The problems with mass education today

The problem with mass education today is that it was designed for the world as it was some 150 years ago. The FEW instustrial barones did not require intellectuals who can oppose the dictated statusquo; the industrial barones required submissive workers - brainless machines that simply can clock-in and clock-out.

Today the world is different. All industries cry out for creative, independent thinkers. How to find them when the creativity and independence have been delibertaley removed from them starting at the age of 5 in kindergarten!

History textbooks offer an ideal example to illustrate this phenomenon. History textbooks are stuffed with carefully selected "facts", dates, names, etc. What is deemed historical knowledge is memorizing the carefully selected "facts", dates and names.  Thinking about the evolution of ideas, the historical processes and development of social movements is NOT the scope of education. Why? If children learn to question and marvel at the ingenuity of the big stirrers of history they can see the weakess of the societies they live in. This is trouble which even the government of the free does not want to encounter on a large scale. The history lessons become lessons in memorization not lessons in building character and critical-thinking.

Thus, when in January my daughter came home with a "workbook" activity on Martin Luther King, Jr., a celebrated american hero, I decided that it is my duty to show her the dark side of history.

1. We started with reading about the Declaration of Independece - how it came about, how it was defended, what messages it contained, and how daring of a document it was, and yet how weak in its assumptions it was. 
2. We started to reflect on the prejudices of the "founding fathers" by reading about Lincoln and reflecting on slavery and the Civil War. I pointed out that the Emancipation Proclamation was in fact a demonstration of inequality and not a demonstration of freedom. Quite a strange concept for little children provided its premise. Hard lessons are embedded in history.  
3. We touched on the inequal treatment of other groups, women in particular. They won their right to vote through a long campaign. 
4. We are now focusing on the inequalities and denied freedoms of immigrants.
   
   We started with an excellent book "Separate is never equal" which discusses school segragation in the 40s in California based on ethnicity and appearance. Many other themes are alluded to as well: the unequal treatment of veterans due to ethnicity and appearance,  inaccessible schooling due to ethnicity and appearance. All by design, for a reason. When children think of segregation they zoom immediately to the south which is a biased fostered dangerously in our schooling system, to keep the ethnic groups at odds with one another, and the government in power. So, it is important for me to introduce segragation as a general, and far-reaching movement, by design and for a purpose. 
5. We will tackle the segregation in the south as well, soon, again with a picture book. 
6. Then we will read about Rosa Parks. 

Why Rosa Parks? Didn't you start with MLK? Indeed. As I explained to my daughter one day,



MLK was just a representative of a movement which he neither started, nor fueled. He was well connected because as a pastor he was well travelled. He happened to be at the right place at the time when the long-lasting movement of the masses for equal civil rights had grown strong enough to pose danger to the government. The government needed to make peace and MLK was the link they clung to. MLK was nothing more than a representative for a movement that has been growing for decades and that was fueled by the educated among the blacks. No wonder education and independent thinking is feared and was feared. So, yes, I am talking about the actual people who made the civil rights movement possible-mentioning George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges. To ensure that my daughter understood how insignificant MLK was, I told her that he did not do as he preached (nope, his infidelities with prostitutes are not in the textbook, and are not in my daugther's head but a close approximation is).

So, a movement is not a person. A movement is as implied by the root of the word a process and should be treated and represented as such, not lessened by the scope of one man's achievement or ambition. I will go back to immigration because while the creative juices of this country are mainly imported (Steve Jobs, anyone?), immigrants are mistreated for their ethnicity, appearance, customs and accent. In fact, it is often the immigrants themselves who treat each other nastily following the presumption "if I suffered to make it, you will suffer too. no silver platters, buddy.". If you are familiar with the medical field, you can understand how closely related these mentalities are.

Overall, my goal is to show my children that

• we live in a free but imperfect country
• they must know their rights
• they must speak for their rights without fear
• they must question everything and its purpose
• a movement is not a person, but the collective small and large efforts over a period of time of many individuals
• education is power and freedom 

We should not forget about poverty and unequal treatment for people whose financial means are small. So, this powerful little book, will show up again, long before a related Christmas discussion.

We are also reading the Jumgle book which I have never read and which fits perfectly in our work through the injustices of the free world. The jungle is a free world, with laws, but one needs to be educated and guided in order to navigate that space safely and independently. Perfect fit.

Books that go very well with the Jungle book readings are

Jasper's Story-the story of the efforts to save moon bears in Asia. Wonderful story of survival. Inspirational story about our responsibilities to all living creatures.

Wolves is well written as aare most Gibbon's books. It omits some interesting facts about wolves and includes drawings rather than actual pictures of the animals. In order to overcome this I also included in our reading the "The Life cycle of wolves". Both books are accessible to elementary school children and I recommend them

Let's read and find out Rainforest. This is a fairly simple book but we have covered rainforests in detail before. This book served as a very pretty reminder about where the story takes place.

We are also talking about the election processes, another fine example of the imperfections of our democracy. There are fine pieces of literature which help children navigate this new jungle.

Some of our favoties are displayed below.

The government wants people to be fearful. The funniest is that people are willing to fear things they actually want and accept. While this is not a political blog, the theme is, so I will offer by five cents on the topic of the all-so-feared democratic socialism. If you lose your job and want the government to help you out for a while until you get on your feet; if you lose your money on the market and want the government to help you for a bit until you get on your feet; if you cannot pay a doctor and want someone to cover that cost for free, you are using and abusing the social system. If you are benefiting from it, let others do too, even at a higher cost at the time of their need, because at the time of your need it was a higher cost to them.