The hard-hitting Chris Hedges Column Karen DeCoster referenced motivated me to write the following comment for my web site.
Formal schooling, especially as dominated by the state, has served to cripple the intellectual lives of every generation since its inception. In schools, children are herded and harrangued into completing academic chores. These chores are usually utterly mindless, pointless, forgettable, boring, harrowing, or some combination of the above. Some students never get the hang of it. Some put their heads down and plow through it, because they know how important it is to their future. Some have been conditioned so well by their Pavlovian teachers that they come to enjoy the work for the sake of the expected reward. And a few of them manage to find interest in the world of thoughtfulness despite all the schools do. The kids in the last group (and a few in the second-to-last) end up as thoughtful adults. A smaller subset of them become true philosophers, in the broadest sense of the term, with an insatiable curiosity and a lust for the truth. But the majority of people end up as one in the burgeoning mass of the shallow and the frivolous. Even those who manage to succeed in school, college, and even graduate school generally end up never reading a book from cover-to-cover again: let alone explore a school of thought, question long-held beliefes, or debate another person intelligently about politics, religion, or ethics. That is why on the television show "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?", the answer to the show's fundamental, eponymous question is so often, "No." Many people peak intellectually in the fifth grade, or soon thereafter. They cram their brain with as many facts and algorithms as they need to in order to succeed while in school, but then intellectually check out for the rest of their lives.
Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle in 9 steps (Soliciting comments)
Well said!!!
For me, it is a close tie between central banking and ‘free and compulsory education’ for what would be abolished first in a libertarian society. Keep in mind, free education came 60yrs before central banking in the US. The chicken and the egg?
http://irishliberty.wordpress.com/
I would agree with your essay. Hedges stresses too little the responsibility of public schooling for America's intellectual decline. He seems to have a strong liberal bent on that one.
Sphairon: I would agree with your essay. Hedges stresses too little the responsibility of public schooling for America's intellectual decline. He seems to have a strong liberal bent on that one.
This essay is referring to schooling in general, whether it is public or private. Private schools range from the super-medicre to the excellent.
Art transcends ideology.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/ruben
You're quite correct. Unfortunately the point of schooling has nothing to do education or knowledge, even so called private schools are those approved of by the state, teaching a syllabus approved by the state. For basic the whole of my school life before the last two years of high school was easy, as such I never really gave much attention to studying at all, and whilst I read a lot it was mostly fiction or vulgar politics (which I shamefully admit I had a very keen interest in), which is I shame. Looking back on it now I'm annoyed that I wasn't introduced to Austrian and libertarian thinking earlier, especially as I've always been relatively free market. Despite this I actually relatively enjoyed the last two years of high school, even though I despise the IB and most of the work is the same sort of thing as usual I had some teachers that made it more bearable. Especially in English, ToK (the teacher whom I suspect has somewhat of libertarian bent, he handed out Thoreau to the class which was one of my biggest influences in becoming a libertarian) and history.
Nonetheless you're correct. I was fortunate in having some good teachers, but even then the course was dull, repetative and mind numbing. Which I suppose is the whole point of it, make people bored enough with "education" and they won't bother questioning whatever nonsense the state feeds them. From there on it's easy, once people have gone through this experience they'll accept what they're told unquestioningly. That's the advantage of politics too in my opinion, those that do have an interest in "learning" are occupied by a silly game. Few really go deeper into it than blurting out the party line and a few statistics.
Even now doing economics in university I can't help but laugh at how shallow and fallacious the textbook is, although, above all else I suppose the word dull would be most fitting. I'm just glad I never studied economics before I was introduced to Austrian economics. Anyway, enough rambling.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
This falls in with the "American idiot" stereotype, by which American leftists usually say how bad is the US schooling model compared to the ones used in European socialdemocracies. Funny thing: both models stem from the Prussian compulsory schooling model, both models teach exactly the same topics and "intellectuals" on both sides of the Pond complain constantly how wretched is their own compulsory schooling system when compared to another country's. Guess the neighbour's grass is always greener.
One thing which always struck me in any educational model is the compulsory memorization of long parts of terribly boring and uninspiring (well, at least to the most) literary tests. This is often said to be done to "improve memory" but, funny thing, once the interrogation scare has passed 90% of the students won't remember a single line. To get a good grade all you have to do is read, learn by heart and repeat in front of the teacher: no need to understand what you are saying or come up with anything clever. Even a parrot can do that. Why people don't realize that they are treated worse than animals being taught new tricks by their handlers? At least the animal will get an extra ration of fodder and children will pet it and give it candies...
Yes, it's time for the Dr Goebbels show!
The nation-wide education was never about providing free education for the masses. The primary goal is brainwashing the young generation into unquestioning support of the regime, be it democracy or communism along with whatever the government (and not families) think is useful.
If I hear not allowed much oftener; said Sam, I'm going to get angry.
J.R.R.Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
I was thinking about this article, and about the Mises community this morning. The gist is that many people do not become as literate as they could be, and I have to say that in this community, people are not only highly literate, they utilize those skills to become highly knowledgeable.
Amongst friends and family, I'm considered very bright. Here, I might at best be average. It made me think about the sorts of discussions (and arguments) we have here. In a sense, very unique.
The article is very depressing. On the one hand, we have to compete in the world of audio and visual. We will have to operate in the subjective, perhaps this is why Ron Paul succeeded with his pro-constitution, pro-nationalism sort of campaign. While we might understand and be comfortable with objectivity, too many people (and the numbers are increasing) cannot even operate in the realm of objectivity. In order to reach them, they must be (here is where I get Machiavellian) manipulated and stimulated.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
Durring my senior year in high school, I was enrolled in an AP Biology class, in which I was often a driving force in class discussions, and did very well on tests, but often refused to do homework, or participate in mandatory notetaking, and thus recieved a mediocre grade. When asked why I choose to take such an advanced class, even though I had no intention of aiming for a high grade, my classmates were genuinely shocked by my answer: to learn stuff.
It seems to me that the state education system encourages students to loose sight of the forest through the trees. They get so bogged down trying to memorize random details which they can then regurgitate on tests, that they forget that the purpose of education is not to get good grades, but to become educated. Grading is basically an elaborate system designed to destract students from the fact that they've been cheated out of an education.
You can't take the sky from me.
The biggest mistake of the universal education mindset is that everyone wants, needs, is able too and should be educated. The sad thing about state schools is that they stifle the potential of those who are truly educable. A sour test was left in my mouth after highschool and it took a while for me to seriously become interested in learning again.
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