I want you to imagine, for a moment, that the government introduced a new law demanding that all adults between 30-45 were forced to go back to school as part of a 'refresher' education course.
Adults would study and regurgitate the information deemed most relevant by the state, with examinations at the end of each year to assess how well they'd memorised and processed the information. Failure to attend class, or problems with punctuality and timekeeping, would result in punishment to instil respect for authority and obedience to teachers.
Adult students who questioned the authority of the teachers would be forced to attend after-school detentions to correct and realign their behaviour. Students who were distracted and struggled to pay attention in class would be prescribed state-approved drugs to cancel out any unnecessary mind chatter and distractions, with little to no concern for any harmful side effects.
Any student who refused to obey the law and rejected the government's refresher program would be sentenced to prison, or fined heavily.
Sound crazy?
What's crazy is forcing children, who enter this world as naturally inquisitive, playful, and infinitely imaginative human beings, to endure the tyranny of the modern-day 'education' system described above, with absolutely no consideration or respect for the child's individual free will or freedom of choice. If it would not be right to force adults to attend school, what gives us the right to impose such tyranny upon children - the most vulnerable and impressionable members of society? What kind of example are we setting for children when we strip them of their sovereignty from the very moment that they are able to start critically processing and analysing the world around them?
The biggest lesson taught in school isn't maths, English or science; it is that obedience is a virtue and failure to obey authority results in punishment. Children are taught to equate right and wrong with how well they obeyed the authority figure in the room, rather than using their own inner compass -- their conscience -- to decide for themselves. There is little to no emphasis on free thought or critical thinking, and children are taught what to think, not how to think. One is infinitely more valuable than the other, for obvious reasons.
The modern-day education system is one of the strongest forms of indoctrination that still goes largely unquestioned by the general public. The thought of children not attending school is simply unfathomble for most parents, despite the fact that our species has learned and adapted for thousands of years without any such institution.
The state should have absolutely no involvement in any child's education or development. We send our children off to be taught what to think by the government, and they come out the other side as cogs in the wheel, perpetuating a system of tyranny and eventually passing it on to their children. The biggest lesson taught in school is to obey authority, and it has poisoned the minds of our children and almost completely destroyed their ability to think critically. Voluntary education is key; not forced schooling and indoctrination by authority figures.
Thank you for your time and attention.
If I had kids in America I would definitely hope to be home enough to home school them or rich enough to send them for Waldorf education. In either case they would get the essentials of reading, writing and arithmetic with the rest being self directed learning. I do think that’s the key to critical thinking, studying topics that arouse one’s natural curiosity
Sadly common core seems to do a poor job to devote free thinking / free will.... The problem is the choice is removed as average people can't afford anything other than the "free education" by the state.
Common core is destroying education.
When I was taking engineering, had a conversation with a prof who told me he was giving the same test for 20 years. Over that w0 years he explained a downward trend where all would finish the test on time at first and the scores would fluctuate. To where most of the students could only barely complete the test within the time.
It is the trap; no time to teach kids, and no option too demand something that produces better results.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
yes 100% yes to everything you have said in this post, lets just call it what it is training and day time prisons, children are born wanting to learn, they have such a natural ability to teach themselves, but what system wants empowered people, so instead they are disempowered, they are fed to the wolves (nothing against wolves here, they are amazing creatures). Trusting your children's ability to learn for themselves is so important. great post @mckeever
My husband and I have had several conversations now about the difference between "education" and "training".
One simply helps and encourages someone to learn, which is something people do naturally.
The other molds people to do something the way the molder wants them to.
Public School Education in the United States today is actually Public School Training. Everything about it is designed to train people to be the cogs in the industrial workforce that we supposedly need. There is a lot of effort put into "learning", but when a person really "learns" they often reach a variety of different conclusions and levels of proficiency in various fields than the person next to them rather than everyone graduating able to do the same basic work.
Very well said.
I totally agree with you. For many years i worked as a kindergartenteacher. I had been the leader, so i had a bit influence and i wanted to change the common education. It does not work and i stopped my struggle... My team itself has been grown up in the new way and they cannot understand me - i have never been in a kindergarten myself but outside in nature... exploring, learning and having FUN!
