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Education Methods Deserve Enormous Blame For School Violence
I know this is a
stunning news flash for most of you (that's sarcasm) but women
and men are not the same and they aren’t interchangeable units -
the have different ways of learning that are particularly
pronounced at young ages. You can’t just toss out some books and
lecture for eight hours a day and not expect the boys to go
crazy from boredom.
Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is just a slightly exaggerated
symptom of normal male behavior. When an increasingly large
percentage of the boys have to be drugged-up just to get them to
sit through an average school day without causing disruptions
then it should be obvious to even a half-wit that something is
not right with that educational equation. Boys cannot be
expected to sit in an uncomfortable chair for eight hours every
school day and listen to droning lectures from teachers without
reacting in a negative fashion. Mix in drugs to keep them sedated, violent
pop-cultural imagery, plus chronic social pressures, and it’s no
surprise that kids like Pekka-Eric in Finland flip out lusting for
revolution in the classroom.
The girls aren’t
getting much out of contemporary education methods either but
crudely speaking women can be programmed, read this book
and listen to this lecture then take this test, but men have
to be trained, show then do then test. Yet it’s just so
much cheaper and quicker to teach the female way than it is to
do it the male way because the school system can buy a few books
and hire some hack to talk to the kids all day and they don’t
have to do any of the necessary but slightly more expensive
hands-on, out of the classroom type experience-based education.
Consequently school becomes a prison sentence for the boys who
just get increasingly angry and agitated as it goes on and a
gossip session for the girls waiting for the bell to ring.
09.11.07
When
Knowledge is a Commodity Society Goes Bankrupt
Creationism and
similar ignorant silliness is tragically popular, particularly
in the United States, and it seems like this is probably due to
the pathetic condition of public education and the widespread
acceptance of base religion as a valid authority for explaining
world events. The capitalist culture also plays a role in
perpetuating ignorance as well, this is because in a capital
driven society education, and knowledge too, is treated as a
commodity and like any other commodity it must be restricted in
supply in order to maximize commercial profits. Not surprisingly
the pay-as-you-learn higher education system in the U.S. is
world class even as the public schools are shoddy and
lacking in equal proportion because the majority of investment
and resources are directed at the sector that produces the quick
profits. This in turn means that most Americans that receive a
university or college education are often lacking in the basics,
like knowledge of science and the scientific method, but have
plenty of specialized skills. This creates some very odd
incongruities in American society where educated and seemingly
intelligent people can believe some of the most ridiculous
things, like being convinced that God created heaven and Earth
in seven days, that the Earth is only 10,000 years old because
that’s as much history as the Bible contains, or other tenets of
creationism.
The ones that can
overcome the fallacies of religious belief still trip over
modern secular versions that abuse and misunderstand scientific
principles to push an agenda or make a profit. Perpetual motion
machines and quack medical cures have been a staple of American
hucksterism for centuries and the market for these products
remains robust, to put it mildly, because the fundamental
weakness’ of the customer base haven’t changed. A contemporary
example is ‘free-energy’ and ‘zero-point’ energy power devices
that their promoters claim can easily solve the energy crisis
with the help of small investors with big dreams of striking it
rich, just like you.
General education
levels have certainly improved over the past fifty years but as
technology has advanced there’s much more that the individual
has to be cognizant of too. So this often means that the average
person has just enough education to be skeptical and susceptible
to convoluted conspiracy theories but lack the sagacity to see
through irrationality and paranoia, or avoid untenable
assumptions.
Large portions of
the public fall victim to paranoid conspiracy theories and
attribute malicious intent where ineptitude and bureaucracy
suffice for explanations! They fall victim to financial scams
because they don’t understand basic mathematics, and they get
robbed by credit card companies and greedy banks because they
don’t understand how compound interest works. They fall victim
to creationism beliefs because they don’t understand geology and
biology and can’t grasp the simplicity of natural selection,
perhaps because it seems to contradict common sense expectations
sometimes. They fall victim to free energy scams because they
misunderstand basic scientific principles and often lack a
functional awareness of physical science. They question the
facts that science presents but they don’t understand the
process that science uses to reach those conclusions! They think
science facts are just more didactic edicts from a competing
authority, just more arbitrary rules like the ones in the Bible,
but science is very different than the rules of religion, kings,
and dictators because it has a consistent and verifiable
methodology. The Scientific Method is important because it’s
such a useful and effective way to approach almost any problem.
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The Scientific
Method's Steps
1. Research and
identify the problem
2. Form a hypothesis
3. Develop a procedure to test the hypothesis
4. Test, experiment, and collect data
5. Analyze the results and derive a conclusion
6. Publish results for criticism |
You can see that
many of the widespread problems within our society could be
solved, or at least ameliorated, by improving basic education
when it come to practical skills and knowledge on topics of
math, biology, physics, and history. And even if you are old
enough to not be in school you can still learn, it doesn’t even
require any financial penalty and in fact it will confer a
great personal benefit. If everyone would just turn off the damn
television for half an hour and read a non-fiction book - go to
the children’s section of the public library and pick up a
really simple one with bold diagrams if you need to because
everyone has to start at the basics.
People that are
wealthy and intelligent don’t watch television; not even
Hollywood executives watch the drivel that they green-light! If
you want to be either one (preferably not a Hollywood executive
though) then you’d be wise to turn off and tune out the TV.
People that don’t watch television have more money, mostly
because they aren’t being continually brainwashed by commercials
to buy things they don’t need and they have more time to do
things that are actually beneficial to themselves and those
around them instead of the corporate monstrosities that own or
sponsor the asinine entertainment. 22.07.07
Your 'Mission Impossible': Defeat the Television
My own personal
encounters with heavy consumers of entertainment-based TV have
led me to conclude that television is more than just an
ignorance generator, it's a cognitive impairment generator. Since so much of TV is entertainment of the
lowest kinds the more someone watches it the less useful and
functional knowledge they possess, but also the less able they
are to learn useful information and to think in a
constructive and functional way because of the mental
conditioning that has occurred, all beyond the awareness of the
viewer I might add.
I think too many of
us underestimate the damaging effects of TV on the human mind,
especially on young minds that are in the process of developing
and forming habits for their adult lives.
Teachers often get
blamed for educational failures, and in many cases tired and
unimaginative teaching methods are clearly to blame. But it’s
also true that they can only teach to the capacity limits of the
students they have to work on. With so many kids already
mentally deadened by TV and other forms of passive
entertainment, then turned obese from sloth and drinking gallons
of corn syrup sweetened carbonated candy, how much can we expect
them to learn?
Even if the kids
wanted to learn, they are very often physically and mentally
constrained from excelling. Then couple this with the tired old
methods of passive teaching and you get a very dysfunctional
educational system right there, even without the school violence
thrown in to the mix.
TV can potentially
be an educational tool but even when teachers do use one in the
classroom it’s used only as a passive medium of education, so in
essence the result is just another commercial in the minds of
the students and they give it just about as much attention.
It’s amazing how
fast young minds can learn the rules to a new video game or
navigate the byzantine complexity of operating a new cell phone
or similar electronic device. But show them a world map and they
can't figure out where Iraq is to save their life. Learning is
clearly going on and the desire to learn is clearly present as
well but if it’s not happening in the schools then it raises the
question: what’s the source of the problem?
