cover sets 1 how to sort the gold from the dross

1 cow + 1 cow makes 2 cows.

1 sheep + 1 sheep makes 2 sheep.

What’s one cow + one sheep? Mmmm…you cant do this unless you make a new category, called ‘animals’. Then:

1 cow + 1 sheep makes 2 animals



‘ANIMALS’ is a COVER SET and exists at the n+1 level.

‘COWS’ and ‘SHEEP’ are COVERED by the category above.

In this little diagram there are 2 animals at the nth level.

The DIMENSION of the nth level is 2.

If you added in meerkats and duck-billed platipuses (there appears to be no collective noun for platypus), the DIMENSION would be 4.

This is how mathematicians define DIMENSION.

Cover sets and dimension are going to come in useful when we start to create and criticise CURRICULAE… ahead…

You see you don’t want CATEGORY CONFUSION. That sounds like it could make you ill. However there is a lot of IT about. For example, you probably heard quite a lot of politicians with diametrically opposite views saying the same thing such as;

‘We want the best possible education for the children in our society’

Yes, true, we do, but the problem is they are relying on CATEGORY CONFUSION at the n+1 level to misle you into believing they are doing the RIGHT THING. Everybody of every persuasion agrees at that level but the point is what lies ‘beneath’ at other levels, what dimension they are referring to and what SPECIFICALLY do they mean.

I saw a T shirt once: ‘CAN’T YOU BE A BIT MORE F****** SPECIFIC’, excuse the french.

COVER SETS and DIMENSION are two of the tools that will sort out the idiots from the smart guys.

the content of every curriculum is relative and loaded

Awareness and attitude beat content. More later…

There are an infinite number of lists of content. Every curriculum that has ever existed or will ever exist or any that can be thought about in the future will have different sets of content. As now, when the government sees fit to allow those with no real knowledge or insight into education and learning to control what happens with content (and process), these lists will be enormous. What’s more they will be created by the prevailing mental structures of the beings involved.

A dog would create content relating to doggish items such as food, smell, territory etc.

Those who have been exposed to certain conditionings will often, though not necessarily, include aspects of these in their ‘curriculae’. George Monbiot recently wrote about this aspect. Check out his other writings on the reasons behind the present ‘revisions’…George Monbiot…’A Capitalist Command Economy’.

Gradgrind, from Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’ was keen on facts, facts, facts…

The half truth here is that of course everyone needs facts to operate in the world, but one needs much more than facts to be a creative, engaging, imaginative, happy productive human being.

The present ‘Revised National Curriculum’ for England and Wales is an example of ‘the Gradgrind Way’ created by those who do not understand but have the power to enforce. There are more sinister aspects to this however including the forcing or bribing of state schools to become so called academies by making them attempt to achieve the dull impossible. Then ultimately the profitable ones can be dealt out between the ‘unelected oligarchs’. This is truly a crime.

This revised curriculum is 1000 miles wide and 1 inch deep.