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Mr. Mang

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tell me what you think:

 

"... the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and think for themselves, and don't know how to be submissive, and so on - because they're dysfuctional to the institutions."

 

- Noam Chomsky - 'Understanding Power' (page 111)

 

(if you think this is just hippie bullshit you should understand that Noam is a professor at MIT)

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Originally posted by swif1

even though i can't really "focus" right now...i don't fully understand the quote.

 

since we're talking about schools, my junior year, i got fucked over because of the grading scale...lets just say:

 

84-93% = B

 

94-100%=A

 

:mad:

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Guest uncle-boy
Originally posted by Mr. Mang

 

(if you think this is just hippie bullshit you should understand that Noam is a professor at MIT)

 

most profesors, are liberal minded, hippy, peices of poo-on-a-stick.

so i dont give a hoo-ha if he's a prof. at MIT, he's still just a dirty hippy.

 

;)

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Guest KING BLING

School primarily distracts you from experience. Most people dedicate the most important years of development to the most unimportant things if viewed from a step back. This is to stifle the growth of radical and individual ideas and questions by fostering the socially acceptable ones. When all of your peers accept something blindly, at 14, so do you.

I always wonder how they managed to get so many people to come down like a hammer everytime someone questions something that so many people hate anyway...

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chomsky is definitely an important figure in dissident thought, and i agree with what he's saying here and respect him a great deal.

 

but just to play devils advocate for a sec... what does it say that he speaks out against the educational/professional training system, yet some of his paychecks come from one of the most prestigious institutions in that system, and is himself a product of that system? if it's such a threat to independent thought, why is he so mired in it?

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The new push in education is to make it more scripted. The federal and state governments are pushing for more standardized instruction. There are so many bureaucratic hurdles for teachers that the best experiences are difficult to create. I have had many awful teachers, but the worst were in college. There were so many droll people just spouting off their diatribe. Good teachers are people that encourage their students to direct their own learning toward similar goals.

 

I personally would like to see a world of free thinkers, and our system of education prevents this from happening as readily. Students are forced to conform to a set of rules, as are the teachers. The teachers are not to blame. It is the admistration and gorvernment that make school this way. Voters consistently make decisions that affect schools in my state. The voters are critical and at the same time want to cut funding. When all of this hipocrisy ends, there may be a time of great learning.

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Guest BROWNer

hows this for school....

in the states, and this is growing rapidly, they now

have private schools that you send your kid off to and

the idea is that the kid makes up his own mind what he'll

do that day. sort of free form schooling....at your own pace...

it may be just sitting around playing video games all day

or whatever. i saw this on 60 minutes or some shit.....

the selling point is that your kid learns better when its of

interest to them, not forced, and when its at their own pace.

wake up at 11 and go to school (if you want).

some of the kids attending the school hadn't learned how to

read yet...and they asked the parents what they thought,

and they just shrugged like it was no big deal..

 

i also just heard about military schooling. i'll leave it at that.

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Guest Ted Wakowski
Originally posted by EatMorGlue

 

but just to play devils advocate for a sec... what does it say that he speaks out against the educational/professional training system, yet some of his paychecks come from one of the most prestigious institutions in that system, and is himself a product of that system? if it's such a threat to independent thought, why is he so mired in it?

 

I've read Chomsky's response to this argument already. His belief on the issue is that in a democracy, educational institutions and government alike are in place to serve the will of the people, not the other way around. Resting upon that logic, it makes perfect sense that Chomsky promotes reform within a system he himself is a part of. Many of his stances would be entirely hypocritical if this were not the case.

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Guest Ted Wakowski

Our education system increasingly, and for the most part unwittingly, concerns itself with breeding future money-makers instead of REAL people. We're brought up with notions of succeeding in public school so we can go to college and get good, high paying jobs, have ourselves a cute family with 2-point-whatever kids, be nice little subservient Americans with no real concept of what it means to live, love and experience life. All we're really doing in the end is pumping more money into this super-power economy and supporting America's overflow into the rest of the world. $$ Ching ching $$.

 

Take what you need from school and leave a middle finger as your imprint.

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Originally posted by Ted Wakowski

Take what you need from school and leave a middle finger as your imprint.

 

that is exactly what i'm going to tell my kids, if (god forbid) i have any.

i'm trying to get it through my 9 year old brother's head that shool is just glorified babysitting if that's all he takes it for. after all, that's all the school sells it as...

i'm hoping he'll understand by the time he gets to middle school.

