Grandola Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 i think this was interesting and i thought i'd share: (from: http://www.thememoryhole.org/edu/school-mission.htm) ----------- It's no secret that the US educational system doesn't do a very good job. Like clockwork, studies show that America's schoolkids lag behind their peers in pretty much every industrialized nation. We hear shocking statistics about the percentage of high-school seniors who can't find the US on an unmarked map of the world or who don't know who Abraham Lincoln was. Fingers are pointed at various aspects of the schooling system—overcrowded classrooms, lack of funding, teachers who can't pass competency exams in their fields, etc. But these are just secondary problems. Even if they were cleared up, schools would still suck. Why? Because they were designed to. How can I make such a bold statement? How do I know why America's public school system was designed the way it was (age-segregated, six to eight 50-minute classes in a row announced by Pavlovian bells, emphasis on rote memorization, lorded over by unquestionable authority figures, etc.)? Because the men who designed, funded, and implemented America's formal educational system in the late 1800s and early 1900s wrote about what they were doing. Almost all of these books, articles, and reports are out of print and hard to obtain. Luckily for us, John Taylor Gatto tracked them down. Gatto was voted the New York City Teacher of the Year three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991. But he became disillusioned with schools—the way they enforce conformity, the way they kill the natural creativity, inquisitiveness, and love of learning that every little child has at the beginning. So he began to dig into terra incognita, the roots of America's educational system. In 1888, the Senate Committee on Education was getting jittery about the localized, non-standardized, non-mandatory form of education that was actually teaching children to read at advanced levels, to comprehend history, and, egads, to think for themselves. The committee's report stated, "We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes." By the turn of the century, America's new educrats were pushing a new form of schooling with a new mission (and it wasn't to teach). The famous philosopher and educator John Dewey wrote in 1897: Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In his 1905 dissertation for Columbia Teachers College, Elwood Cubberly—the future Dean of Education at Stanford—wrote that schools should be factories "in which raw products, children, are to be shaped and formed into finished products...manufactured like nails, and the specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry." The next year, the Rockefeller Education Board—which funded the creation of numerous public schools—issued a statement which read in part: In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way. At the same time, William Torrey Harris, US Commissioner of Education from 1889 to 1906, wrote: Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual. In that same book, The Philosophy of Education, Harris also revealed: The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places.... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world. Several years later, President Woodrow Wilson would echo these sentiments in a speech to businessmen: We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. Writes Gatto: "Another major architect of standardized testing, H.H. Goddard, said in his book Human Efficiency (1920) that government schooling was about 'the perfect organization of the hive.'" While President of Harvard from 1933 to 1953, James Bryant Conant wrote that the change to a forced, rigid, potential-destroying educational system had been demanded by "certain industrialists and the innovative who were altering the nature of the industrial process." In other words, the captains of industry and government explicitly wanted an educational system that would maintain social order by teaching us just enough to get by but not enough so that we could think for ourselves, question the sociopolitical order, or communicate articulately. We were to become good worker-drones, with a razor-thin slice of the population—mainly the children of the captains of industry and government—to rise to the level where they could continue running things. This was the openly admitted blueprint for the public schooling system, a blueprint which remains unchanged to this day. Although the true reasons behind it aren't often publicly expressed, they're apparently still known within education circles. Clinical psychologist Bruce E. Levine wrote in 2001: I once consulted with a teacher of an extremely bright eight-year-old boy labeled with oppositional defiant disorder. I suggested that perhaps the boy didn't have a disease, but was just bored. His teacher, a pleasant woman, agreed with me. However, she added, "They told us at the state conference that our job is to get them ready for the work world…that the children have to get used to not being stimulated all the time or they will lose their jobs in the real world." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daze One Million Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 that shit is crazy...schools designed to not educate, but i dunno that may have been its original purpose but nowadays it seems that they are doing what they are supposed to be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Quickwood Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 The committee's report stated, "We believe that education is one of the principal causes of discontent of late years manifesting itself among the laboring classes." id like to beleive it, but then i read this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KING BLING Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 Originally posted by ARCEL id like to beleive it, but then i read this what do you mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
space base Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 Read "Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Quickwood Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 i dont know, it just seems made up. mabey im wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.highborn Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 i didnt read the whole thing but dont beleive everything u hear..america does have a shithouse education system i know but y would they do that on purpose? surely they want as many educated people as possible because is advnaces society and in turn the economy ....damn hippies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kettiecat Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 Why should it be up to the schools to inspire people to seek knowledge? Schools should teach kids basic skills and basic knowledge. They aren't factories they can't produce perfect people. Becoming a well rounded, motivated, knowledgable person is and should be the responsiblity of the individual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BROWNer Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 