Against School - How public education cripples our kids, and why

[G4Z]

I have not seen a new thread in here for a while so when I came across this article I thought it might get some debate going.


http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

The author makes a compelling argument in my eyes and was something I have long suspected myself. School is there to condition you to accept authority and to consume.

Thoughts?

[Pirate Pete]

schooling definitely conditions children to know their place in society and become predictable conformists. however, we cant just cut school out

governments have long known about the benifits of subtley (or not) conditioning kids to be more focussed towards their parties politics via the schooling activities and systems and therefore to gain voters for the future - 'get em while they are young'

look at Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, North Korea today even....all of them had and have obvious conditioning in schools whether it was Race Science and modified 1919 onwards history classes or 20 minute classes on why George W Bush wants to destroy North Korea

then look at present day american and british (supposed free democratic society) schooling. the conditioning is alot less obvious but it still remains. for example, the latest thing in american and british schools is to have ID tags and even (in my school for one) fingerprint ID scanners to buy lunch or to take out library books.
fingerprint scanning is something which is totally unneccesary and quite sick because of the doctrination of young kids (some as young as 8) but it is totally in line with new labours attempts of bringing through ID cards and higher state control on the population. it is therefore fair to say that the children are being conditioned to accept these new survelliance methods in the future even if the current voting generation will not

but there is really nothing that can be done to stop this elaborate conditioning in schools because as long as a government has a part in the schooling system there is always the risk they will throw in lots of subtle propaganda to condition kids to become humans who best suit their politics

the author of that article seems to suggest half way through the article that something that could be done is to give all children home schooling, they talk of all the american political leaders which had homeschooling and turned out fine (george washington is mentioned iirc).

my personal opinion however, is that that would not work either unless it was home school with classes. i really dont think children that are taught alone at home throughout their lives will be any better than children put through a government endorsed school system. part of a childs development is interaction with other kids and school provides 6 hours a day at least to talk to other kids and interact even if the interaction takes place in what we are calling a conditioned enviroment.

look at fundamentalist christians who are home schooled throughout their lives and then go into the government republican acadamies to be the next george bush.....they are certainly not normal kids.
because of their lack of interaction they mostly have a strange kind of pseudo religious belief
homeschooled means highly educated kids? yes, because they have had concentrated and uninterrupted focussed education at home.
homeschool means worthy of being in charge of america, its armed forces and nuclear warheads or any position of authority in society? no, because they seem to have a total lack of social understanding except for that which is taught and misunderstood in the bible.
in my opinion the same rules apply for most kids who are home schooled everywhere

i think the author of the article does come to a decent conclusion however. it is not only the school system which has a part to play in childrens development....parents can get involved in it too and sort of balance out the conditioning by encouraging free thinking and 'outside the box' ideas. the problem in the UK is that most parents never had that from their parents while they were getting conditioned at schools and so dont feel the need to give it to their kids. the cycle of control goes on.

pete

[Butuz]

Shock horror! Parents can get involved in childrens development too?!!!!!

My god!! What are you thinking man!!! A parents job, is to "work hard", watch sky, take the kids to mcdonalds, then go to the pub, then watch more sky, then go to bed. It's the school's job to bring up the kids - is it not?

:|

Butuz

[Pirate Pete]

Shock horror! Parents can get involved in childrens development too?!!!!!

My god!! What are you thinking man!!! A parents job, is to "work hard", watch sky, take the kids to mcdonalds, then go to the pub, then watch more sky, then go to bed. It's the school's job to bring up the kids - is it not?

:|

Butuz

well that was immature

i really think sarcasm should be left out of this equation, dont you?

[schmunk]

This article is tin-foil-hat-wearing rubbish.

'Oh my God, they're dumbing all down, forcing us into their ideal to stop children fully realising their potential'.

e.g.

"If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a preteen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do."

How about asking the question "If these unquestionably brilliant individuals had the benefit of a structured education, what more could they have achieved?", or "If 100 children never had education forced upon them, how many of them would be able to read or write as adults?".

He also raises the question of whether children would be better being home-schooled. Unfortunately, this only works with intelligent and dedicated parents, and more significantly, those who can afford to have only one parent working. And then where does this put single-parent families? (and before anyone rants away about teen pregnancy, how about if one parent dies?)

p.s. Also, this article is American, ergo bobbins...

[Butuz]

well that was immature

I really think sarcasm should be left out of this equation, dont you?

It wasn't really sarcrasm to be honest. It makes you wonder about some parents. Parents for example that would say to their beloved daughter. "I won't take you to hospital tonight - go and see the school nurse tomorrow morning".

First aided took one look at the kid, and sent her to hospital. Broken arm. What had happened? The kid got run over the night before on a pelican crossing.....

Examples like that happen every day.

Exactly how much are schools expected to do nowadays? Its about time some parents look a bit closer to home before they go around blaming the school system for every little problem.

Butuz

[G4Z]

Butuz, you make a valid point, homeschooling is not the answer for everybody. I suppose the question should be is this the kind of society we want to live in and is this how we want to conidition kids?

I think the government (and private business) should have no part in setting the cirriculum at all, it should be set by a Committie of teachers and experts in each field. The idea should be not to enforce disipline and obediance but to encourage learning and exploration, if you succeed at that disipline should not be a problem.

I, and I am sure others on here, was labled "attitude problem" at school because I was
A. bored
and B. hated the school system.

I feel I was sold short by the school system and in a more engageing environment I could have learned more (after all isnt that the point?) and not been labled "attitude problem" (whitch by the way ensured that I was singled out for punishment for "lack of effort" or (sometimes rightly) "disruption". My head of year actualy told me I wouldnt amount to anything, that I was unemployable (pretty harsh given I consistently performed well at exams). Now I knew that she was talking out of her a*** at the time, I remember thinking - in 5 years is this conversation going to even matter? (I got the answer correct on that one as well)

Was it me that was the problem or is it because I didnt mould to well to the conditioning in school?