 

chomsky "ownz", etc.

:D

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Originally posted by Ted Wakowski

I've read Chomsky's response to this argument already. His belief on the issue is that in a democracy, educational institutions and government alike are in place to serve the will of the people, not the other way around. Resting upon that logic, it makes perfect sense that Chomsky promotes reform within a system he himself is a part of. Many of his stances would be entirely hypocritical if this were not the case.

 

fair enough.. i'll accept that. and your other post is on point too.

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i view schhol as a big waste of my life (mostly)... after pretty much dropping out of high school after my junior year, a friend talked me into going to a continuation type program at the local community college... that was great... the teachers (of the high school classes there) were really into having the students actually express themselves and most of the class time was spent with open discussions involving the whole class, not busy work... most of my school experience before that was filling out worksheets and shit... lame. it seems that in most public highschools are only there so kids can say they graduated... alot of the teachers are jaded and don't really care about the kids, they just want to be sure the kids can pass the tests and don't care about them beyond that... that is not to say there aren't great teachers out there who actually care and want to make a difference in kids lives, or to say that i haven't had some of these teachers...

 

the same applies to the first years of college... the classes in college that aren't part of the core education- or the transfer classes at a community college... the other classes are a lot different tho... most of these classes are only attended by people who are really interested in the subject, and the teacher knows this... these classes are a lot of fun...

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

Yay!! You guys are repeating what every young person has said about school since the beginning of the universe!! What a revolutionary bunch of bright minds you kids are!! I see the vast majority of you in 15 years telling your kids they have to do well in school to succeed.

 

Honestly, none of this is anything new. Regardless of what you think of school, the fact remains that it is responsible for giving you essential knowledge to manage yourself in this crazy fucking world. Obviously, calculus, Genghis Kahn, and the molecular structure of glucose is not essential knowledge... but discipline, patience, the ability to obtain information, ease of communication, etc. are. School trains you for these things, and has proven to be better at it than other methods. If in the end you feel like your only option is what Ted said, "get good, high paying jobs, have ourselves a cute family with 2-point-whatever kids, be nice little subservient Americans with no real concept of what it means to live, love and experience life", then YOU'RE the weakminded. I've gone through all levels of school and in no way feel like it lead me to see things that way.

 

Finally, to reiterate what someone said, just because he's a professor at MIT doesn't mean what he says holds more truth than anyone else's argument. I've worked with a couple of MIT professors before, and they are bright indeed... but they're complete fucking nutballs too. They're the kind of people who can solve the Schrodinger equation in their sleep, but who also go months without showering, eat ice cream with ketchup and mustard, and walk barefoot EVERYWHERE.

 

I'm not knocking on Noam, but what we have here is a case of a smart man justifying your hate of school and authority. "Hey, I hate school, they make me do things and I just want to go skate and smoke, yo... school is bullshit..." And then you read Noam and go "See, I TOLD you school is bullshit, man!!" Obviously you're gonna fucking side with him, cause he makes hating school seem reasonable... but the fact remains that you don't like school because you wanna go party when you have homework to do. Quit the fucking whining and take the heat. Beer,

 

El Mamerro

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Guest ctrl+alt+del

thats a book ill have to get. i always wondered who the hell noam chomsky was.

 

but

 

knowledge equals power. i go to school and will stay in school, so that i will have as much knowledge/power as possible. then i will take over the world. seriously, i plan on taking over America, at least. that really shouldnt be too hard.

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Originally posted by El Mamerro

 

I'm not knocking on Noam, but what we have here is a case of a smart man justifying your hate of school and authority. "Hey, I hate school, they make me do things and I just want to go skate and smoke, yo... school is bullshit..." And then you read Noam and go "See, I TOLD you school is bullshit, man!!" Obviously you're gonna fucking side with him, cause he makes hating school seem reasonable... but the fact remains that you don't like school because you wanna go party when you have homework to do. Quit the fucking whining and take the heat. Beer,

 

El Mamerro

 

 

yeah ok dad. i 'm not even gonna get into anything you said because it is sleep time.