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Education has to
be engaging and interactive in order to be effective, and
the younger the mind of the student the more this rule holds
true. Primary education especially needs to shift to
interactive learning not passive watching. And this behavior
needs to be broken not just in schools but at home too. This
concept is so simple the lack of implementation is pathetic.
I rarely enjoyed school and much of it had to do with the
passivity of so much of it, read pages 32-69, do math
problems 11-55, listen to the teacher pontificate for 50
minutes, etc. When the education was interactive, and I
could be creative, then I liked it. |
Still Life With
Beer Can |

February
2004 |
Beyond fixing the
educational system there is one thing, even more important, that
everyone can do. I challenge everyone, whether they are in
school or not, to stop watching television for a
continuous six month block of time. If you can accomplish this
feat, and you will find out that it
really is a drug once you begin the effort, then after
you’ve kicked the habit TV will look so profoundly asinine and
mind-rotting that you will never perceive it in the same
positive way again. You’ll also discover, and this is perhaps
the most insidious aspect of TV, the ubiquitousness of it. The
complete pervasiveness of television is stunning, and most
people don’t even realize how thorough the invasion really is.
Go into a restaurant, bar, waiting room, or an office lobby and
chances are you’ll find a TV there, and what’s even worse, it’s
a TV that you can’t control!
Stop watching television for a continuous six month block of
time.
If you can do it your IQ will probably go up 20 points too. I
wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t done it myself, it works.
10.06.06
We often hear it said that a child's will
should be "broken" that the best education for the will of the
child is to learn to give it up to the will of adults. Leaving
out of the question the injustice which is at the root of every
act of tyranny, this idea is irrational because the child cannot
give up what he does not possess. We prevent him in this way
from forming his own will-power, and we commit the greatest and
most blameworthy mistake. He never has time or opportunity to
test himself, to estimate his own force and his own limitations
because he is always interrupted and subjected to our tyranny,
and languishes in injustice because he is always being bitterly
reproached for not having what adults are perpetually
destroying. - Maria Montessori
Trained to Perform Evil
The public will
typically complain in retrospect, how could this happen, how
could this tragedy, war, or mass-murder occur? Blame is
apportioned to some singular dictator or mystical deity, yet the
public remains oblivious to the institutional nature of the
‘evil’ as it repeats itself over and over. The public is quick
to express moral disdain, to boo and hiss at the
one-dimensional, fictional caricatures of mass-murderers and
malevolent dictators packaged and delivered to them on the TV
screen and in the movie theater, yet they consistently reelect
the real ones to public office. Under practically any definition
George W. Bush (the self-proclaimed ‘war President’), Donald
Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are mass-murderers given their multiple
wars on innocent civilians fomented through lies and
fraud. But because these politicians successfully manipulate
public opinion using the symbols of nationalism and fear they
can exploit the legitimacy of public office to not only remain
immune from logical criticism but to even become paragons of
strong leadership! Some contradictions and double standards are
so routine and habitual that few are even aware of them, yet the
contradictions are far from harmless or benign.
Of course, there's an element that's
right in this as well - in that there are principles for which
the United States presumably stands that are good. It's just
that people confuse the principles with the policies - and so
long as they can keep those principles in their heads (justice
for all, equality, and so on), they are very reluctant to
accept the fact that they have been crassly, consistently
violated. This is the only way I can account for the stopping
short when it comes to looking at the president and the people
around him as war criminals. -
Howard Zinn
Searching for the
Source
Our entire moral
order is totally flawed because it is built upon an
authoritarian mindset that defines ‘good’ as following orders
and ‘bad’ as disobedience. This mentality is not natural, it is
learned. Most children are taught through the dictates and
actions of their parents that they are ‘good’ when they follow
their parent’s orders and they are ‘bad’ when they do anything
else. Instead of being taught to discern right from wrong on
their own or according to objective criteria they have it handed
down as a set of absolute rules and dictates in the same spirit
as the Ten Commandments were handed down to the
Israelites. This flawed mentality makes authoritarian wrongdoing in
such a culture not just a random occurrence but a
systemic one.
Further, when
personal actions are compartmentalized then individuals working
for a larger entity, such as a nation or a corporation, are
neatly absolved of personal responsibility for their,
individually heinous, acts. This process allows for the
completion of a larger task that requires multiple actions that
would be unthinkable outside of the compartmentalized,
authoritarian system. Think of the
military, or the government, or a corporation, or any other
large body of people working together for a plan or purpose
motivated in a way that contradicts or usurps the interest of
the individuals within it. Think about how those machines, such
as the government, are chronically vilified as being corrupt,
predatory, destructive, and so on, yet the general impression of
the leaders, CEOs, Generals, and foot soldiers within those
machines is generally quite positive, even highly esteemed! For
example, public officials are frequently criticized for
their inability to deliver and other failures, usually blamed on
foolishness or venality. Corruption is a problem but nonetheless
most public officials are actually of above average intelligence
and sincerely want to serve the public good.
This presents a contradiction for how can
an employee of an evil institution or company be a nice,
well-meaning person? The problem is that despite noble
intentions these public officials are locked within a system
that generates its own structural incompetence.
In fact what we are seeing is, by
accident or intent, the product of a very potent method of
manipulating individual logic and motivation and usurping it to
serve a larger operation. I call this the compartmentalized
authority structure (CAS). Film-maker Stanley Kubrick
made a brilliant film depicting this concept, released in 1964
it is titled Dr. Strangelove Or: how I learned to stop
worrying and love the bomb. This film portrayed the
latent insanity behind the unnerving, compartmentalized
efficiency of the Cold War military system of nuclear
self-destruction. Read:
Finding
perspective in a mad world.
The CAS preys on two fundamental
human vulnerabilities:
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Desire to minimize personal responsibility.
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Desire to be ‘good’ by following the official rules.
Hence the characteristic phrase
uttered so often as a personal excuse for the results of CAS:
‘It’s not my fault, I’m just following orders’.
New Education:
Counteracting the Madness
Children have to be
allowed to make small decisions and learn from the small
mistakes because if not then later in life they will be faced
with big decisions without the experience to know how to deal
with the big mistakes that follow! A true, robust and healthy
understanding of right and wrong, the functional and the
self-defeating, comes from learning about the natural
consequences that emerge from personal actions, not from the
arbitrary dictates of authority no matter how seemingly correct
or benevolent those dictates may be. And in order to learn about
the reaction to the action the individual must be granted the
freedom to act based on their own motive and impetus and then to
receive the fair consequence of their action, be it a benefit or
a detriment. Only then can a natural sense of morality emerge in
the mind of the individual and concomitantly in society through
the collective actions of the multiple individuals within it.