My grandson is 4 years old and still i hope that the system will change (break down) before he has to go to school...
Permit me to ask a question...
If adults are the students, then who are the teachers?
I love what you've done with this post and I can only hope that it'll reach someone who is in power to effect necessary changes to the system as a whole.
Ha, that's a good point. Other adults that don't fit into the age category of re-education I suppose.
😂😂😆
Thank you for sharing this awesome article! The education system is simply a government indoctrination camp that no one questions!
Thank you for reading and commenting!
Amazing Post!!!!
Feel free to also check out my newest post in the God Concept series titled, Who is the all attractive one?
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@coloured-content/the-god-concept-part-five-who-is-god-the-all-attractive-one
Depends on who you are listening to. A group of twenty something adults sitting in the park the other day using four letter expletives left and right didn't give me the impression they were "too indoctrinated" by their public school education.
Many people believe these people failed the system – but the system actually failed them, as it does most of its victims.
Thanks for sharing your opinion on obligated schooling. I have been trained to be a Waldorf primary school teacher, but I am currently not doing that work and haven't been for some time. I think that with the way we've been educated in the west, we don't realise that we do actually learn to think critically, or at least are given the basics to start doing so. Of course there are so many different kinds of schools, but I for example have been taught to carry my own responsibility and to not jump in the pond when another does, BECAUSE I have been educated and my parents have been too. Not all that we have been taught was useful of course as the education system is a reflection of the general ideas of the ruling society. But when I look at uneducated people in India where I have been for quite some time, they are really lacking many cerebral skills to take care of themselves properly . There is much less vital information available to you when you can't read for example. You can't see what's in the food you buy, you have no clue about a lot of the artificial ingredients for example. You don't know your rights when somebody mistreats you. Emotionally you don't have the awareness that you are not automatically in charge to fulfil other peoples needs, nor are they responsible for yours. You haven't learned time management or basic hygiene. Sometimes not even left and right. You didn't learn to categorize as you never made any puzzles. As a result your organisational skills are very chaotic. Nothing has a logical place in the cupboard. All things that are so normal to us, but not to them. Because you haven't learned to use your brain in a certain way.
So when comparing, I do feel I was lucky that I was made to go to school. It wasn't perfect. I have a memory of a lot of stale hours in school and in our stale society in general from when I was younger and wasn't aware of how things worked and what I wanted, but I did get the start up tools from school to try and find that out by reading and trying things out.
I think there should be a very basic minimum of skills that each child will have to learn like reading, writing and math, with the least of indoctrination woven in to that and the rest of the things there should be a minimum amount that is also obligated, of things a child can choose from what it wants to learn. I think much less schooling is necessary and more learning from life itself. Less hours a day and also not all year around. But a minimum of obligation I think is necessary. If school was no longer obligated I fear many parents would let the child have less fruitful experiences in the amount of time that should be reserved for learning and socialising with other children. I think homeschooling/unschooling should be allowed, but I don't think you can trust just any parent to be able to conduct that in a fruitful way, so there should be check ups for that too. And a minimal amount of social time spent with other children I think is also very important and something homeschooled children sometimes miss out on. This should be a part of every childs day.
It's not that I trust the state checking up on people more with the education of children in their hands then I would parents with the education of their own children, but I do feel it is important to have at leat others look in to the homeschooling situation from time to time as when it's parents alone controlling everything this can be like still water, not enough fresh water flow comes in, especially when the parents don't have many skills of reflecting up on what they do. I'd like to think that we can hold each other up when we work together. We can stimulate and evaluate. I've been homeschooling some children for some time and boy did I wish for some inter-vision/ inter-colleague exchange of view points and evaluation at some point.
Unfortunately, my relatives overseas are one of them. Go to school, get a job. So unfortunately, I was one of the children taught in school to obey authority and lost critical and creative thinking. Then at work they tell you to think outside the box???
Anyway, I'm trying to unshackle the shackles of education. So sad to see most parents leading their children to this indoctrination, seeing parents at the street waiting for the school bus...