How did public school indocrinate you to become a sheep
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I think the school system is just OK. I think you can learn the basics of navigating life outside of a school system but there's an undeniable social aspect that comes into play. I hope I don't have to enter my children into the public school system and can homeschool them myself.
You learn basics like spelling and math equations but you don't learn how to balance a budget or cook meals or how to survive in the real world. School drives you further inside your head so that you can collect more credentials on paper that you have to pay for with paper. If that is what is most important to you in life, that's good. If you want to learn how to make it outside of that system, good luck.
Fact is that school can help you organize things into neat little boxes and lines. It's something to do because we can.
You learn basics like spelling and math equations but you don't learn how to balance a budget or cook meals or how to survive in the real world. School drives you further inside your head so that you can collect more credentials on paper that you have to pay for with paper. If that is what is most important to you in life, that's good. If you want to learn how to make it outside of that system, good luck.
Fact is that school can help you organize things into neat little boxes and lines. It's something to do because we can.
If I had school age children today I think I would do a combination of home schooling, public, and private school, which is entirely possible if you know how to navigate the system. Home schooling would allow me teach my children what I believe is important, public school will teach them how to survive in the world they have to live in, and private school can offer them a different perspective about education than just what I can teach them.
When I was in school there was so much focus on rote memorization of individual facts and we were rarely ever given any greater context from which to start building an actual foundation of knowledge about how the real world actually works. That and I remember that they were just really obsessed with telling us that sex and drugs are bad mmkay.
Public school taught me how to give a mean left hook, how to fix a carburetor, and how to do shady things without getting caught. Nothing in this involved becoming a sheep... it taught me how shitty the world can be and what you have to do to survive it.
I don't think this thread is about arguing about the positive or necessities. It's about the other side of the coin, the not always so great effects of public education. Anyone could just as easily discuss the positives, but since this thread is about the other side, that's what I mentioned.
A lot of the things that we learn in school are useful...
However, it ties into the bigger picture: we are forced to learn the knowledge that is viewed as valuable and useful by those in power
Public education is also a handy way of feeding susceptible youth a hegemonic discourse: we are taught what to value and frameworks for thinking BEFORE we are taught to critically analyze where what we are taught comes from and why--thus the public education system (as a part within the larger society) enables manipulation
I agree math and spelling are important, but after that I felt it got pretty pointless for me as I hardly remember most of it anyway. Qhich probably isnt a bad thing, i mean noahs ark is is taught as a part of history in texas.
Itd be cool if kids had more say in the matter of what they'd like to learn before they get to college level, and if were gonna keep the memorize, recite, repeat pattern then I'd vote for shortening how long it takes before you're deemedgood enough so you can move on to the next phase of life.
Itd be cool if kids had more say in the matter of what they'd like to learn before they get to college level, and if were gonna keep the memorize, recite, repeat pattern then I'd vote for shortening how long it takes before you're deemedgood enough so you can move on to the next phase of life.
...yeah, I think people who say those rather extreme things about public school give it more power than it actually has, and children really learn more things in the context of their families, peer group, extracurricular activities, etc. than they do at school. Not that it's always awful, a good TEACHER in a public school can teach kids a lot. It's more about the teacher and the family environment, really, than the system itself, though that's imperfect.
(So I'm pretty much hopping on the "life indoctrinates you" school of thought.)
Most of us probably did some form of extracurricular activities where we learned things, no? Did you go to some form of church growing up? Yes? Probably learned something there. Jobs/apprenticeships teach you things. I'm teaching my children to cook at home, per their request, so they also learn things at home. They have participated in science camps and sports teams and have gone to museums and zoos, they learn to take care of pets, they read books and if they show an interest in a subject I try to give them opportunities to learn more about that subject. And we were just discussing "journalistic bias" at dinner the other night. Unfortunately, you cant expect to simply hand a child over to a public school or any other type of school, and do nothing else with them, and call that education. And it requires effort and inspiration and curiousity on the part of the child.
So they'll have to blame me if they turn into sheep when they're grown up.