In the absence of a
natural system of learning we can see this diseased way of
thinking that emerges from the tragic failures of childhood
education stretching long into adulthood. So many people act
deathly afraid to make mistakes because they don’t want to
deviate from the established rules and become a ‘bad’ person,
never realizing that a mistake is very often the only way to
really learn how to behave in the first place! So many people
endlessly search for the one book, the one master plan, or the
one spiritual guide that will finally solve all their personal
problems and put everything wrong with their life into perfect
harmony. Religious rules, mystical practices, rigorous self-help
guidelines, the public consumes an endless supply of these
modern day Ten Commandments yet none of them ever fulfill
any of the core moral needs; they only paper over the gap for a
short time. This is because no master plan for personal
salvation and no singular guide for moral correctness exists
since a successful, rewarding and healthy life is not about
adhering to orders or matching personal behavior to a prescribed
list of values and mandates, it is about acting and responding
and learning from the results in order to make wiser and more
productive actions afterwards, to learn from the consequences
and act again, and again, and again.
The pattern for
successful living doesn’t come from God given rules, it’s a
process, a methodology. Act, receive, think, respond, learn from
the process and then begin it again. This allows for learning
and moral awareness to come from experience and the personal
interaction with reality, just as it should be. It sounds nice
and simple but this freedom runs up against intense opposition
from the forces of established authority be they in the Church,
the home or even in the government. Authority always wants its
own view of events forced onto everyone else, it wants its
values and moral codes forced on everyone else and it will not
allow individuals to form their own methodology for interfacing
with reality because that methodology may be different, even
contradictory to authorities views!
The Mistaken
Search for Universal Morality
Prescribed morality
stems from the firm, archaic belief that children must be molded
or formed, that they must be something they are not already and
something that external authority deems they must become. This
errant motive comes primarily from the erroneous view that
everyone else should be just like “me”. This mistaken attitude
when put into practice highlights the difference between real
education and learning versus rote memorization and obedience
training. You can study it from a historical or geographic
perspective but whenever or wherever education is dominated and
controlled by men to the exclusion of women it is turned into a
tool for inculcating authority beliefs into impressionable minds
through brute repetition and the intentional negation of
personal independence in brain and body. Wherever patriarchal
culture reigns you’ll find systemic educational failure and no
better contemporary example exists than the madrassa religious
schools that operate throughout the deeply patriarchal Islamic
countries and where young students do little else besides
memorizing the Koran and being indoctrinated with militant
religious fundamentalism.
The patriarchal
worldview doesn’t allow for alternative explanations, views or
experiences and must use force, and inevitably violence, in
order to achieve its self-righteous aims. This is why
patriarchal society is based on fear and obedience to authority.
Violence, be it physical or psychological, is necessary to
enforce obedience, to force a disparate set of minds to fit into
one preset mold defined as the universal apex of correctness.
Violence is an inextricable part of every society that is built
upon patriarchal rule.
Too many parents
want subservience but instead get rebellion. Too many parents
want a moral and ideological clone in a child but instead create
a radical or an intellectual vegetable incapable of decision. We
seem to want a universal objective moral code but no matter how
much we search we won’t find it as we would a lost tribe in the
Amazon or an unknown law of physics. Morality won't be discovered
because it does not exist as it is traditionally conceived; all
that we will ever have is cause and effect - causality for
morality. The universe was never designed for humans; humans
adapt to fit the universe!
The Essence of
Non-Patriarchal Education
We have to strive to
build our perceptions of reality through the synthesis of
multiple sources and not just from a single source because to
only take evidence from one point is the essence of belief, of a
faith-based interpretation of reality. Lacking a comparison we
are forced to accept a statement as truth without any means of
verification. Faith is essentially mindless obedience to the
official rules of authority.
This process of synthesis requires another critical capacity,
that being the ability to discriminate, because we are
constantly being bombarded with lies as well as truth and at
some point we have to determine one from the other. Life is a
process of decision making, of discrimination; if we didn’t
discriminate then we would be dead! More to the point, how are
we discriminating? Are we using beliefs or facts for our metric?
Assumption or analysis? Discrimination is the highest task of
any sentient being. To not discriminate is to not think, to be a
vegetable or a slave. And this is why, besides teaching the
methodology of independent thought and learning, the true
purpose of education is to expose students to as many valid and
legitimate explanations and views as possible in order for the
student to be able to form a functional synthesis. 11.09.05
Epic Failure of Education
The current concern is no longer how will Iraq turn out in five
years from now, no, the outcome from the Iraqi invasion fiasco
is already a foregone conclusion. The real concern now is, who’s
next? Syria is clearly a weak regime and rumors have already
placed religious fundamentalist insurgents on the ground in the
country beginning operations to take down that secular,
socialist, Ba’ath party in charge.
But Syria is a small and mostly inconsequential country within
the larger geopolitical context, and where’s the oil in Syria?!
No, you want to talk about oil supplies and nightmare scenarios
you’ve got to go south, to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is
ground zero for revolution Osama bin Laden style. The
question to be asking today is, what if the west-friendly regime
in power in Saudi Arabia falls and is replaced by a religious
fundamentalist theocracy? Clearly, that is a totally
unacceptable outcome from the standpoint of the United States,
but Japan, and Europe as well since they are even more reliant
on Saudi petroleum.
Just to the north of Saudi Arabia, Iraq is now breeding and
training radicals and violent fundamentalist fighters. These
rebels will inevitably bleed out into neighboring countries to
attack the regimes that they also disagree with, namely Syria and
Saudi Arabia, but Egypt, Turkey and even Jordan are not safe
either. [4] Further, given the lack of training and experience
on the part of Saudi counter-terrorism forces, for instance,
especially when measured against the battle-hardened status of
the terrorists, the eventual conclusion does not look to be in
the Saudi government's favor. After all, if the most powerful
military in the world cannot subdue insurgent forces in Iraq
then how will the other countries in that part of the world do
it?!
In
the meantime, public approval ratings of the United States and
its foreign policy in the Middle East has sunk to record lows,
in the single digits for most places there. The only thing
keeping countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt supportive of
United States' government policies is the fact that those
countries are run by despotic authorities that are either bribed
or cajoled into supporting the U$A, and if those regimes
collapse the aftermath will inevitably be more democratic in
supporting domestic opinion over foreign! Indeed, what if
President Bush really did bring freedom and democracy to the
Middle East as he claims to be trying to do? Such a democracy
would hardly be pro-U$!
The scenarios that can be foreseen are troubling at best and
downright catastrophic at worst. Saudi Arabia is, after all, the
primary source of the world’s oil, the prices of which have
already hit record highs of over $60 per barrel. Just imagine
the Saudi regime under direct attack from insurgents in two,
three or five years from now. Small scale but very daring and
violent attacks have already occurred throughout the kingdom.
Even if Saudi counter-terrorism police and intelligence forces
can neutralize the immediate insurgent threat, that problem is
only the least strategically significant problem of many facing
the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has an explosive growth rate fueled by
unbelievably high birth rates. “The
average Saudi Woman bears more than six children.”
Riyadh, the capital, has grown from 60,000 people in 1950 to
over 4.5 million today. [3] Unemployment is already a serious
problem, exacerbated by the large population of young people in
the country. A work ethic that disdains menial labor doesn’t
improve matters either. Economic expectations are very high in
Saudi Arabia; the mindset is, 'why work when you can just import
a Palestinian or Filipino laborer and get them to do
everything?!'
