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Robot Rebellion
23rd April 2003, 04:04
There is so much wrong with our schools...

Starting at a kindergarten (from the perspective of drones stuck in sector US), we get to face the mind numbing schedule of juice time, nap time, music time, snack time, recess time, and other activities that the kids don't need or could get on their own.

Going on in grade school, we get to learn about the exiting world of 'teamwork', having a 'positive attitude', 'how to set goals', and other barfy-warfy coreless labels. You sacrifice some trees to make some pointless paper projects to add decorations to your desk. With gym classes you waste most of your time doing pointless exercises that you could have done without an instructor. In 'music' class they persuade you music is all bad, by exposing you to **shudder** the likes of Raffi, and other dumbening agents. History is a joke, where it emphasis’s hierarchy, dates, labels, fear, idol worship, and ignorance. Told from the perspective of the conquerors, and rulers of the status quo, it no wonder kids find these classes dreadful to sit through. Art class is a joke, as you pay a teacher to draw and create junk on your own. Math can only be taught to oneself, to which the teacher doesn't add too much to the text book. Higher level math is taught to give math majors jobs, and not to act as a means to an end. As an end unto itself, we are inundated with that which we could have learned on our own, when we needed it. Let's be honest, folks... Do we need to devote so much of our time to balancing equations? Proofs? It is pointless busy work, as calculators already provide this capacity, and means to come up with such without calculators can be sought out/created as needed. I always here from engineers and computer science majors how they never use math on the job site. Reading class exposes you to the flawed taste of your teacher. Why should I have to suffer through the likes of **shudder** Black Beauty, when I could and do read on my own? It's so stupid... Band is filled with kids forced by their parents to play an instrument, playing god awful music (that could be accomplished without an institution), and participating in the chief mind-numbing hierarchical nonsense of them all, marching band.

The truth about the education system came out, when the school board got complaints from irate soccer-moms who when school gets cancelled due to snow storms, complain about finding somebody to take care of the kids. Sigh, what we really have is an exorbitantly expensive daycare system...

Going on, we have the likes of economics (a joke). Where an inherently subjective science is taught as objective from the capitalistic/statist perspective. No longer is there political-economics, but just economics. The drone that gets paid to regurgitate this statist nonsense does so because this is how he was taught, and whoever pays the piper chooses the tune... Property is a given. Nobody questions the origins of wealth, but once you have it this determines future wealth... From there 'supply and demand' states the those with supply must extract the highest wealth from those who demand for the best economy. Such an important class that is filled with empty labels, pointless mathematical graphs, and ultimately lies...

Much of school is devoted to non-teaching functions. Eating in milk breaks and lunch (where if the institution were efficient kids would be out in time without a need for lunch), subsidized corporate slop filled with toxins. Much time is wasted here, to which it essentially social time for the kiddies. A lot of resources are wasted on infrastructure, with million dollar expansions, to make space for more hoop jumping classes, expansive offices, and to ensure a 10 pupil to teacher ratio (necessary to get extra money from government, even though the classes are taught in lecture mode.) So much resources are wasted on sports, it's not even funny. I don't care for school spirit, and if you want to show everybody you are the champions, go organize without subsidies from the working class. (How on earth did this ever get mixed in with education?) Much resources are wasted on administrative paper pushes (who earn the most). An elaborate bus system is also needed to shuttle kiddies to their favorite cattle yards. Morning bus has a high standard deviation, which means you waste lots of time waiting, and worrying if you miss the bus. Once you get out of the squirrel factory, you have to wait for the stupid bus to arrive (in my case on average 45 minutes after school close, I kid you not). No fun when it is freezing out...

The teachers are the worse part. Know-it-alls, that are the dumbest in all of society. Chosen because of networking and the buddy system. That or your English teacher can coach baseball... (more evils of sports) I attend a university with a big education school, to which doesn't really attract the best and brightest. I've seen the courses they are required to take, and they are a joke. Teachers are prime example of what the French say: 'Knowledge is as jelly, the less you have of it, the more you spread it around.'

College is a joke. Essentially a networking hub, where kids go to party, get drunk, and establish job connections. Much is inefficiently taught, or just flat out wrong. The courses are fluff, and are ends unto themselves, not means to an end. Everything is a part of pre-requisite tree, where the only way they can get the students to take a course is that is needed for another need course. Pretty soon you have a long string of prerequisites, without a point.

The whole education system revolves around test. Everything is taught not for its intrinsic value, but how it relates to the upcoming test. They are poorly written given the inherently subjective nonsense the teachers teach. Much of the test revolves around rote memorization that quickly evaporates, when the kid leaves the class.

To the teacher, it more important for Johnny to know his math tables, while he still hits little Suzi. Everything revolves around grades, prerequisites, and the business world. The grades and such are an expression of the insecurity of the teacher, as they attempt to give meaning to that which can have no meaning. Information is not taught for its intrinsic worth... No wonder so many people from the institutions are so messed up and ignorant...

Most worthwhile information to be taught revolves around unteaching misinformation that has already been taught. Institutionalized schools are designed to hold you back, not aid in your development. You don't learn about life from festering in a boring brick building, but by living it.

What we have is a Gestapo, fascist, conformist institution to indoctrinate the populace. A reflection of societies insecurity... The teachers are so insecure they must lock you up in these cesspools, with truancy laws empowering police to punish you, if you escape.

