Education Versus Indoctrination

Education is pure and simplistic. Indoctrination is impure and covert. A real educator knows the difference.

What is education?  It can encompass many things in preparation for a responsible life; and, in today’s world, a wider range of capabilities and possibilities. A real educator is capable of focusing on the responsibility of helping an individual develop the tools by which to function and think for themselves.  This involves the basics, e.g. reading, writing, and basic math.  Thereafter, an awareness of the history of their world and nation, the essentials of civil life in society.  Thereafter, specific interests, e.g. biology, chemistry, and so forth.

A real educator does not insert, directly or covertly, his/her personal religious, political, or sexual preferences into the agenda of the educational format.  In other words, a real educator provides the tools by which an individual has the ability to think and do for themselves in the real world they will live in.

There are many fine people within the educational system quite capable of being real educators.  However, as the system was incorporated into the federal government as an indoctrination tool, it is no longer a legitimate ‘educator’; and, has forced many to leave this admirable profession or submit to the devious agendas imposed upon them.

The old saying “every dog has its day” applies here.  The public school system, including colleges and universities, has had its day as indoctrination tools for the idiots who have been empowered to manage and dictate the principles of ‘education’.

Time For Options.

First, it is important to be aware that state and federal funding to public schools and advanced education is appropriated, for the most part, on a ‘per student’ basis.  In some states, it is also marginalized by attendance, per student per day.  In addition, it is important to be aware, in most states, a substantial portion of the public school revenue is from property and sales taxes within a given county or district.

In essence, the basics for funding feasible options for education already exist, and only need to be modified to fit the options.

Feasible options:

• The ‘in town’, local school. Whether a small town, a small city, or a large metropolitan area, the community school is an imperative in order to provide real education and reestablish a civil environment within the community. (This issue is addressed later in this commentary.)
• Small rural schools. The greater quality of education for children is undeniable when all ages of children are in the same proximity, within the same circumstances, as they are involved in the process of education.
• Network and homeschooling. In today’s world, it is totally feasible to obtain a comprehensive education at home.  The real issue here is ‘social adaptations and personality development’.  Any responsible parent will address this critical issue for their children.
• Charter schools. Many already exist.  Affordability is a factor.  A sincere approach to supplemental funding would appropriate tax revenue in a manner that directs funds on a ‘per pupil’ basis to the charter schools, not to ‘public schools’, as it now exists.
• Religious-based charter schools. Many already exist.  The same principle of diverting funds from taxation should apply.  There is a serious concern, well justified, that both charter schools and religious (church-based, for example) schools are also indoctrination systems.  Severe scrutiny should always be exercised to prevent this covert activity and maintain the ‘educational focus’.
• Trades and skills. No child should graduate from school without a trade or skill.  Virtual elimination of child labor laws and providing incentives for trades-people and the opportunity to tutor our youth in the trades, are essential to providing ‘life options’, ‘self-esteem’, and ‘work ethics’.  Real skills and trades are becoming an endangered species as entire generations have come to believe a job is a computer in a padded cubical.

Schools and Communities

It was in the 1960s that Governments, state and federal, began to persuade local school boards to abandon the local schools and form county and large district schools.  Most of the ‘persuasion’ was with threats to withdraw funding.  Also, the unrealistic and idealistic theory that it would reduce costs helped in the transition from community schools to consolidated schools.  Soon after, the education system became part of the federal government as The Department of Education.  All a part of the plan to manage and micro-manage the minds of our posterities.

Most people will not allow themselves to admit to this social and economic disaster.  The economics are a compounded burden on public budgets but the real impact is on the personal family.  Busing is a huge cost shuffling children around the countryside and many children spend hours a day riding a bus, leaving home while it’s still dark, and getting home after dark.  As families oblige school activities they find they pay more in travel expenses for these events and obligations than they do in school taxes.   The busing costs and family travel costs are a huge burden on families and public consolidated schools.  This is not to mention the fuel consumption alone, as we hypocritically concern ourselves with pollution and natural resources.

The core demise:  Regardless of the economic consequences of these devious approaches to ‘education’, the real cancer that has eaten away at our society is this one fact:  It has taken children out of the community and the sense of community out of the children.

If you were fortunate enough to grow up before the consolidation of schools (and other public socialist programs, such as HUD) you can more vividly acknowledge the substance of this commentary.  You cared what the teachers and merchants and town constable thought about you.  They knew you and cared about what you did and will become.  Most of us can recall a storekeeper holding us by the shirt collar while on the phone telling our father what we had done.  It wasn’t pleasant but worthwhile.  People cared.  Thus, we cared.

Regardless of our home/domestic situations and struggles, the sense of ‘community’ and oversight/mentoring we received within the community made all the difference in what we valued and what we did in life.

Summation:

The devil and the angel are always in the details.  Ultimately, our children, our posterities, are ours and our responsibilities.  They do not belong to a government.  They do not belong to any specific agenda focused on indoctrinating them or keeping them dependent and helpless servants of an elite bureaucracy.  A mature and honorably focused principle of ‘education’, and the skills and trades and values of civility it produces, is the number one priority of every generation.  All other issues are distractions from the continuity a society, a nation, requires for its continuance.

Clay (The Universal Infidel)