But even though Saudi Arabia
has massive oil supplies now and record revenue from the sales
of petroleum, that oil and the money it provides won’t last
forever and when this inevitability is combined with population
expansion and rising expectations, a real crisis is in the
making. At least one petroleum resource analyst has concluded
that Saudi oil supplies are drying up much faster than
previously thought. Consider these four points:
-
Most of Saudi Arabia's oil output is
generated by a few giant fields, of which Ghawar - the
world's largest - is the most prolific.
-
These giant fields were first
developed 40 to 50 years ago, and have since given up much
of their easily extracted petroleum.
-
To maintain high levels of
production in these fields, the Saudis have come to rely
increasingly on the use of water injection and other
secondary recovery methods to compensate for the drop in
natural field pressure.
-
As time goes on, the ratio of water
to oil in these underground fields rises to the point where
further oil extraction becomes difficult, if not impossible.
To top it all off, there is very little reason to assume
that future Saudi exploration will result in the discovery
of new fields to replace those now in decline. [1]
With worldwide demand for oil steadily increasing and Saudi
Arabia already pumping it out at near maximum volume now,
who will replace them when they dry up in the near future? A
Saudi Arabia without oil is a problem for the world but it’s a
catastrophe for Saudi Arabia since nearly their entire revenue
is derived from the sale of that one commodity. Saudi Arabia has
essentially no plans to diversify their economic base, so what
are they going to do for income 10, 20 years from now when they
need it even more than today to hold their young, poorly
educated, and very angry population together?
Young, angry and religiously bigoted Saudis have already been
blamed for forming a major percentage of the insurgent forces in
Iraq, not to mention the 9-11 Pentagon and World Trade Center
airline hijackers. Now comes word that Saudi Arabia may even
have acquired nuclear weapons from Pakistan via the infamous
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. [2] Ruminate on that one for a moment.
Pakistan is another very unstable regime that is nominally
pro-U$ but again only because of a compliant dictatorship that
has little popular support. The current Pakistani military
dictatorship could collapse and be replaced with leadership much
less friendly to American interests – and the country already
has nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are two examples of a catastrophic
failure of education, robbing both nations of a viable and
progressive future and endangering the entire world in the
process.
Pakistan,
with a crushing defense burden, only spends 1.7% of gross
domestic product on education (compared to 4.3% in India and
5% in the United States). An estimated 15,000 religious
schools provide free room and board to some 700,000 Pakistani
boys (ages six to 16) where they are taught to read and write
in Urdu and Arabic and recite the Holy Koran by heart. No
other disciplines are taught, but students are indoctrinated
with anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Indian propaganda,
and encouraged to engage in jihad to defeat a "global
conspiracy to destroy Islam". These schools supplied thousands
of recruits for the Taliban militia in Afghanistan and are
still being used to recruit militants to fight the US-led
forces and Afghan troops in that country. [2]
Some have compared the situation of the Islamic countries today
to that of Europe 600 years ago in its dark ages. Yet centuries
ago Iraq and Iran, Babylon and Persia, were once the
repositories for the accumulated wisdom of Egypt and ancient
Greece, but now they languish in the darkest backwaters of
ignorance and superstition; while the remainder of the planet is
progressing, these people are regressing! This isn’t due to an
inherent incapacity to learn and adapt but rather from the
stranglehold of religion on their societies and the ignorance
and superstition perpetuated by an education system dominated by
theology.
So, if
you think events in West Asia are already violent and out of
control, just hold on to your hat because you haven’t seen
anything yet. The Bush administration correctly recognized the
potential of Islamic radicals to destabilize friendly and
compliant regimes in the oil producing Middle East but
catastrophically erred when they equated Saddam Hussein’s
socialist, pseudo-secular regime as being a part of that
problem. In reality Saddam, as despotic and brutal as he was,
actually served as a critical stabilizing force in the region!
Saddam’s Iraq was the keystone holding the weak but stable
structure of pan-Arab nationalism together as a bulwark against
Islamic fundamentalism. In the fiery aftermath of the toppling
of Saddam the only viable or functional authority alternative
was, and still is, Islamic fundamentalism. Osama bin Laden got
exactly what he wanted when George W. Bush launched his invasion
of Iraq, while Bush himself has initiated a chain reaction that
neither his administration, nor anyone else, has the power to
stop.
Suspicious minds think that
this is exactly what many planners in the state of Israel wanted
to begin with: to create a totally polarized conflict featuring
an intractable foe that cannot be reasoned or negotiated with,
thereby undercutting the overtures towards peace from the United
Nations and the European Union that have for years vexed
Israel’s belligerent, expansionist aims in the occupied
territories and against its many Islamic neighbors.
Manufacturing a maniacal Islamic enemy drags the west into an
unavoidable large-scale conflict wherein they cannot adopt a
neutral stance but instead must fight alongside Israel and the
Jews. This is an intriguing conspiracy theory but one only needs
to consider the diminutive size of Israel in population and
geography and a ballistic missile armed Saudi Arabia with
nuclear weapons to realize the sheer absurdity of pursuing this
course. No wall, no matter how tall Israel builds it, can stop
this coming wave of terror. 09.07.05
-
‘The Saudi oil bombshell’,
by Michael T Klare, Asia
Times Online, June 29, 2005.
-
‘Where terror and the bomb could meet’,
by Amir Mir, Asia Times Online, July 7, 2005.
- ‘Kingdom on Edge, Saudi
Arabia’, National Geographic magazine, October 2003.
-
'Iraq seen emerging as prime training ground for terrorists',
by Warren P. Strobel,
Knight Ridder Newspapers, July 4, 2005.
Trekkie
Tube-Jockeys Watch & Learn
Star Trek the
original series was an innovative and creative
concept show. Undoubtedly the original Star Trek
series was one of the best-written ever put on
television, and also the funniest! Although much
of it was purely lighthearted entertainment,
often overlooked is the serious philosophical and
ethical issues that were showcased. Here are some
of my favorite and most recommended episodes as
well as their significance:
The Return
of the Archons, #22, is a classic Gene Roddenberry
storyline. This episode uses an entertaining allegory to
highlight the degrading and stifling influence of faith on the
human mind, such as how religion attempts to regulate and
control natural urges only to have them leak out in unnaturally
extreme behaviors i.e. at the 'festival'. The peace and
tranquility that comes from absorbing dissidents into the 'body'
of Landru (the God) is merely a façade, with the actual result
being the nullification of individual personality and creative
motivation. The result is a social order that may contain the
peace and predictability of a machine but at the cost of being
unable to deal with unexpected events or situations; Kirk
concludes: "Landru must die".
Spectre
of the Gun, #56
In the episode Spectre of the Gun, the crew are taken
hostage and sentenced to a creative death for trespassing by a
self-righteous alien. Near the end of their life in a recreation
of an old West gunfight the crew knows they will lose, Spock
logically ascertains the true nature of the situation and
deduces a way out of it. Spock's conclusion:
"Physical
reality is consistent with universal laws. Where the laws do not
operate, there is no reality. We judge reality by the response
of our senses. Once we are convinced of the reality of a given
situation we abide by its rules."
