Third World dictators come and go. Preppie U.S. presidents come and go. The U.S. military comes and goes (from various far-away lands). What topic is sufficiently eternal to merit inclusion as my very first blog entry? Public education!
A friend grew up in a rich suburb of Chicago and went to a public school full of rich kids. “In our school we read all of the great philosophers and were asked by the teachers to figure out which of these philosophies we agreed with and would like to apply to our lives and our society,” he related. “The problem with most public schools is that they don’t teach this kind of critical thinking,” he continued, “I’d like to see every kid in America educated like this.”
I replied “that doesn’t make sense for schools in middle-class and poorer neighborhoods. With the increasing income disparity in the United States, it is very unlikely that a middle- or lower-class kid will ever become wealthy enough to influence politics. So it is irrelevant what he or she thinks is a fair, just, or optimum law or philosophy of life. We should teach middle class kids to obey authority mindlessly because that’s what they’ll have to do anyway.”
Great first post. Should get some good comments. Nothing like stirring the pot to get things going. Of couse your idea is absolutely terrible. Remember where Daniel Patrick Moynihan came from, the slums of NYC. Everyone should have a chance. None of us deserve to be ruled by preppy rich kids.
Dave — you can always hope that the bright ones would see that they are part of a system which serves to undermine their potential, and would actively seek to find a way out. Of course, if you are never exposed to the possibility that there is another world then you would never attempt to escape from your respective microcosm; but isn’t that the role of this Internet Thing?
Nice satire.
The trick is not just to make them obey authority mindlessly, but [this is the really hard part] make them happy doing it.
Sounds descriptive rather than prescriptive. And entirely unlike a free society.
I agree that the goal should be to increase the quality of education and focus more on critical thinking than other skills; “hard” skills are easily learned and when they’re not its symptomatic of problems external to the curriculum usually.
How do we get there though? More money? Better teachers? Less bureaucracy? The answer is… better students?!?!? You may laugh, but that is the answer. And we know what it takes to create those. It takes solid family units (not implying traditional mom/dad) that instill the value of education into young minds, stressing its importance over all other contemporary social values.
Many of us, depending on where we live, can go into some of the best libraries in the world at no cost and absorb as much material as we want. To a person who understands the value of education and wants to be educated, there are no barriers (especially true in the U.S.). Note that I did not mention degrees or certifications, I focused on education. There is a difference.
Since when are politics the only way in which people participate in society? Critical thought and familiarity with major currents of human history increase the value of many human interactions. It’s one of the assumptions of knowledge-based economies.
Three words: John Taylor Gatto.
The best way to raise poor people out of poverty is to give them job skills and the credentials to back up those skills. It is not enough to send someone to a library in the hopes that they will become “educated” since such education will not have any documentation to back it up and it is the documentation that you need if you really want to get a job that pays a decent salary. A liberal arts education is fine if your father owns his own business and can give you a job after you graduate but it is of little material value to someone who has grown up on welfare and needs to impress a potential employer if he/she is to advance in the real world.
Do we really want to raise poor people out of poverty? Seems to me that keeping the underclass held down, we have a (relatively) cheap labor force. Sure, helping out the poor and underpriviliged makes great PR, but is it really in the best interests of the wealthy that are leading our great nation? I think not.
I was looking at Dave Winer’s thing today and he had a link to your blog. Welcome to blogging! I’m sure as you do this more and get more relaxed and sure of yourself you’ll write better. But I thought your thing was really very good for your first time. I noticed the picture of your dog and I think he is great looking. By the way, James Garner had a Samoyed named Rocky. Anyway, good luck with your thing! 🙂 If you need any help, don’t hesitate to ask! 🙂
1.) Anyone who is serious about this has to respond to the John Taylor Gatto stuff, http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/Gatto/Gatto.html
2.) There is a fascinating real-world example of Gatto’s ideas at The Sudbury Valley School, http://www.sudval.org, which is run by a weekly School Meeting conducted under Robert’s Rules of Order in which students and staff each get one vote. Staff work under one-year contracts that are voted on by the School Meeting. Students have ownership of 100% of their time. They have a remarkable track record of 35 years.
As an unemployed software developer I’ve been trying to improve my cognitive skills. What I’ve come across would have been a gold mine for me 35 years ago when I entered professional life.
Teach kids skills which will allow them to truly recognize their inherent greatness, like the sound entrainment of Dr. Tomatis and the brain wave training of Anna Wise.
I am so glad that you have a blog now. I enjoy your writing style and the thought you bring to a variety of issues—a Renaissance man to be sure.
