I want to work around
like minded folks who want a holistic approach to eduction; an
education that develops the whole child. When we look at the children
as ourselves, it's easy to understand the issues education is having.
The model is outdated, and it's teaching the students jobs that don't
exist anymore. Prussia wanted it's citizens to be blindly obedient to
be used as cannon fodder for the war machine, or to be excellent
serfs, or slaves, or whatever kind of working system they had back
then. Today, we have bosses. Racism, Militarism, and Consumerism are
the 3 headed dragon MLK wanted to slay. Howard Zinn, author of The
People's History of the United States, says that the problem with the
American people is that they are too obedient, and that the worst
human atrocities in history—genocide, war, and slavery—is due to
blind obedience to absolute and arbitrary authority. The Prussian,
and the Industrial system, since Industrialists needed the masses for
their many factories, which are in China right now.
I compiled the worst
statistics I could find about Kentucky last year, and was shocked to
find a plethora of evidence of what I had long suspected: Kentucky...
to put it nicely... is a shithole. Here's a “snapshot” of my
findings, even though the list went on for about 30 pages, including
a sad 2 out of 5 Kentuckians who read at a Kindergarten, or less,
reading level:
Kentucky is ranked:
#1 in America for
highest rate of Cancer Deaths (American Cancer Society, 2006; Oxford
University, 2011).
#1 nationally for
Toxic Air Pollution (2012).
#1 in America for
Colorectal Cancer incidents (2007).
#1 nationally for
Binge Drinking (2012).
#1 in America for Oral
Cavity and Pharynx Cancer incidents (2012).
#1 nationally for
being the Worst Run State (2010).
#1 in America for the
highest rate of Lung Cancer Deaths (2007).
#1 nationally to least
likely to have Healthy Habits, such as not eating healthily, not
exercising, and smoking” (2009).
#1 in America for Lung
and Bronchus Cancer incidents (2012).
#1 nationally for
overall Toothlessness (CDC, 2003).
#1 in America for
Colon and Rectum Cancer incidents (2012).
#1 nationally for
Toothlessness for folks 65 and older (2004).
#1 in America for
having the Worst “Emotional Well-being” (2012).
#1 nationally for
having Fastest Growing Prison Industrial Complexes (2009, Pew
Center).
#1 in America for
maintaining the Filthiest, Dirtiest Public Spaces (2011).
#1 nationally highest
rate of Child Deaths from Abuse and Neglect (2007).
#1 Worst State for
Animal Abuse, 4 years in a row (2007-2010).
#1 in America for
having the Worst Drivers (2011).
#2 nationally for
having most Cancer incidents in all cancer categories (2012).
#2 in America for the
Worst Overall Well-Being in America (2012).
#2 nationally for
Kidney and Renal Pelvis Cancer incidents (2012).
#3 in the United
States of America for Brain Cancer (2012).
#3 nationally for the
Most Car Wrecks (2011).
#3 nationally for
having the most folks below the Poverty line (18.6%) (2010).
#3 in America for
Lowest per capita Spending on P-12 Education (2008-2009).
#4 nationally in
Lowest Median Household Income ($40,072) (2010).
#5 worst state in
America for Women to Live (2012).
Top 5 Poorest States
in America (2012).
#7 for Most Fatal Car
Wrecks (2011).
#7 least government
money spent to prevent mental illness (2013).
#8 state for having
the lowest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (2010).
#8 nationally in
America for Brain and Other Nervous-System Cancer Deaths (2007).
#8 in America for
Cervix Cancer incidents (2012).
#9 nationally for cops
charging the most DUIs (2011).
#10 in America for
having the highest number of students on free or reduced-priced meals
(2009-2010).
#10 nationally for
having the smartest P-12 students in America (2013).
The above list seems
to be the best reason to say that public education, especially for
the Bluegrass State, is an outright failure. And since this was
previous work, I'm not counting it as a page for this write-up.
There's plenty of
positives that Kentucky is doing right, i.e most Kentuckians have
drinking water, most Kentuckians have food, most Kentuckians can
read, etc., and even with our high levels of poverty, there's a
strong robust middle class. So, while Letcher County may struggle to
compete with Haiti, Muldraugh, Kentucky, has great running water,
Ambulance, electric, Internet, etc. There's not much different, with
the services and corporations, in Louisville, than say, in
Cincinnati, or Columbus. I'm confident that what is good with
Kentucky can fix what is bad with Kentucky.
Side disclaimer: I
love Kentucky, and that's why I'm so critical of my state. I want to
see us always improving, always getting better. For me, the
Revolution is permanent. We can always improve, no matter where we
are. I love Kentucky, and I want Kentucky to improve. Those are not
contradictions.
I read “Against
School” by John Taylor Gatto http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm
and an article written by Christian clergy, called “Top Five
Reasons NOT to Send Your Kids Back to Public School by Pastor Voddie
Baucham. http://exodusmandate.org/?page_id=1265
Pastor Voddie Baucham
lists five reasons for why shouldn't send your children back: 1) You
don't have to; 2) America’s schools are among the worst in the
industrialized world; 3) America's schools are morally repugnant; 4)
Government education is anti-Christian, and; 5) The Bible commands
Christ-centered education.
