Back in the late 1960s, Neil Postman wrote extensively about how educational quality and a healthy democracy were dependent on each citizen having a highly sensitive “shockproof crap detector in their survival kit.” The classic book he co-authored with Charles Weingarten, Teaching as a Subversive Activity, (Delacorte Press, 1969) discusses crap detection as fundamental to learning.

In fact, Postman delivered a paper at the 1969 National Council of Teachers of English annual conference, entitled, “Bulls#@t and the Art of Crap-Detection.”

Read the historic speech here