(So I'm pretty much hopping on the "life indoctrinates you" school of thought.)
Most of us probably did some form of extracurricular activities where we learned things, no? Did you go to some form of church growing up? Yes? Probably learned something there. Jobs/apprenticeships teach you things. I'm teaching my children to cook at home, per their request, so they also learn things at home. They have participated in science camps and sports teams and have gone to museums and zoos, they learn to take care of pets, they read books and if they show an interest in a subject I try to give them opportunities to learn more about that subject. And we were just discussing "journalistic bias" at dinner the other night. Unfortunately, you cant expect to simply hand a child over to a public school or any other type of school, and do nothing else with them, and call that education. And it requires effort and inspiration and curiousity on the part of the child.
So they'll have to blame me if they turn into sheep when they're grown up.
I don't think the majority of students actually care about or really believe in what they're learning, it's just something they do because they're afraid of being a failure when they grow up (while some of them have already accepted that fate and don't try). It would take a really charismatic teacher to actually indoctrinate someone, but even then, they would have to compete with youtube and wikipedia (AKA the ultimate sources of truth in the world), and that's not easy.
That's indoctrination. In this case enabled by the students you're talking about as well.
If they don't care, and believe they just have to, then they aren't likely to question or think about it critically. They just soak it in.
If it's only from fear of failure then that is the most effective indoctrination - one that they don't even know is happening. They just get caught up in the current like a leaf on a river.
not in my experience either.
actually public school (kindergarten to gr 8) was a great period of my life. it was during that time that i realized my potential both academically and artistically. i was encouraged by my teachers even though my parents were total fuckoffs and did nothing to nurture or even acknowledge any talent or ability.
But they're not 'soaking it in'... they're just dealing with it in order to get what they want. Just because people are apathetic about getting what they really want, it doesn't mean that they're completely sold on the way that things are.
It's amazing how everyone seems to think that everyone else is 'indoctrinated' or a 'sheep' while not applying the term to themselves... and it's especially ironic considering young people are more likely to be hyper-critical of pretty much everything than any other generation before them. I would say that they even go overboard sometimes... to the extent that just interacting with groups of people is a threat to their personal integrity.
I'd have a hard time believing anyone who suggested we live in an age of total conformity-- it's pretty much the exact opposite.
Indoctrination has nothing to do with being sold on anything. You just described the concept of a sheep. In this context what do you think a sheep does? Imagine the connotation of sheep milling around in a flock in the pen. They just want their food, and their safety. They do what they do to get what they want, obliviously, without being sold on anything.
If they know the grass is in the trough, they comply with that and eat there. If the big sheep dog is over here, they move the other way, not concerned with where they are going or why.
This contradicts what you stated above.
But... isn't that what all animals do? Don't wolves also simply just want their food, and their safety? Wolves also do what they do to get what they want, obliviously, without being sold on anything? They just want to eat sheep, or whatever it is they can prey on, to survive.
I mean, why hate on sheep? They're just doing their thing like all animals.
Maybe it is only humans who get "sold" on things and make laws and ideologies and political parties and words and arguments and debates and over-complicated things and bother to think "WHY am I doing this?" Or "Oh dear God, why am I being forced to learn calculus in public school, because it is simply institutionalized torment."
I don't know of any other animals that do this, do you? I think it is kind of cool that we even ask why we do these things, and how we can do them better.
I mean, why hate on sheep? They're just doing their thing like all animals.
Maybe it is only humans who get "sold" on things and make laws and ideologies and political parties and words and arguments and debates and over-complicated things and bother to think "WHY am I doing this?" Or "Oh dear God, why am I being forced to learn calculus in public school, because it is simply institutionalized torment."
I don't know of any other animals that do this, do you? I think it is kind of cool that we even ask why we do these things, and how we can do them better.
Who is hating? That's how things are, without subjective value judgments.
The trick is when things go bad, where people believe they are fully autonomous islands and as a result start questioning the state of their lives, why things suck, why they aren't happy, when all along they've either been somehow acquiescent with what they come to learn is detrimental, or have been taught detrimental values.