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Guest uncle-boy
Originally posted by El Mamerro

I'm not knocking on Noam, but what we have here is a case of a smart man justifying your hate of school and authority. "Hey, I hate school, they make me do things and I just want to go skate and smoke, yo... school is bullshit..." And then you read Noam and go "See, I TOLD you school is bullshit, man!!" Obviously you're gonna fucking side with him, cause he makes hating school seem reasonable... but the fact remains that you don't like school because you wanna go party when you have homework to do. Quit the fucking whining and take the heat. Beer,

 

El Mamerro

 

word.

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Guest whoami
Originally posted by KING BLING

School primarily distracts you from experience. Most people dedicate the most important years of development to the most unimportant things if viewed from a step back. This is to stifle the growth of radical and individual ideas and questions by fostering the socially acceptable ones. When all of your peers accept something blindly, at 14, so do you.

I always wonder how they managed to get so many people to come down like a hammer everytime someone questions something that so many people hate anyway...

Their are positives from this, like girls today blowing you when you pull out you wang....
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Guest Ted Wakowski

Mamerro--

 

Dude, I respect your opinion based on other things I remember you writing on here but I have to disagree with a few of your points on a variety of levels.

 

Whether any anti-state-of-modern-american-education sentiment is new or not isn't the issue, it's whether it's relevant, which I personally think it is.

 

The viewpoint you express about school providing certain essentials is true -- it did provide me with a few specific essentials and I'm guessing you as well. The problem I personally see isn't with that area, it's with a lack of certain areas of useful eduation in place of others and the underlying ideas that float around those previously mentioned essentials and indirectly dictate the direction in life most Americans take.

No, we don't live in a society where you are FORCED by a government to make any life decisions. Instead, we're brought up to believe that certain directions are "best" for us and that straying from them will lead to failure or unhappiness. If I want to wash dishes for the rest of my life and spend the remaining portion of my time doing something I enjoy that isn't profitable then the majority or popular American view of my life would point to it as mundane. You may disagree with that statement, as you come across as though you hold a fairly liberal view of the state of most Americans' collective outlook (despite your objection to a better part of this thread) but I believe it's true. And I by the same token believe that the mirror notion of the perceived "success" of monetarily wealthy people who hold "good," high-paying jobs represents the same sort of bias towards money-making as a condition for societal approval. I maintain these beliefs based on the mentalities expressed by a majority of the people I've met while living in different cities from coast to coast in this country. People seem to be pigeon-holed into this train of thought that holds finishing American school in the highest level of importance, without really looking deeper into what purpose that school really serves.

 

Regardless of what you think of school, the fact remains that [school] is responsible for giving you essential knowledge to manage yourself in this crazy fucking world.

 

Hardly. It gives you the knowledge needed to go and get a job and barely much more.

 

A huge portion of the knowledge I've thus far acquired that I've found essential in managing myself I've had to learn the HARD way; things like dealing with relationships, being a good friend, detecting bullshit, having a true sense of morals, etc. All of these were learned largely on my own, through sometimes disasterous experiences of trial and error. My mother did her best in the time she had away from her job to instill a sense of reality and the prior values in me but those type of things take the kind of time to learn that a woman worried about 20 varieties of bills and a life of her own doesn't realistically have the opportunity to completely cover, even as a dedicated super-parent, which all parents surely aren't. She did her best as many parents do but in the end I still had no clue about a shitload of things.

There's a whole world of life lessons that schools could help kids understand if only they tried. For instance, why the fuck isn't there any curriculum in public schools about behavior and mutual respect in a relationship? It's something almost everyone goes through and almost everyone could use a lesson or two in. Sitting older kids down for a half-hour a day over a few of their formative years and at least providing some insight into properly respecting and treating their future spouse or love interest might do wonders for their future relationships, potentially limiting so much of the suffering that people go through during relationship struggles. Why aren't there middle- or high-school classes on how to deal with things like credit-card scams or buying a car? Why isn't there a class structure on the negative effects of racism or homophobia in society? Most say these are the types of things that need to be taught at home by parents, or learned out in the "real world." Fuck that. Those things should merit ten times the attention in school than bullshit classes like P.E. or fucking Woodshop. But they won't help you get a job and aren't considered essential in managing ones' self (even though they are) so schools don't fuck with them. As kids, we waste so much god-damn time in school focusing on some stupid career path that most of us forget why the fuck we're really there in the first place and end up going through the motions and just being glad when it's over with. I'm not saying kids will ever appreciate school while they're in it but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be a more well-rounded and realistic environment.

