Public Education and the Dangers of Free Thinking

We have lost track of what childhood is about, of what parenthood and teaching is about. We now think it's about having good quiet children who make it easy for us to go to work. It's about having submissive children who will sit in a boring classroom of 30, often with teachers who don't know how to use visual aids and all the other exciting technologies that kids are used to. Or there are teachers who are forced to pressure their children to get grades on standardized tests, and don't have the time to pay individual attention to [the children]. We're in a situation in America in which the personal growth and development and happiness of our children is not the priority; it's rather the smooth functioning of overstressed families and schools. . .
Aaaaaaaaa—Dr. Fred Baughman

American public education was created in this country in the 1840s and passed into law on the federal level in the early 1900s. At the time public education was made available, the idea was simply to provide an education for (and an element of control over the upbringing of) children who otherwise would not receive an education. Groovy. I mean, seems like a good idea and all that, doesn’t it?

Well it’s not.

Look, I know that the poor deserve whatever education they can get. Life is a bitch and all that. And I didn’t grow up with any money. I went to public schools and I learned that there are many people who work tirelessly in public schools. But the idea of federally funded, federally overseen schools is really an evil one.

Twenty percent of the students in America’s public schools are medicated for behavioral issues, standardized tests set at the federal level determine who advances in public schools and the messages (the content) of education are deemed less important than the personal behavior of the attending students in said schools.

Now, we all know that free thinking is dangerous. Anyone who ever listened to a Hendrix album or read a letter from the Unabomber knows that free thinking people will, for the most part, muck up the ideals of the powers that be. A federally managed public school system sets its sights on making sure that the free-thinkers of the world learn conformity. Through class exercises, standardized tests, prescription medications and unreasonable political correctness, free thinking is discouraged in America’s public schools. The idea is to create people who learn how to sit calmly in neat little rows so they can grow up to be “good” adults who sit calmly in neat little rows. It’s about control. From the first day of kindergarten to the last day of high school, public education is about teaching the students that they are part of a fluid whole that conforms to the norms set by a ruling class that would really prefer it if you didn’t ask questions, okay Mr. Nosy?

And that’s wrong.

You see, much like with an album or a website or a book, it is the content, it is the messages that matter most. And public education focuses much of its message on behavior and control. They take from the glory of actual open-minded education and teach government-sanction mind-wash. And they’re not even deceptive about it anymore.

Standardized tests exist now in every public school system in the states. The stated idea behind most standardized tests is to evaluate whether or not the children are intelligent enough to advance within the public education system. Whatever. Having standardized tests is somewhat fine and relatively dandy and all that as long as said tests are used as nothing more than a measuring tool. Determining advancement within an academic system based on a test that may or may not have anything to do with the content being taught is just dumb. It forces educators to teach to a test, which may or may not be information that children need. And when an educator is forced to teach to a test, then he/she must sacrifice other information for the information on the test. Thus, the content of education is now in the hands of the rulers. And rulers, by definition, are most interested in maintaining their rule. Everything else comes second. Even the lives and education of children.

And what happens when children do not conform to the behavioral and standardized testing norms of the powers that be? Well, because ruling and controlling are more important than educating and caring, the system encourages its pseudo-scientists to medicate the free thinkers, to take away their individuality and replace it with a more patriotic and subdued attitude. This is, in a very real sense, brain washing.

You don’t have to pay a great deal of attention to the news in this country to learn that Americans have been getting dumber when compared to the rest of the first world. I find it more than a little interesting that the country with the most political clout (read: nuclear weapons) also has the dumbest citizenry. With great power is supposed to come great responsibility. And with great responsibility should come the duty to be as educated as possible, especially regarding the current political climate. That’s just common fucking sense.

So why then, are our federally and state supervised students getting dumber every year? Even as the government encourages oversights to improve their educations?

Perhaps all this stupidity is encouraged. Perhaps it’s even part of the plan. After all, it’s easier to control those who don’t know what’s going on than it is to control those who do.

And now you can feel free to call me paranoid or deluded or any number of names. I don’t really care. There is nothing out there that you can say or do to convince me that our government encourages free-thinking or altering the status quo. There is nothing you can tell me to convince me that our rulers care about those of us who must be educated publicly. And there’s nothing you can tell me that will make me believe, even for one second, that the United States government has my best interest in mind.

They start controlling us when we’re born and they keep controlling us until we die.

And unfortunately, there ain’t all that much that’s funny about that.