In the process of their perceived life or death situation, the
Star Trek crew learns the importance of distinguishing between
illusion and reality as well as the means of using and
comprehending the critical separation between mind and
substance. The obligatory morality lesson is attached to the
end, of course. 05.03.05
Catspaw,
#30
Isn't it enough to just
accept the way things are, to accept the illusion?!
Catspaw is an enlightening
episode dealing with levels of consciousness in the human mind
and the necessity of seeking an awareness that goes deeper than
superficial sensations. The crew encounters two nefarious aliens
that use a blend of subterfuge and tricks playing on human fears
and superstitions to try and steal the knowledge and resources
they need.
One of the aliens (in human form)
offers the crew riches and happiness but then complains that
Spock (the logical one) ‘sees everything around him but doesn't
believe’.
And what is the poignant message? Why
do we need to see through the superstition and illusion even
when it seems so convincing and to our immediate benefit? Watch
the show and find out! (Answer *) 23.01.04
The Enemy Within
Highlights the necessity of
simultaneous good and evil within the framework
of existential metaphysics including shades of
Zoroastrianism when Kirk gets duplicated into
amiable and sinister halves. Don't tell me you
didn't catch that message?!
The Changeling
Learn from the robot probe Nomad the proper
application of the term 'non sequitur' during
dinner parties and other social occasions. Be
sure to use a monotone voice! the lesson is the impracticality
of ultra-rigid doctrines and adherence to principle regardless
of the situation. A machine run solely by a fixed programming,
no matter how powerful it may be, still lacks the capacity to
adapt like humans can.
A Taste of Armageddon
Why war should not become a
painless mechanized 'push-button' affair lest
random slaughter become acceptable conduct. Two
societies electronically calculate (and execute)
war deaths to maintain a perverted sense of
diplomacy. A fitting lesson for jingoistic
American warfighters with their hi-tech precision
guided munitions.
This Side of Paradise
Demonstrates the futility of
placid, pleasure seeking (hedonistic?) lifestyles.
Without challenge and discomfort humans stagnate,
creating only a vapid continuation of stasis.
What are Little Girls Made of?
Poignantly
demonstrates within an ironic subtext, the
differences between man and machine by creating
android duplicates. Even with mental
consciousness implanted into robotic corporal
likeness' without emotional decision-making and
that error laden fuzzy-logic humans excel at, one
is reduced to merely an inferior machine. 29.12.00
By Any Other Name
Simply by existing within a human body
one assumes certain flaws, traits and
characteristics that can not be ignored or
avoided, merely regulated with benign acceptance
at best or left to run amok at worst. Also note
predictable reactions, the ease of 'button
pushing' - a social engineering lesson to be sure.
24.06.02
* Seeing though superstition and illusion is
necessary to prevent being exploited in life.
<
For An Audio Response Click Here >
If the educational system
was really about learning then it would actually teach students
the process of learning - how to learn - rather
than idle facts and lectures. Because all of that is easily
forgotten while the actual process of learning, training the
ability to go out and find out for yourself does the opposite.
Instead the modern educational establishment is based upon ruse
and hypocrisy because it claims to be one thing but is actually
another - just a means of soaking up the youth population to
keep them out of the labor pool for minimizing unemployment and
job competition.
The government could just pay everyone from 18-28 to vacation in
Florida and it would be just as economically effective and
probably about as educationally effective as well. 21.02.03
The education of the senses makes men
observers, and not only accomplishes the general work of
adaptation to the present epoch of civilisation, but also
prepares them directly for practical life. We have had up to the
present time, I believe, a most imperfect idea of what is
necessary in the practical living of life. We have always
started from ideas, and have proceeded thence to motor
activities; thus, for example, the method of education has
always been to teach intellectually, and then to have the child
follow the principles he has been taught. In general, when we
are teaching, we talk about the object which interests us, and
then we try to lead the scholar, when he has understood, to
perform some kind of work with the object itself; but often the
scholar who has understood the idea finds great difficulty in
the execution of the work which we give him, because we have
left out of his education a factor of the utmost importance,
namely, the perfecting of the senses. I may, perhaps, illustrate
this statement with a few examples. We ask the cook to buy only
'fresh fish.' She understands the idea, and tries to follow it
in her marketing, but, if the cook has not been trained to
recognise through sight and smell the signs which indicate
freshness in the fish, she will not know how to follow the order
we have given her. From: The Montessori Method by Maria
Montessori, 1912.
|
Many things
seem odd or perplexing when removed from
proper context. |
 |
|
Connecting
these isolated pieces into a larger
picture is a critical part of
understanding the puzzles in life. |
One thing
about education most conveniently ignore is the
fact that it can put anything into peoples heads
and that it's not necessarily useful, edifying or
even helpful. Indeed, the line between
'education' and 'indoctrination' is rarely
distinguishable. Education is like a syringe and
learning is like the chemical substance in the
syringe. The education process is injecting those
substances into the mind, but what's actually
being learned may well be poison, a wonder drug
or just a placebo.
And just
because your mind is being injected with
information inside a school, state run or
private, doesn't necessarily mean what you are
learning is healthy for you just as 'shooting-up'
poison in a hospital or a back-alley won't change
the fact your harming yourself.
Everyday,
students are being injected with the syringe of
education and the harmful chemical of useless and
erroneous information which clouds the mind and
crowds out legitimate knowledge. What public
action is being taken over this?!
Education
today more than ever, amidst dwindling budgets,
falling test scores, violence and highly-charged
political battles, deserves a thorough and
critical reevaluation. The first question to ask
should be - is anyone really learning? The second
would be - if so is it actually beneficial to the
student and society or just make-work and
resource-wasting? Third would be a sober and
objective assessment of what should students
really be learning that will actually be of
practical use and lifetime value. 08.09.02
Defeating
the Sucker Society
It's remarkable how
poor the average person is at judging human
character and not just movie stars or politicians
but typical peers or superiors. Such a crucial
skill when not picked up quickly through trial
and error points to a distinct intellectual
limitation, one that a wise society would
directly work to correct through education at a
young age. Instead we get the usually one line
story - trust police. parents and authority and
distrust everyone else, black and white, get it
got it good next...
The attachment to
fantasy and myth promoted by the entertainment
society doesn't help either merely exacerbating
the popular tendency to see what's desired or the
popular perception delivered through the eyes of
mass-media fears and stereotypes. Adherence to
the world of fantasy erodes the fundamental like-skill
of being capable of distinguishing between facade
and inner substance. No wonder P.T. Barnum said a
sucker's born every minute. The inability to
accurately judge character and trustworthiness
creates an easily exploitable opportunity for
charlatans, crooks and the dishonest to fleece,
rip-off and burn financially or emotionally.
Should we be surprised at the high rate of
divorce (50% and up), the high rates of spousal
abuse and a general inability to successfully
socialize endemic within Americanized cultures?
The solution isn't
just about training disbelief or belief it's
about utilizing an algorithm for cleaving the
trustworthy from the disingenuous and generating
a clear understanding of why. For example
people that consistently act on what they
verbalize are more trustworthy than ones that
promise grand things and then fail to follow
through on them. This is a very important aspect
of the education process receiving scant
attention except through the simplistic reflex of
tradition. Of course between now and then
authorities can sleep easier when they know the
general populace has neither the desire nor the
capacity to critically analyze the righteousness
of their positions of power. 16.08.01
Maria Montessori, a brilliant Italian woman known for Montessori
schooling, was on the right track here because she
sought to improve the methodology of teaching.