Originally posted by space base Read "Silent Weapons For Quiet Wars." no, read "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Friere instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sneak Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 classic marxist theories.. marx thought that the educational sytem had links with capitalism. this was because the education system provides the bourgouise (ruling class) with a docile, passive workforce who would then be content with working well. the general idea was that the proletariat (working class) would be happy and content with their status in life, and then not to try and overthrow the ruling class (ala the russian revolution). he even tried to bring women into this, by saying that the role a woman / wife should play is that they should be servents to their men (eg, sexual, cleaning, cooking etc). again the basic idea was that if a man came home from a hard day at work and his wife had cooked him a meal, ironed his shirts etc and was prepared for sexual encounters., then the man would be content and happy enough to return to work the next day a happy man. and everyone knows a happy workforce is a better more productive workforce... *sorry if the length is too long for some of you uneducated cunts* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
effyoo Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 See 1984. Author: George Orwell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villain Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 How very true. The establishment is scared of change. And growth and progress is change. Anyone interested in forming a new Whig party? We can wear those funny white george washington wigs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i11igul Posted July 17, 2003 Share Posted July 17, 2003 i go to an a+ school and im still bored, been bored since day one, god i hate school and have to go back aug. 4, dam thats only 3 weeks away Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaBar2 Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 I don't doubt that what is written here about the Public School System and Dewey and all the rest of them is 100% true. Bottom line, though, the problem with education is that too many students just don't give a fuck. They are happy being ignorant and uneducated, and think that whatever silly-ass amusing diversions they can find are more important and more enjoyable than actually learning something worthwhile. The average student in the U.S. is focused on everything in the world except going to school. We are creating a nation of people whose principal contribution to the world is going to be aggression and anomie. I used to think that somehow or another it would all work out for the best, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
effyoo Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 A nation of proles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyuzo Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 They're afraid of the REVOLUTION! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
space base Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 Originally posted by BROWNer no, read "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Friere instead. Why should they read that instead, why shouldn't they read both? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest willy.wonka Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 i think i have taken a lot of shit from the school shitstem..i would complain that this class isnt doing this/teaching any of us.. first you are born, then you go to pre-school, then you go to kindergarden..then off to elementary for social behavior classes, then jr high..what the fuck is jr high?highschool is gonna tell you that you need ot get good grades to go to a good school, you go to that good school and and after that you become a doctor nad send your kids to school, hoping that rebellion will not fuck with thier fucked fate. recycle cycle recycle..this girl and i were talking about this on the way to the beach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Father John Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 kids learn if they want to.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Quickwood Posted July 18, 2003 Share Posted July 18, 2003 i homeschooled from 1st grade to the 5th... i guess i would be a different person if i had gone to school Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonik3000 Posted August 5, 2003 Share Posted August 5, 2003 i'm inclined to go with kabar and whoever it was said kids learn if they want to. motivation and drive are what it takes to enjoy life, not just school. to whoever suggested pedagogy of the oppressed - do you want me to rip it to shreds or just kiss my teeth at ya? don't get me started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serum Posted August 5, 2003 Share Posted August 5, 2003 in terms of the american school system compared with the japanese school system you'd be shocked to see differences. american schools systems i'm sure have alot of room for improvement but in japan kids are borderline retarded. sorry to be so blunt but it's true. it's not their fault, i feel its a failure in the culture's ability to adapt to change. kids run around the room, beat the shit out of each other, put fingers up the teachers asshole, beat the shit out of the teachers and recieve no discipline. they study english from a book which level is so high that i bet only 15% of the members on this board would be able to understand. they have tests weekly yet can't speak english worth shit. its a testing society without any common sense. example : a man went to school for 10 years, he works long hours, he wears a surgical mask, he works at a hospital. whats his job? hopefully you would say he is a doctor. 90% of japanese students got this question wrong or just didnt answer it. teachers are often wrong in what they teach and students aren't allowed to ask questions, nor get anything wrong without being called stupid. america has it good and people should find ways to make it better not sit around bitching about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Green Posted August 5, 2003 Share Posted August 5, 2003 sonik whats wrong with paolo freire? i havent read pedagogy of the oppressed but ive read pedagogy of hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BROWNer Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 yea, sonik, i would love to hear your thing on friere/oppressed. rip it to shreds, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Quickwood Posted August 6, 2003 Share Posted August 6, 2003 Originally posted by serum put fingers up the teachers asshole hahahahahahahahahha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serum Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 arcel the japanese name for that is a koncho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satrdae Posted August 11, 2003 Share Posted August 11, 2003 bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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