don't care about). Such learning is at the heart of reasoning and its product, skepticism. Do we dare do such a thing? (162)

And

If parents wish to preserve childhood for their own children, they must conceive of parenting as an act of rebellion against culture. . . . most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media's access to one's children. (129)

And

The most obvious question to be asked about any new technology . . . is, What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?

This question needs to be asked because there are technologies that are employed--indeed, invented--to solve problems that no normal person would regard as significant. Of course, any technology can be marketed to create an illusion of significance, but an intelligent, aware person need not believe it.