Today she's even on, what is it, the 50,000 Lira
note? I don't remember but the point is there's a
likeness of her visage gracing Italian money -
she's there and you're not. So even regardless of
the process or success' of the Montessori method,
it does seem to be a good idea that works well,
if nothing else it points toward a profitable
path of social reform because to really change
the world you've got to give people the tools to
improve themselves. And of course I'm referring
more to adults than to children but hey, we all
start at the same place anyway.
Illiteracy was a
major obstacle to defeating the slavery of
agrarian society. Once people learned to read,
even if it was only Bible's and hymnals at first
they could improve their lot in life and get
better paying jobs living in a crowded polluted
city instead of a dung reeking dilapidated shed
on the flood plain below the castle. And their
descendants had credit cards! 03.09.01
The
Dumb And The Dumbed Down
I'm not sure where
the phrase "dumbing-down" originated
but I fail to detect any validity within the
context it's used, that being that the
contemporary education system works to make
students dumber. First of all this is sheer
absurdity because education does not make one
smarter nor can it make one less intelligent.
This is a common but dangerous myth, that
education creates intelligence or in this case
has the power to destroy it. This is simply
impossible unless the brain is physically damaged.
Instead the fallacy is manifest that rote
recitation of drivel and similar meaningless
facts is defined as intelligence. In other words
the best mimic of teacher inculcated information
is the smartest. Still the phrase makes even less
sense since this would only make the students
less capable of being indoctrinated with
'corrupt' ideas and 'propaganda'. Nonetheless the
education system is still letting down both
society and the students.
The primary purpose
of education largely overlooked today which is
simply to build a framework, a personal algorithm
on how to learn. It's imparting successful
methods of learning not teaching raw facts and
figures because most material itself is always
forgotten in a matter of weeks or years anyway!
Algebra anyone? This way people that want to
learn can do so more quickly and with greater
effectiveness and those that don't can get on
with their life counting coupons or sewing
mailbags. Intelligence defines education returns
not the other way around because a smart person
will learn regardless of the ineptitude of the
teacher, the opacity of the textbooks or the
distractions of the classroom settings. The only
thing a school needs to be a school is a quite
room to read and a voluminous library with access
to the Internet. How does the parable go? Give a
hungry man a fish and he's full for a day but
teach him to catch fish and he's good for a
lifetime.
Burn the text -
"books", they're riddled with errors
yet the cost a fortune, how can anyone learn
anything valid from them? I rarely if ever did
and I doubt anyone else has either.
Fire the teachers,
what the hell good are they? If one needs a
taskmaster to be forced to learn something how
much concept retention is that going to generate?
And what is the point of teaching kids what they
don't want to learn? Does anyone retain what they
find dull or uninteresting - hardly, what do we
retain - that which we like and find interesting.
Teachers create nothing but higher tax rates for
the citizenry, resentment and lack of respect by
the students, and the questionably useful skills
of how to survive in a violent prison environment.
Dull minds find
fewer things interesting than brilliant ones,
ergo the role of the role model or teacher is to
broaden awareness of available subject material,
not minutia and figures or dates. It's to say
this is what is out there, and this is how to
find out about it. And true the dull can be made
intriguing but only to a point and this is
largely predicated upon the enthusiasm of the
teacher and their creativity in presentation both
of which are totally lacking in 99% of punch-clock,
underpaid educators today. School just wastes
time and teaches the wrong things such as
cynicism, violence, violence abatement
techniques, and escapism.
Education should be
voluntary because otherwise it's forced and it
will never have any positive lasting value to
anyone. This is rudimentary psychology, anytime
something is made mandatory after being voluntary
it's value to the individual plummets a million
fold. So the task is not to increase mandatory
obligations but to minimize them to the absolute
basics essentials. The only thing that should be
mandatory because it is so critical is how to
read, how to gain and utilize information, how to
adapt to new circumstances because it is the
framework that everyone can use to learn on their
own. And even the slowest student can pick that
up by grade six. How to read, how to write, how
to communicate. Beyond that level it is the
individuals role to pursue their own interests if
any. And here the options are manifest, work as
in community service until old enough to work
independently for pay or study and seek skills
through appropriate programs based on interests
and goals of the individual and of course
employment opportunities as appropriate. The time
and the freedom to learn on own but if they can't
and some need the structure then give them the
role models and the structured guidance, the
goals, the assignments needed to learn and gain
the skills to do what they want to do.
Furthermore
teachers, parents or whoever is best as a role
model(s) should use their position responsibility
not to become a didactic autocrat but to suggest
what to read, what to write about, what to paint,
to give new ideas and new topics to learn about
in the personal quest of every student to edify
themselves.
The rest is details
seeking solutions at the appropriate time - after
the entire contemporary educational system is
abolished. 30.04.01
The
Root of All Evil
If one examines the
profiles of those most successful in business and
other ambition driven competitive enterprises
they all approach with a diametrically opposed
viewpoint to the popular notions on the
prevalence of fairness and honesty. They expect
to find dishonesty, they expect to be cheated and
reciprocate because they have a fundamentally
negative and adversarial view of human nature.
Indeed we even have an axiomatic phrase to
describe this phenomenon - 'nice guys finish
last'.
This isn't
necessarily false altruism or disingenuousness
it's just an awareness that life isn't the pink
and blue pastel shaded padded nursery that Sunday
school and many formative role models teach
children at a young age. But the few groups
who've excused themselves from such nonsense
either through acquired wisdom or slavish
devotion to archaic moral codes have a distinct
advantage.
Through the largely
successful yet heinously misguided efforts to
create a fair society, human nature has responded
with the expectation of honest and
straightforward reciprocal behaviour. Human
nature as primarily superficial and fair with
just a few bad apples thrown in is the erroneous
interpretation permeating western culture. This
complacency allows for the easy exploitation by
those who hold the opposite view. Altruism is a
dangerous display for all parties involved due to
the enormous potential for misinterpretation of
the other parties motivations. While the receiver
generally interprets the gift as magnanimous
generosity the giver may well be using it as a
tool of leverage for buying favors.
The soft majority
watch the nightly news and expect it to be
completely factual and evenhanded - after all why
would someone with a facade as respectable as
Peter Jennings lie? How could a paper as
legitimate as the New York Times have ulterior
motives and an agenda not patently obvious and
openly stated? How could a person be something
different from what they say they are!?
Inculcated naïveté? Or just trained simpletons
mostly too stupid to think otherwise? More than
anything else trained expectations dictate future
actions because they form habitual methodological
social responses.
There can be no
misunderstanding here, the supreme enemy of
healthy behaviour and a healthy society is the
desire to morally impose theologically warped
concepts of fairness otherwise known as the sick,
self perpetuating sympathy system. This is enemy
number one, the root of all evil, the entangling
thorn covered week that must be ripped from the
soil and consumed in fire before anything
meaningful can improve. 16.04.01
A New Labor-Education Nexus II
A novel solution for
the national labor and education dysfunction
would be to establish a job pool for 18-25 year
olds as an alternative or in addition to college.
