When a factory worker on the assembly line, notices that the product is coming out defective, she knows that there is something wrong with the machine that produced it. The general chain of command is that she conveys this information to the foreman who in turn gets the machine repaired immediately. When time and time again, the machine produces poor products, then management knows that the old machine has begun to deteriorate and a new machine is in order. Rather than pouring huge amounts of money into an obsolete machine, management buys a more efficient one.
And what happens to unique solutions and ideas that might solve our dilemma? Take a look at the Montessori and Steiner schools of Europe. These schools have a totally unique format than the public schools. There is an air of freedom, expression, creativity, intuition, exploration, and self-actualization that is encouraged. HOWEVER, with any new educational idea that comes to our shores, it is leveled to the public school playing field through state and federal mandates and regulations, like the mandatory attendance laws and the curriculum mandates. These schools then become glorified public schools. The laws do not allow the creative genius of a new paradigm to be incorporated here. Nothing new is ever going to happen in America with education until the laws are eliminated. (Laws that are numerous and clouded in rhetoric that the average citizen cannot understand.)
And jargon and rhetoric are the keynote in education. In order to keep the mystery and control alive in our public schools, administrators have created a vocabulary and foreign language only THEY can understand. Because of the vast numbers of youths coming through the doors with a variety of backgrounds, education has become a “control” issue. In order to control the multitudes, one needs a means. The means is not unlike cattle being tagged for identification. Our children are labeled in a language obscure to parents. They are “LD- learning disabled, ED- emotionally disturbed, TR- trainable, ADD- attention deficit disordered”, and only the administrators know the definition of these labels. We label our children by the negative characteristics they display not their positive ones. Our children would have a different view if they were instead labeled- mechanically inclined, musically talented, artistically motivated. Oh! But we do have the “gifted”. This, is a misnomer to mean more work not a higher quality of work or more challenging work.
It is a known fact in physics that in a scientific experiment, the observer can create the outcome by merely “thinking” it. With this in mind, can we think a child into these negative labels? Suppose a child is mislabeled ADD and in fact, is found to have a hyperactive disposition because of the sugar intake in his diet. What happens to this child who is labeled ADD?
The first step is placing him on Ritalin. This is an addictive drug. According to a New England Journal of Medicine in a report on ADD, Ritalin does not help children after the age of 12 and in fact, has detrimental effects. The educational system in collusion with the medical establishment have now created a child addictive to drugs, damaged in mental development for the rest of his life all because he needed to restrict sugar from his diet. But professionals do not investigate deeper alternatives. They look for quick and easier management controls.
Suppose your child has a “problem” at school. Standard procedure is that you come in for a parent conference – with a school staff that will typically out number you by at least 4 to 1. This is the process called intimidation. This is to “control” the parent’s behavior into believing that the child and the parents are somehow at fault- NEVER the school. You are then told that your child is somehow defective (not the teacher, curriculum or school). Therefore, you and your family are advised to seek professional advice- at your expense- to get your child checked in order to rule out mental, emotional, physical, intellectual and social damage. You and your family are always the problem. This is the absolute control we have allowed the schools over us. The amount of time, energy, money and lost time spent away from work you will use to attend meeting after meeting to determine the best method to correct your defective child is ludicrous. Do you think our uneducated factory worker at ConAgra would even consider that the defective product on the assembly line is at fault?
What about the education YOU had? When was the last time you had to speak a foreign language (2 year’s mandatory in high school and college) or did a physics experiment or did a problem in algebra? Can you name all 50 states and their capitals? Can you list all of the countries of Europe or name the new Russian States? The absurd curriculum in schools is not reality based in a world where data like this is housed and accessed on the Internet instantly. Why are we asking children to clutter their minds with such insignificant details when most cannot balance a checkbook and the average grade level to read the newspaper is the 5TH?
The textbooks in schools are obsolete before they are purchased because from the time of conception until the time it reaches the hands of the student takes 10 years! In the age of information, that is absurd! Besides, what school system can purchase new texts every year? The key to the information age is accessing information not learning little bits and pieces of outdated information.
Superintendents think that perhaps the key was in teachers selecting the curriculum. How can teachers make informed choices about something they know nothing about? How many teachers have been schooled in the methods of the Democratic schools, the Free schools of Europe, or the Montessori or Waldorf schools? How many have ever heard of the circular system of math developed in Australia? These are not part of the curriculum during teacher training. Student teachers learn more of what they already know in these training classes. How can they be expected to do anything different?
Our factory worker would laugh at the fact that we are pouring billions and trillions of dollars every year into a machine that is producing a more inferior product every year.
Rather than accept its own inadequacies, educational institutions keep putting the blame on children, their parents and society, the products, but never the machine itself. The framework and structure of the current model cannot and will not ever lead to the development of whole child learning. You cannot put a Band-Aid on a severed arm. This is the condition of the current model. It must be eliminated completely for education to be effective, efficient and meaningful. You cannot expect a machine, which produces buttons to have some screws and bolts changed in order to make pencils. The same is true for education. It is time to look at education from a different perspective. If businesses were operated like schools, the nation would be bankrupt.