RE: The Education System Works!
An excerpt from my book, "The Most Dangerous Superstition":
Year after year, students live in a world in which:
• They receive approval, praise and reward for being where "authority" tells them to be, when "authority" tells them to be there. They receive disapproval, reproach and punishment for being anywhere else. (This includes the fact that they are coerced into being in school to begin with.)
• They receive approval, praise and reward for doing what "authority" tells them to do. They receive disapproval, reproach and punishment for doing anything else, or for failing to do what "authority" tells them to do.
• They receive approval, praise and reward for speaking when and how "authority" tells them to speak, and receive disapproval, reproach and punishment for speaking
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at any other time, in any other way, or about any subject other than what "authority" tells them to speak about, or for failing to speak when "authority" tells them to speak.
• They receive approval, praise and reward for repeating back whatever ideas the "authority" declares to be true and important, and receive disapproval, reproach and punishment for disagreeing, verbally or on a written test, with the opinions of those claiming to be "authority," or for thinking or writing about subjects other than what "authority" tells them to think or write about.
• They receive approval, praise and reward for immediately telling "authority" about any problems or personal conflicts they encounter, and receive disapproval, reproach and punishment for trying to solve any problems or settle any disagreements on their own.
• They receive approval, praise and reward for complying with whatever rules, however arbitrary, "authority" decides to impose upon them. They receive disappro- val, reproach and punishment for disobeying any such rules. These rules can be about almost anything, including what clothes to wear, what hairstyles to have, what facial expression to have, how to sit in a chair, what to have on a desk, what direction to face, and what words to use.
• They receive approval, praise and reward for telling the "authority" when another student has disobeyed "the rules," and receive disapproval, reproach and punish- ment for failing to do so.
The students clearly and immediately see that, in their world, there are two distinct classes of people, masters ("teachers") and subjects ("students"), and that the rules of proper behavior are drastically different for the two groups. The masters constantly do things that they tell the subjects not to do: boss people around, control others via threats, take property from others, etc. This constant and obvious double standard teaches the subjects that there is a very different standard of morality for the masters than there is for the subjects. The subjects must do whatever the masters tell them to, and only what the masters tell them to, while the masters can do pretty much anything they want.