Anyhow, I hope your reply was tongue-in-cheek since education isn’t just about induction into the halls of power or preparation for wealth creation; it’s also about acquiring the thinking skills necessary to live life successfully. Everyone, no matter what income level or race, needs those skills.
Now, I won’t say that our schools are doing a bang-up job of it right now. I think, though, that that problem stems from a lack of understanding of those life skills rather than any desire to deprive students of them.
Thought is our means of survival. If people lack thinking skills, they’ll fall for any common demagogue, scam, or scheme—much to their detriment.
Look at ellen smiths blog (3 or 4 comments up from this).
It’s brilliant. Of course – there might not be a real person behind this – it could just be a perl script that trawls rss feeds and inserts random inane commentary.
The Onion have nothing on this woman.
I agree with the other comments that suggest reading John Taylor Gatto, especially the online “six lessons of a school teacher,” http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/etext/6-lesson-schoolteacher.html. These are from his book, Dumbing Us Down. But unlike that earlier book, his more recent work is a bit too conspiracy-theory-oriented for my taste. Part of the problem is also that exceptionally and profoundly gifted children, regardless of economic circumstance, are expected to languish in school systems (private & public) that refuse to acknowledge *difference.* Everyone’s supposed to be the same, right? Yet this is bullshit, as we all know. Canada has some interesting alternatives in place already, in the form of distance education schools where the school fits the kid, vs. the kid having to fit the school.
It’s great to see you providing gems daily now, Philip. How many times have you heard some zealot espousing something that totally contradicts logic and nobody calls him on it? The worst are the people like a local talk-shaw host we have in Boston — this fellow Jay Severin. He not only defies logic in the most craven manner, but he tells his listeners that anyone who opposes him is being illogical. Since we do not teach logic in the schools, the majority of the listeners don’t question his assertions. It drives me loopy, which is his point of course — that and ensuring that the poor stay poor, the rich stay rich, and the opppressed shut the f up.
Looking forward to your posts!
That’s a fairly damning indictment of democracy as it exists in this country. There are two halves to political participation, serving and voting. Imagine how different things could be if everyone voted responsibly. We deserve the government we get.
though my son likely goes to the school you mention, i grew up in the city in a blue-collar neighborhood doing things that kids should just not be doing. like having kids. harper’s had an issue on education several years ago, which discussed the dangerous side of education. once truly educated, meaning that they begin to think critically and learn on their own, people likely begin activities the ruling classes along sheradin road of old would not approve of. namely union organizing; fighting for social and economic issues related to their communities… most of america does not seem able to deal with discussion, debate, or people other than clones of themselves. and, the idea that education is somehow not relevant to assembly line work or programming for that matter, is somehow contradictory to the american experiment. “education” would be frowned upon.
“The peasants are revolting!”
“TELL me about it!”
Am so glad to see you and I love your post. Of course I disagree with you.
I disagree with your response, that is.
If we teach middle class kids (or any of our kids) to obey authority mindlessly, then third world dictators will not come and go. Preppie U.S. presidents will not come and go. The U.S. military will mostly go and will not come home. And the United States of America — what it stands for — will disappear.
Public education (K-12) is the only opportunity we have to instill in our children the ability to question and to reason. We are dropping the ball big time on this. It’s nice to say we’re going to give them job skills, but we will not have another opportunity to teach our children how to be responsible U.S. citizens.
How many of us are in the same job we trained for in high school?
We have been trying it the wrong way for long enough, with verifiable bad results. Time to go back to the basics.
I agree with your friend on this question.
I strongly disagree with you. The awesome thing about America is there is no solid caste system to keep you there. Ford, the oil barons of the 1900s, Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Powell, etc have all made a impact on this world, for better or worse. Teaching ethics and Locke will help people truly understand what America is about, both good and bad.
Surely you’re joking Mr. Greenspun.
I’m excited you have a weblog, but I hope you aren’t going to make us wait 3 months for an interesting idea!
I assume you’re being facetious – at least as far as what you really BELIEVE, as opposed to the often-sad reality.
The U.S. does have a caste system, like it or not, to a degree. There are levelers – such as the Internet, in some cases – but it’s mostly based on wealth. And wealth, like other “genetics”, seems to be handed down from generation to generation. Birth right and all that. Hard to get there from nothing.
But recall the words of George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Yes, it’s sometimes unreasonable to expect children living in poverty to every run the country…but why not?
The middle class with always have opportunities to raise into the upper class through money alone – and if they don’t have the proper education to make the big choices once they’re there, what ensures that their kids will – their kids kids, et cetera. The whole system falls apart.
