Education: - a conversation on TED #2

Education is strongly tied to a structured and systematic way of learning because that is how propaganda is most efficiently distributed. If you accept the premise, after John Ralston Saul, that governments exist to support the dominant class in a society, then you will see how governments use the state-managed, tax-funded, public education system in the United States and elsewhere to promote their message.

Elected school boards impose their political will on the unsuspecting and unprotected student body by selecting the textbooks to reflect their views on how the society should be constructed. At its worst this is nothing short of propagandizing the youth by denying them truth. Recall last year’s controversy in Texas.

Quote – New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html :

And

“There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, .. “

If you control the curriculum and the content of the textbooks, the system of assessment, and the salaries of the teachers, and then make attendance at a public school mandatory, you control the education of the nation’s youth.

Of course, the children of the wealthy don’t have to attend public school to be propagandized, they can attend the pedagogues of their own choice.

“Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: March 12, 2010

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks.”

Education - a conversation on TED

Why is the idea of education so strongly tied to a structured and systematic way of learning?

Simple. Historically, organized education arose to meet the need for slightly better workers in the factories of the industrial revolution. They were organized to produce mass-educated drones who were replaceable parts in a factory that ran 7 days a week 18 hours a day.
The only variation is that, since WW II they have also served as daycare - babysitting services so that more adults could be freed into the workplace to earn disposable income for the corporations to profit by and to pay taxes for govts to piss away.

Do other teaching styles have equal value?Equal? Tough question, - for whom? The "system" was never intended to benefit the individual student, only the corporations, the govts and the parents.A child-centered, open-learning situation organized to foster creativity and to stimulate critical thinking would not serve the state - who need drones in order to govern even half-assedly, nor the corporations who need ignorant wage-earners to exploit for profit.

Intelligent, critical thinkers who can create their own futures would be the government's worst nightmare.

To paraphrase Bernard De Mandeville, C1725, "To govern effectively, the mass of people must be kept poor and ignorant.'