 

They're the kind of people who can solve the Schrodinger equation in their sleep, but who also go months without showering, eat ice cream with ketchup and mustard, and walk barefoot EVERYWHERE.

 

I personally don't see a damn thing wrong with any of the character traits you just pointed out. What you've just described are free thinking people who are operating outside of the spectrum of "normality" that has, to use an incredibly cliche and serious term, "brainwashed" modern American society. Ketchup and mustard? Barefoot everywhere? -- OH NO!! I'd rather kick it with heads like that than the recycled versions of each other that so fucking many americans have become in their unwitting quest for an apathetic mediocrity of self-expression & realization.

 

If in the end you feel like your only option is what Ted said, "get good, high paying jobs, have ourselves a cute family with 2-point-whatever kids, be nice little subservient Americans with no real concept of what it means to live, love and experience life", then YOU'RE the weakminded.

 

The real trick of American school (which I don't think is necessarily deliberate or being "masterminded" behind elusive closed doors or anything like that) is convincing students that they are in fact free to do whatever the fuck they want with their life when this is far from the underlying directive. Teachers preach democratic ideals of freedom and choice to kids but warn them of the "consequences" of not finishing school and going to college. High schools allow students to drop out but the "good jobs" so coveted by society keep seeking out those with more and more school experience. School credentials are increasingly glorified as the system follows its own increasing momentum. It just goes on and on.

 

I've gone through all levels of school and in no way feel like it lead me to see things that way.

 

You, Mamerro are a person whom I would say is much sharper than the average cookie-cutter (which, when looked at on a large scale and weighed out proportionately, puts you in a small category of people who are more self-aware than most) so you're seemingly pro-the-current-state-of-schools opinion on the matter (I say "seemingly" because I feel I could be wrong in assuming your stance based only on the above response) is fairly ineffective in regards to representing a greater whole. From what I've seen, most people are perfectly content assuming the direction they've been basically engineered for through their years of American schooling and typically don't even go so far as to ever SERIOUSLY question or even consider the personal necessity of that direction (beyond the whole "school sucks, I don't need it" shit most kids spit out at one time or another), which is fucking wack.

 

In the American education scheme, happiness is served up to us on a platter until it looks tasty and we eat it up, become fat off its contents then cook up a dish for our kids to eventually chow down on as well, rarely stopping to think about how much other food is out there to feast on and what effect our happiness is having on the rest of the world at large.

 

 

I'm ranting like a motherucker and I'll quit. No disrespect intended sir Mamerro, I just see things differently.

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school up until about 8th or 9th grade is ok.

it DOES provide you with general knowledge about shit, and makes you well rounded.

 

however, highschool=the bullshit.

 

high school should be a prep for college. it basically already is, but instead of being forced to go(whether it be by yr parents or society), it should be an option for the kids who want to go to college, and it should revolve around what kids want to do.

instead of having 3 years of redundant math, history and science, and then going to college, only having to repeat all that shit again.

im way too tired right now to finish my thoughts on this.

basically, i just hate school.

maybe in 20 days when im done, i'll stop caring.

 

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by EatMorGlue

 

 

but just to play devils advocate for a sec... what does it say that he speaks out against the educational/professional training system, yet some of his paychecks come from one of the most prestigious institutions in that system, and is himself a product of that system? if it's such a threat to independent thought, why is he so mired in it?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

college is a lot different than highschool, in that its a choice.

i see it as he speaks out against k-12, which is forced, standardized bullshit.

 

fucking hell im sleepy.

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To start Im chicano/Indian and was raised in the LA unified so I have a very jaded opinion of the school system. It basically is in place to recycle the status quo and create new robots to continue the cycle. Its sad, I do murals for the LA unified right now and I see such a difference in the quality of schools based on race and class, I ts quite sad.

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Originally posted by EatMorGlue

chomsky is definitely an important figure in dissident thought, and i agree with what he's saying here and respect him a great deal.

 

but just to play devils advocate for a sec... what does it say that he speaks out against the educational/professional training system, yet some of his paychecks come from one of the most prestigious institutions in that system, and is himself a product of that system? if it's such a threat to independent thought, why is he so mired in it?

 

Good point. But I think his challenge is more on the system of schooling, rather than education itself. Chomsky is an educated person, and with his ability to think analytically and critically, gives him the power to challenge the status quo or 'system', and therefore can try to better it. By being a teacher at an institution like MIT, he is at least able to try to better it from within.

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