Naturally you know you’re full of crap in the first place, I hope.
“Obey authority mindlessly..” hmm.. Wait a second! that’s what most of middle class america is doing already.. as it slides into the lower stratums of the class structure (which doesn’t really exist in the U.S. wink wink)
-A
“an interesting idea every three months; a posting every day”
You’ve got the latter down pat. Can’t wait for the former.
This is so funny, welcoming to blogging someone who was a pioneer and seminal influence on what evolved into blogs. If Travels with Samantha http://www.photo.net/samantha/ did not in 1993 presage blogging, I don’t know what did. He even had the essence of all blogging pinned down in 1990 with _Narcissm Today_ http://philip.greenspun.com/narcissism/
Welcome to blogging, Philip 🙂
Great to have you in the blogosphere. I loved your book (Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing) and I am so glad you have a blog with an XML feed. Please post regularly! Thanks.
Agreed. With our fast-dwindling supply of natural resources, we will eventually need these people as a food source. If we educate them now, it will only make the process more difficult.
We should teach all kids to weblog. Then, maybe, when they are getting stepped on by the authorities, they’ll have a voice.
Hi Scoble,
A voice, yes, but to what end, exactly? The middle class is so politically apathetic today it doesn’t really matter what they think, if they do at all. Between a 60+hour job and 100 channels of TV, we simply are too busy to think. Most of us just want to get that next promotion, or lately to simply hang onto our jobs.
I consider myself to be “too clever by half”. I know enough to realize I am getting shafted, but don’t really know what to do about it. I suspect a lot of people who weblog are in that same hole. So maybe we should just dumb down our kids so they don’t suffer as we do…
So… I’m curious to know if “Ask E.T.” is a weblog?
I think it qualifies 🙂
“! I’m sure as you do this more and get more relaxed and sure of yourself you’ll write better”
For christ sake, he’s been doing this since 1993. He’s published the largest book on the web. There isn’t all that much difference between writing short stuff daily and writing long stuff once in a while. He’s had plenty of time to get his writing style down.
Sure! Is this why the parochial schools are often considered superior to public schools?
What Chinese Stratagem was this again:
Maybe “Point the deer and talk about a horse” or “hit the grass, to awake the vipers”?
Best
R
Jonathan Swift would be so proud.
I thought we were already teaching kids to obey authority mindlessly. Sitting in a classroom in rows, doing mindless long division followed by even more tedious social studies classes. Memorize this, memorize that. Spit out what I told you to memorize, and we’ll move on. And for christ sake, be on time!
As my grades dropped in grade school as what now would be called A.D.D. kicked in, no one paid much attention to my poor performance but I was certainly taken to the whooping shed for running late to class in the mornings.
I think my sociology teacher calls this the factory model of education.
I’m really happy to hear that you’ll be posting every day. I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve read by you so far, and the things you’ve done to make the ‘net a better place.
Regarding public education, I can’t understand what everyone is complaining about the American system for. I spent the last three years teaching in the Japanese public education system, and the American/western system was the example I frequently held up as something we should be aiming for. Lecture-style teaching is standard from Junior High level, students do not ask questions and often can’t even respond to them, and for the subject I was teaching (English) I never saw a curriculum (we taught the text book, mistakes and all).
There I was thinking the American system was better and worth emulating. Sigh.
😉
OK, Philip, this is reasonably provocative. But aren’t the schools already doing what you are proposing? It’s just that we teach the kids to THINK they’re engaged in critical thinking while really what we give them are nothing more than tools that will serve them as middle class and lower middle class functionaries in an information society. They need enough independent though to add value to an internal memorandum or a discussion of how to efficiently organize a retail operation, but not so much that they’d want to do something other than efficiently organize a retail operation.
And, I’d suggest, we do this for the elite, too. There are the obvious examples (if you ever want some experience in functional thinking, I’d suggest law school, where we really don’t try to hide the fact that our vaunted critical thinking is but a tool we are being trained to use), but I’d suggest even those fancy undergraduate schools really have more in common with a Madrasa than we’d ever admit. And you yourself can think in a very efficient way about how to set up a website to process on-line transactions, so the school system can claim you as a success story, right?
I’m looking forward to this blog and will check in regularly.
Phil,
Hand older students a copy of the USA Patiot Act (number One or self-styled Two), a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. Then go pick “something’ from this page by Rick Garlikov and see what you get: http://www.garlikov.com/writings.htm.
As Garlikov says, “It is my view that they already know how to think logically, and have always done so.
we should medicate them as well 😀 and teach them to like sports!