Mr. Baucham makes a
good point that our children is our children, and therefore the moral
authority to educate our own children is for us to decide, not the
State, aka, the Leviathan. His point about the low scores compared
international is right on too, and in a way, should make Kentuckians
feel less that it's our fault, when there's national trends that says
education is failing. “American students continually rank at the
bottom in math, science and reading compared to other industrialized
nations.” Mr. Baucham's point about the moral repugnancy is hit and
miss, mostly hit, but here's a quote:
The headlines speak for themselves. Student-teacher sex scandals,
student-student sex, immodesty, foul language, drugs, alcohol,
radical homosexual agendas, teachers taking students for abortions,
“sexting” leading to suicide, sexually transmitted diseases,
brutal beatings, and school shootings. These are just some of the
headlines that have become the norm. And that does not include things
like cheating, disrespect for authority, impropriety towards the
opposite sex, and other moral behaviors children learn regularly and
repeatedly in school.
Mr. Baucham quotes a
“Van Til”, who said “Non-Christian education puts the child in
a vacuum… The result is that child dies. Christian education alone
really nurtures personality because it alone gives the child air and
food…”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
wanted to allow the child to become himself, for the first 12 years,
and then afterwards, he needed to become fit for society. The child
had to be of some use. For the first 12 years, the child would learn
what they wanted from life, with the only rule imposed on them, is to
do no harm to others. All else was fair play. Once this “noble
savage” fully understand their senses, and their likes, dislikes,
ambitions, pains, pleasures, etc, then we needed to make him useful
for society. That's the second part of the education. But I feel as
though American education wholly forgets to do the first part. I do
not remember becoming “myself” during these formative years. I
remember being controlled at home, and at school. At what point was I
supposed to become “myself”? In college. Nope. Not there either.
I went in undecided, and took a wide range of classes. The second
year, I was forced to decide what I wanted my major to be. So I
didn't have much freedom there. I would say, that I've become myself
during my adult years.
Van Til's quote speaks
to the same issue. Education should be for liberation. Instead of
filling up empty glasses full of knowledge, instead, we water, and
fertilize the flowers, so they can bloom on their own. We become
adminstrators, or guides by the side, to get the child to move in the
direction they want to go. But this presupposes they know what they
want. While Mr. Baucham decries the “disrespect for authority”,
which I rarely saw, I believe it is the Oppression of the
dictatorship classroom that destroys people's souls. It is Classroom
Management that turns individuals who have sacred soveriegn autonomy,
into little soldiers or worker bees. Much of my thinking comes from
Paulo Freire's Oppressor vs. Oppressed consciousness. So instead of
having an Oppressor/Oppressed relationship, I seek to have liberating
relationships, and democracy is the only way to do that. With
democracy, true democracy, where students discuss and make fair
decisions on behalf of the class, they also “buy into” the
democratic structures, and a master teacher should be able to lead
most of the students to respect each other and to learn at the same
time. Especially in teacher training courses. If we're not able to
teach each other, and respect each other's views, when we're the
adults, we can't expect the students to do so too.
Gatto's “Against
School” article in Harper's Magazine 9/2003 edition begins
by pointing out the boredom in schools. The teachers are bored. The
students are bored. But those with curiosity, need not be bored.
Ever. Gatto learned this lesson early on, when his grandfather taught
it to him. Gatto is on point for much of the article, and I would
highly encourage all future educators to read it. Gatto quotes one of
my favorite German-Americans, H.L. Mencken.
“The aim of public education is not to fill the young of the
species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence... Nothing could
be further from the truth. The aim... is simply to reduce as many
individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a
standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is
its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.”
Gatto also points to
Horace Mann's “Seventh Annual Report” to the Massachusetts State
Board of Education in 1843, where Gatto proves that Mann, the Father
of American Education https://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/mann.html
brought the Prussian system of education to America.
For Gatto, Mann
brought “the very worst aspects of Prussian culture”: 1) an
educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre
intellects; 2) to hamstring the inner life; 3) to deny students
appreciable leadership skills, and; 4) to ensure docile and
incomplete citizens—all in order to render the populace
“manageable.”
Gatto says that
Alexander
Inglis was able to boil all that American education is about to 6
simple clear cut reasons. The point of American education is: 1)
Blind obedience to absolute and arbitrary authority. “If
you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than
merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a
way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to
will.” (Prussian Education System); 2)
Conformity, for predictability; 3) To diagnose the student's talents;
4) To determine the student's social function; 5) Darwin's theory of
natural selection, to tag the unfit, with “poor grades, remedial
placement, and other punishments, enough so that their peers will
accept them as inferior”, and “effectively bar them from the
reproductive sweepstakes”; 6) The formation of the elite Guardian
class, to teach them properly, so they'll be rich, and in power.
Gatto concludes that “The solution,
I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”
Prussian Education
System. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
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