This system of opportunities would consist of
short or long term positions with participating
employers allowing students to try out different
jobs, work in any field they like for a time,
anything from a few weeks to months. The idea is
to be able to freely choose the work field or
employer. This would give people a unique chance
to learn what they want to do for a career as
opposed to merely hearing about it or getting
advice when they don't even know what the work is
really like. It would also provide a large supply
of labor, although perhaps unreliable, for
companies to draw skilled and ambitious workers
and also a good way to recruit smart and capable
employees.
Cooperation, organization, planning,
foresight, where is it anyway? The lack of
interface between education and employment is
terrible, the U$A doesn't coordinate any of this
except federal financial aid. In the UK for
example the higher education system is centrally
coordinated. The U$A is enormously larger yet it
has a chaotic system of separate colleges, sub-colleges,
universities and polytechnics all with their own
standards, acceptance hurdles, loans etc.
Confusion and dumb chance is not surprisingly the
outcome. 10.02.01
Shakespeare
Unmasked: The Life of a Rip-Off Artist
I always knew
something was just not quite right about that guy.
Turns out one of his most famous (and now
exponentially trite) plays, "Romeo and
Juliet" is the exact same story as that
of Thisbe!
Thisbe a maiden of
Babylon, was forbidden by her parents to marry
her beloved Pyramus. The two lovers defied their
families by exchanging vows through a chink in
the wall which divided their houses, and plotted
to elope together, fixing upon a white mulberry
bush at the tomb of Ninus as the appointed spot.
Arriving at the site, Thisbe was surprised by a
lioness, fresh from the kill, and, in her haste
to escape into a nearby cave, let slip her veil.
The lioness mauled the veil, coating it with the
blood of her prey. On his arrival, Pyramus
discovered the cloth and believing it to be
stained with the blood of his love, stabbed
himself through the heart. Thisbe, coming out
from hiding, found Pyramus' body and overcome
with grief, threw herself upon his sword. Their
mingled blood seeped into the ground and turned
the fruit of the mulberry tree black as a sign of
mourning for them.
Come on! One is
forced to wonder what else 'The Bard' has
plagiarized, hmm?
I think the appeal
of Shakespeare resides in the fact he wrote for
the actors rather than as a detached narrator.
The endless exposition and open-ended
opportunities for soliloquy have provided the
unparalleled vehicle for insecure actors and
their starving egos to showboat in front of a
crowd for centuries. Many other issues come to
mind as well such as the consistent popularity of misogynism,
incest, regicide, subterfuge and the murder of fowl, and of
course the ultimate question - could all this have been avoided
if instead of Shakespeare they'd had HBO to watch? And what
about those terrible phrases and allusions, I mean,
"now I am worm food"
what the hell is that, is that funny? Is it romantic? Oh I'm
just desperate to know.
Yeah nice play Shakespeare ... all right you're a
great audience, thanks! I'm outta here! 24.10.00
& 02.09.01
A New
Labor-Education Nexus I
Here's a novel idea:
government should pay for college schooling with
one condition, that being the students must spend
the summer months doing agricultural work (like
helping with crop harvests). Which believe it or
not they used to do anyhow but now the
agribusiness conglomerates hire thousands of
unskilled and underpaid migrant laborers. But the
beauty of this idea is that it would remove much
of the need for farm subsidies (since their
highest expense is usually labor) and remove the
need for importing labor. Not only that but it
would keep the kids out of trouble and give them
a sense of community awareness and participation.
So instead of going to a beach, jumping out of
windows stoned and generally getting fucked-up in
various ways they could actually be doing
something productive and get a free (or at least
subsidized) education too! Not only that but they
might figure out that milk comes from a cow and
not that disembodied hand that puts it on the
shelves from behind the dairy case. Imagine that.
19.10.00
The Importance of
Education
Social control
relies on numerous underpinnings, manipulation of
the whole may seem daunting but patience and
persistence as well as a repetitive, singular
approach will yield results. Once you control the
media outlets then no one will realize how bad things
are and without a reference point they won't ever
be sure things could be better or realize whose
at fault and start creating trouble. Control the
teachers, control the schools produce the course
material. First subversion then conversion as the
VC/NVA always said. Once the kids are convinced
of the righteousness of the establishment they
will become useful allies of the system. They can
be used as spies in the household monitoring the
grumbling and secret anti-establishment desires
of parents. Good cop bad-cop, the teacher is a
friend because they don't have to discipline, the
parent bad because they say 'no'. The kids
gravitate towards the one and resent the other.
Control the
workplace, nationalize the industry and regulate
wages keeping costs low and productivity high.
Liberate the sexes thereby doubling your
workforce. This has the added benefit of
weakening the family and moving that nuclear
force from the hands of the parents into the
hands of the educational system (see above). Both
sexes become worker drones with long hours and
minimal pay to waste on frivolous diversions,
seditious movements and unhealthy influences,
drugs, booze, shopping etc. Control the police
and military, abuse of power on an unsafe
population instills a sense of paranoia and
legality. Keep them busy, tired and hungry then
they'll be too weak, destabilized and fearful to
mount outright challenges to power.
Blame all their problems on national enemies and anti-establishmentarians
and everything
that the system does that's deemed bad or unpleasant by the
people blame on enemies too. Say anything enough times and everyone
will believe it. Good-cop / bad-cop again on a mass-national
scale. Enemy states are the ones perpetrating all the evils upon
the people not the government who provides benefits and luxuries
in small doses all of which are trumped up and cleverly
magnified, scraps become feasts. By vilifying seditious and
anti-establishment elements fear of association and herd
mentalities kick in neatly dividing the masses into supporters
and enemies. Carefully pick from the herd of national enemies
and turn them into black and white show trials.
Build a behaviorist feedback loop
demonstrating the indomitable forces of the regime and the
inevitable grim fate of national enemies. Just as long as you
drown out the voices of dissension it works fine. And when
public grumbling reaches uncontrollable proportions just
initiate a 'revolution', via official channels and official
people of course. Find a few high level officials (fall guy) you
wanted to get rid of anyway and set them up as symbols of the
old, failed order being eliminated.
|
Change
the name repackage the product - they
never figure it out because everyone's
too busy trying to scrape-by and earn a
living. Fill in the blanks, connect the
dots, mass- produced authoritarianism, it
works anywhere on any group.
And the ones
that think their immune are the easiest
to co-opt because they never see it
coming. But the best part is that even
the ones that should know better, the
intellectuals, are actually the easiest
to convince because they think they'll be
the new elite after the revolution in
the new system of 'reason and enlightenment'.
|

Regardless of culture, the difference between education and
indoctrination is often indistinguishable |
Marxism has such a
scientifically rational approach to behavioral
control of the masses, I have to appreciate the
simplicity of it all. The tactics aren't anything
new historically speaking, just distilled down
into reliable maxims and rational approaches. For
control of the many by the few it works quite
well. The amazing part is how successful brazen
lies are in convincing the public of the
righteousness of the regime. Dictatorships is
called democracy and freedom is called
Imperialism; for example North Korea is
officially known as the Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea. But then democracy is
fundamentally a communist concept so let us not
muddle the picture with our class-centric bias'.