I just think things could be better.

/end rant

[BEANFro Elite]

I like G4Z was labelled as having an attitude problem, racist, lazy, stubborn etc. I wouldn't minded being called the above if they were actually true yeah I have some extreme views but they're very logical when one thinks about it.

For example, I always found it strange how we're taught in such great detail about the plight of the Jews in World War II when everyone knows very well that it was not only Jews who were murdered by the Nazi's yeah they were the majority but you can't just ignore the handicapped, pregnant, the elderly etc. who were also killed. Note that I was thrown out of class and sent to the headteacher for posing this to a teacher who quoted me as racist!

My point is, I found the grossly infrequent outings very enlightening and most of the educational outings have remained with me even to this day for some sixteen or so years.

I agree with G4Z, our teachers are undermined by the Government, we as a society have given them way too much power over us and the sooner we get it back the better.

As G4Z has pointed out, given what we are; humans, we learn more effectively by doing rather than copying endless sheets of paper.

[Trippledence]

I had an economics teacher last year who always used to make the point between training and education, many subjects now, especially the vocational ones are more training to ensure jobs and so on. But is that the point of education?

Aged 18 I have seen a lot of these new initiatives hit the schools, and pc crap that has wrecked and waited a lot of time in education. Subjects like general studies at A-Level the course material of which was as stimulating as yr 5 maths. The idea of Key Skills is ridiculous, it trains children to have basic skills wherein they can be moulded by there future employer into the obedient and well per unit of labour they so desire.

Schooling should show children possibility and allow them to make informed choices, when I asked my history teacher his opinion on a number of matters he told us how he was no longer allowed to respond, why the hell not, can't a child mature enough to lean about war tell the difference between fact and opinion?

The only way out of this is as younger generations who are the main audience of these forums move through life, encourage your children to question everything, and encourage yourself to stick to your own moral concept rather than that of a greater power, be that of your employer or the government. I shudder at the concept of sponsored schools, and the American evangelicals getting there foot in the door. If any child of mine ever gets taught creationism or whatever the case may be as fact, I will be the first to make a stand, I think parents need to help stick up for there children in education, and example the other day was a school were children were forced to put jumpers on outside in case they get sunburn, many suffered from heat exhaustion, why there was not a massive parental outcry such as we get for bad language on TV, I don't know.

Edit: Spellchecked - Thanks for not fixing that schooling system

[Ruggerbugger]

I think the tone of much of that article is a little odd (I liked the response that asked how much more those geniuses may have achieved in school). I think the most interesting point was about kids being stimulated to think for themselves and develop a love of learning. Many students these days (with exceptions of course) expect to be entertained by some sort of performance artist every lesson, and baulk at the merest suggestion of being asked to tackle something out of the ordinary. It's all too easy to ask for the bangs and whistles and switch off as soon as the explanation arrives.

The notion of control is an interesting one. It's actually very common to hear pupils ask for control from outside (they complain about teachers who can't control them), yet react incredulously to the suggestion that they should have some self-control. In some senses conforming can be stifling, and kids do need to be cut some slack, but it also means simple things like listening to others and allowing everyone to take their turn, that's just courtesy. These things can only be learned in a social situation - involving home and school of course.

[Butuz]

and example the other day was a school were children were forced to put jumpers on outside in case they get sunburn, many suffered from heat exhaustion, why there was not a massive parental outcry such as we get for bad language on TV, I don't know.

The problem is - the reason the school did that is to try and prevent any legal action arrising from a kid getting badly sunburnt at dinnertime. The school's are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If a kid gets sun burned - it's injurylawyers4u.co.uk time.

So the school try's to prevent kids getting sunburnt when outside. Jumpers are one way of attempting it, what we did was to spend a bloody fortune on shelter's and huge parasol's to go where the seating area's are. When it's sunny kids can shelter, whilst still being outside. You can't put sun tan on them incase they could have a reaction.

The money of course, would have beem far better spent on books and the like. But what can we do? It is apparently not up to the parents to tell their kids to wear suntan lotion, or stay out of the sun - its up to the school to devise a giant UVA protective sun screen the size of a football pitch just incase a kid is stupid enough to not wear suntan, and stand in the sun all day.

Its a perfect example of what I was saying a few posts above. Responsibility for bringing kids up is moving from the parents to the school's. Its wrong. People needs to wake up.

Butuz

[shelley bda]

and example the other day was a school were children were forced to put jumpers on outside in case they get sunburn, many suffered from heat exhaustion, why there was not a massive parental outcry such as we get for bad language on TV, I don't know.

Because the teachers will turn it around and say the parents are responsible for making sure the child had suncream and hats, schools aren't responsible for applying suncream ( why should they be? a teachers job should be just too teach, nothing more ) we aren't allowed too apply it, it's seen as touching a child in an innapropriate way, also if you apply it without parents knowledge they can sue you ( though sometimes iv'e applied it, if it's a child who's parents i know well, or have phoned them up beforehand, mainstream teachers can't do that though ) and teachers are so vulnerable, have to protect themselves from any allegations, seems daft i know but that's the way it is, but why that school couldn't just take the children indoors rather than make them wear jumpers i have no clue

TBH i'm a bit fed up of teachers getting blamed for everything, they have a hard enough job as it is, about time parents took responsibility, instead of using schools as their scapegoat

[johnny02004976]

exactly i totally agree, my mums a headteacher of a primary school and has been for the last 20 years (various schools) and how things have changed. Teachers are being abused more and more by children nowadays and cant do anything about it, there not even allowed to comfort a crying child as it could be considered abusing them