Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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Being born in 1960, I am one of the few in my age bracket who can say that I am not the product of the school system. I detested school, it was nothing like a learning environment for me, save for a very few things. Note that I am not agoraphobic, but maybe I was back then. I think it's a stage that many go through, and the causes are as well known as the location of my philosopher's stone.
Perhaps a big part of it was the regimentation. Of course some of it is required to maintain the atmosphere for the inclined, but I think it was largely unnecessary. There is one thing about me though, even in my tender young years I could spot indoctrination a mile away. "Ma, don't leave me with those people", "Why, are they hurting you in some way ?", "No, they are just too fucking religious". At five I saw the futility of pledging allegiance to a piece of cloth, and resented the fact that this was recited every day. By age seven I saw it for what it was. I can't swear to this, but I don't believe I have ever recited the pledge of allegiance in it's entirety.
By sixth grade I was shipped off to a different school for "enriched" education, which was just about as boring. When that didn't work I was transferred to CULC, which was a community based sort of OJT program where students were encouraged to take jobs cheap for the experience. This was their biggest mistake if they were looking for a convert. They had already poisoned the well.
I don't mean to hijack, but education is the key to freedom as well as control. It's almost as if I could see this from the day I was born, but that is of course, highly subjective. It was more subjective long ago when it was still fresh in my mind. Among my earliest experiences were being asked to "make" a capital A on the blackboard. I did so and was told that it was backwards. I told the teacher that it was impossible for it to be backwards because it is symmetrical. My next directive was to sit down and STFU. In form of course when I was asked to count as high as I could, the response was similar. I was asked to count as high as I could. I asked the teacher "Are you sure ?". With an affirmative answer I proceeded and as asked I did sit down and STFU again. (and I only got up to about 150 something)
So, a while later I wanted to know how to do long division. The response was "We aren't on that yet". Now do a search for my posts and tell me what you think my response was like. That's OK though, I found some older kid to show me.
Now a long time ago people aspired to send their kids to school, and this is where the relevance comes in. They did not necessarily aspire to send them to the best schools, at one time it was a group of Parents who decided that they were going to put up a dandy schoolhouse and hire up a teacher. Talk about community standards being of prime importance.
Back then, at least the students KNEW that this was at their Parents' wishes and that they were lucky to go. With subsidized, mandatory public education this was all out the window. It was taken out of local hands and commandeered by the government. In time, instead of supporting the schools, the Parents not only lost faith in the system, started bucking against it. Now they can't swat or spank or they get sued, little Johnny can't read so it's Uncle Sam's fault.
Look, if your kid can't read by the time he enters kindergarden, you have failed. That is it. The methods used in an institutionalized setting will never equal the efficacy of personal instruction, especially that of a Parent. At school now they generally learn to read phonetically, and that results in mistake that SHOW, BIG TIME to those who are truly educated. The difference between two, to and too too. Which witch is which ? The total disregard for the fact that license is a singular even though it ends in the S sound, and the irksome fact that data are plural. The singular form is datum.
And it doesn't end there. Spell check is no hope if scrutinized by the truly educated. "I am putting out a statewide warrant for YOU arrest". No spell check will catch that as far as I know. There is no hiding it. There is no way around it. I see things like that and I know your limitations already, at least one of them. You are only semi-literate. You can read and write and might have outstanding penmanship, but that is no substitute. Think of all the more subtle meanings in all that has been written throughout history that are lost on deaf minds due to this.
Even before CULC, which I got thrown out of, my experience with the system got interesting. I feigned illness as much as I could, to stay home and read. Later I figured out a way to cut school for a long time and not get caught, but even before then I had cut so much it was ridiculous. Then they send me to summer school. Simple matter, just never go, not even once.
In an argument with the principal I asserted that my test scores were fine, she asserted that I only passed because I went to summer school. The joke was on her, I didn't go. I was enrolled, but that does not a warm body make.
Schools at one time I suspect were places where you learned the basics, and creativity was left up to you. Now they want to indoctrinate you and guide you, which is not their job. No wonder I had to start studying psychology at age 12, it was to cure myself ! Any direction of creativity is stifling. It is not their place nor their charge to deal with it, just to implant the tools in your mind.
While I have to admit that there were some good times (other than socialization). At one point I was a math tutor. I said something like "They don't understand that ? I could explain it in minutes". With foot in mouth I was sent to the cloakroom with those who did not understand the subject. So I found out that it took more than a few minutes. But what thery were doing wasn't working. What I did, did.
In my view, the educator should have the ability to adapt to different students, but now it is all cookie cutter technology. The people's enamouration of structured schools probably arose from aspirations drawn from the elites. The impression that their kids could go farther in life with it than without it. But like many things it did not work in practice, but instead of being abandoned for a better way they kept on doing what didn't work. That's human nature.
Now school is free mostly, yet some Parents opt to home school. To me it is no wonder at all.
To evade being labelled a hijacker I will stop now. I leave you with this : These words are written by a tenth grade dropout who barely spent any time in school at all. You can't say my education came from school because I was never there.
And the hijack part, slow down before opening up on me. Education is the key to both success and failure, but that doesn't necessarily mean formal schooling. These changes in how things "are done" is the root cause of many many of society's ills today. Argue with that.
T
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