None of this is made self-evident
by reading Marx, but words really don't matter anyway. What we
see is the classic schism between ideas and practice, the
ideological disconnect I've already beaten to death before. Use
the dialectic, think the opposite and always remember:
"The philosophers
have only interpreted the world in various
ways; the point is to change it." -Karl Marx. 12.06.00
Educational Failures
Some economists say
that in times of easy money and cheap credit
significant mis-investments pile up leading to an
inevitable correction known as recession. Well Ive
sure got a story that demonstrates wasteful
spending.
Low earth orbiting
satellites to deliver phone and data
communications throughout the world have been a
pipe dream for several years now. Motorolas
Iridium system is a such a spectacular failure it
really deserves its own novel, but unfortunately
I dont have time to write it now. Suffice
to say that this entire satellite constellation
is already in orbit slowly decaying, Iridium is
bankrupt and the entire service will be
completely shut down by March 17 unless a buyer
steps in, not just to bail them out again but to
completely buy out the project. A few billion
here, a few there no big deal. But then comes
along another venture ICO Global Communications
with the same concept. Already theyve
been delisted from NASDAQ for going Chapter 11 (a
shocking blow to savvy investors everywhere) and
just recently they lost a satellite from Sea
Launch. Another total waste of money, I mean why
not just buy Iridium and skip the whole process?
Probably the only people making money off this
are the satellite insurers, but that cash sure
could be put to use in so many productive places.
Who the hell says laissez-faire capitalism is
efficient? 13.03.00
Education
and Negative Evolution
Educators and
legislators continually decry the declining
standards of state sponsored primary education.
Reactionary maneuvers and dumbing-down seem the
most popular response to this perceived failure
to educate properly.
The logic goes that
if the standardized test scores are not
acceptable simply lower the difficulty level of
the tests. Unfortunately even that simplistic
reasoning fails to achieve any results. The
unchallenged students have even less desire to
pay attention while the student that have
difficulties usually dont care and or don't
try anyway so the results are the same.
Government run
schools are experiencing a negative evolution
similar to what is occurring in certain ossified
sectors of corporate America and federal
bureaucracy. The good people leave (in
this case for private schools, at least the ones
that can afford to) because theyre
concerned and unhappy with a grim situation,
while the bad ones stay because they
dont care and have lower standards anyway.
As the majority demographic see-saw tips the
other way within these institutions the overall
values also change to reflect the new levels of
accepted standards.
Something must be
done! Legislators spring into action setting
new policy to appease the unhappy sectors of
society yet simultaneously avoiding offending the
increasing numbers of uneducable and
undisciplined students (and parents).
"There
will be no limits to what can be achieved in the
state sector,"
a naive but nonetheless heavily optimistic statement made by
Britain’s Education Secretary concerning their new plan to
‘shake up’ the (failing) education system. This new system
features truly revolutionary ideas such as longer school hours
and increasing the mandatory age to 19. Exactly what
disenfranchised students need, after all if something doesn’t
work it must mean they need more of it, right?
You know considering
how much money and hand-wringing is spent on the
issue of mandatory public education maybe we
should ask ourselves if we really need this at
all? Would our society be any worse off if no one
had to go to primary school? Or what about
lowering mandatory age for attendance say from
grade 12 down to grade 6? Why not set up a public
resource bank something like computer labs,
libraries, tutors etc for students that want
to learn between age 12 and 20. Hell, why not
make this available to 50, 60 or 120 year olds?
After all by simply forcing kids to go to school
that doesnt mean theyll actually
learn anything, why not remove that useless and
draconian restriction and let the ones that want
to learn actually study the things that they
are interested in and at their own pace. Or at
the very least cut class times (the absolute
biggest waste of time) down to say 3 or 4 hours
and use the rest for network study or one-on-one
teacher help.
And screw the damn
tests, what does a test tell anyone but how well
someone takes a test? Does it really demonstrate
a working knowledge of the subject? Rarely.
Educators are so desperate to quantify pointless
milestones that they miss the concept. The
purpose is for students to gain knowledge and
skills useful and valuable to them
as productive adult citizens. Standardized tests
dont educate.
Modern education
techniques are flawed because they rest on the
assumption that people are all the same, little
machines that can be programmed with a book and
pencil. The reasoning goes that each kid is the
same and as long as they show up for class and
listen to the teacher they will soak up this
information and be able to apply it, then take a
test which will clearly demonstrate this and
voila another smart happy productive clone
is manufactured. Not likely.
If the government
could just relax their death grip of authority on
those young minds and the pointless need to
measure and rank everyone from K-12 maybe some
real learning could take place. But alas I dont
see that happening anytime soon and not only that
but anything that would involve putting
ineffectual teachers, paper-shuffling bureaucrats
and union dictators out of work will undoubtedly
meet determined opposition. So I could spend
hours coming up with better ways to learn than
the hackneyed classroom-teacher method but for
now its pretty much moot anyhow. Even after
numerous school shootings administrators still
dont have a clue, positive and effective
changes are definitely a very dim light on the
far horizon.
So we now come full
circle in this tale of social devolution because
it seems that the only way to have any chance at
learning in a conducive and functional
environment is to either home school or private
school. 08.01.00
The Nature of
Contemporary Public Education
School, which is
mostly tests, is not about learning but about
regurgitating lecture and book info. The degree
to which one accurately mimics the teachers
opinions as lectured is the straight A
student. The lower grade student relays the data
with improper variations. it must be
realized that strong ego-based individuals alter
their [reality] information they imprint on their
memory more than weak egos. Every memory is
interpreted and processed and inevitably altered
by the self before it is stored. This affects the
replay as during tests.
Every teacher grades
according to how well the regurgitation compares
to their own interpretations. The degree of
variance is the degree of failure as viewed by
the teacher.
16.05.96
Myth
#64: Education Creates Intelligence
Our society places
far too much significance on education.
Education is this mythical process that somehow
turns lifeless, dumb and uninspired blobs of clay
into bright, productive members of society.
This is really the
opposite of what happens. Education doesnt
make people intelligent, the intelligent are just
more active participants in the education process.
Education is an
arbitrary framework that our society uses to
judge the ability of individuals to be good
members of civilization. We could change the
name, or even change the rules of what education
does and it would still fulfill the same function
for society. Much like the mazes for rats,
education is a series of rules and tests that
judge social congruency not create it. A
lack of education doesnt make people
uncivil. Education is free for anyone who wants
it; the education process may be legally
mandatory but participation is fundamentally by
choice. In other words no one can make you learn.
Education standards
continue to slide in order to maintain the ratio
of successful graduates to failures. But this is
not only futile its ridiculous! Why have an
educational system if it doesn't have absolutes
of pass or fail that accurately judge ability?
But the myth
continues, common belief has it that crime,
poverty, and nearly every other ill of society
stem from a lack of education. Often
an absence of quality (read expensive) schooling
is labeled as the reason that the troubled
segments of society remain mired in problems. Yet
never has any legitimate study shown that the
amount of money put into an educational program
increased the number of successful students. A
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