We get the endless mindless mantra from the parent drones, that we need to devote more resources to 'education'. It is fascinating that they never state, ‘we need more gym class’, or ‘we need more Econ classes’, but just 'education'. The ignorant emphasis labels and not what they represent, for their labels are but illusions... The teacher unions are a fake union. They are the privileged class. Working in cushy work conditions, they get summers off, and benefit from true blue collar work to which they are totally ungrateful of. They demand to be paid more than those who actually contribute to society revealing themselves as parasites of bourgeois through the tax system (that with withering away of the state we would get rid this statist class).

We don't need all this. Parent can teach kids how to read (like my Mom taught me, and Tintin comics did the rest). Once you can read, you can teach yourself, (the only way you actually learn). You can use books, internet, or voluntary tutoring (money corrupts).

It so worries me that some leftist overemphasis this institution as an end as opposed to an means to an end. Institutions have one and only one priority, and that is to perpetuate their existence. These illusions must recognized for what they are…

redstar2000
23rd April 2003, 23:55
You are not alone in your ideas, Robot Rebellion.

Here are two threads that you may find of interest...

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=13&topic=494 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=13&topic=494)

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=13&topic=524 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=13&topic=524)

:cool:

exploding toast
27th April 2003, 03:21
thanks for the links redstar... and very good points robot rebellion

Dhul Fiqar
27th April 2003, 04:43
I agree with many of your points, but I think you're overstating the case. In any society, apart from a developed anarchist society of course, you need some sort of organized passing on of information.

Also, in non-industrialized societies schooling cannot be taken care of by parents or individuals because they are busy working and are themselves unschooled and often illiterate.

Also, standards are totally central to an organized economic and political structure. A truly Communist state would fall apart if there wasn't standardization of knowledge. You wouldn't want to be treated by a doctor who picked up his knowledge here and there, because you don't know what his 'education' has covered and what it hasn't.

In almost all societies, you have to have a degree of uniformity and you have to creat that through institutionalization, as much as it pains me to say it.
I am pretty much an anarchist-socialist, so I absolutely hate these institutions. I just think it would take a very fundamental change in the fabric of society to abolish them without disastrous effects.

Why not REFORM the institutions to teach more worthwhile skills? To encourage tolerance for individuality at the same time as uniform adherance socialist values.

--- G.

redstar2000
27th April 2003, 13:54
For people in pre-industrial societies, I would think two things to be fundamentally required: (1) to be able to read and write; and (2) to learn the rudiments of scientific thinking.

Peasant societies are rife with superstition and it's difficult to see how any progress can be made without breaking the quasi-medieval mind-set that holds them in thrall.

Some form of compulsory schooling would appear to be unavoidable in such circumstances.

For advanced capitalist countries, the situation is entirely different. Once kids learn how to read, how to use a computer, and again how to look at the world in a scientific way, what further purpose is served by shoving some particular body of knowledge down someone's throat?

No matter how much pleasure we take from eating our favorite foods, what would our reactions be if we were tied down and force-fed to the point of nausea? Is it not the same, all too often, with knowledge?

Of course, we want people in positions of trust to "know what they're doing." Are the kinds of "credentials" that we rely on today the best way to do that?

I think it ominous that somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans die every year from medical fuckups. That is, they enter a hospital for treatment of a non-life-threatening condition and because a doctor, nurse, etc. makes a mistake, they die. And forget about finding out which hospitals are the worst or best; that knowledge is not made public.

How meaningful is an "M.D." degree under these circumstances?

Going out on a limb here, I would like to argue that apprenticeship is a superior method of learning a complex skill. Working side-by-side with a person who has already demonstrated marked competence and is willing to teach what s/he has learned strikes me as superior to simply sitting in a room, listening to lectures, and temporarily memorizing enough factoids to pass a test.

Nor am I particularly optimistic about reforming existing educational institutions. The people who run those outfits have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are...and may be expected to bitterly oppose any efforts to reduce their power, influence, and financial rewards. Their mind-set is one of "If I had to eat that shit, then by god you are going to eat it too!" Any serious, substantive reform immediately suggests that they didn't "have" to eat it after all...an unwelcome message, to say the least.

I expect education will be very much a "hot button" issue in post-revolutionary society. There is much that needs to be changed.

:cool:

Dhul Fiqar
27th April 2003, 22:29
Another good post comrade. As I said before, I am no fan of educational institutions in their current form. I believe they are one of the main power bases that the current capitalist sysetm uses to perpetuate it's false legitimacy from generation to generation.

I truly hope we arrive at a point where the entire issue of education can be revised for the benefit of the people rather than the state and class system as it is today. It seems to me there are no obvious solutions to securing the best possible outcome from such a radical re-evuluation of educational institutions, but a shake-up is certainly long overdue.

--- G.

Guerrillache69
28th April 2003, 04:32
well all you guys.. i think robot man is right here in a way.. but.. if we didnt go to school we'd be missing education.. many people including me say FUCK your fucking math mrs. nazi ***** i dotn give a shit about your algebra geomotry grabage.. im never ever ever going to b3e on a hill wondering whats its fuckign acrylic mass of the third hypontinuse of fuck is.. but if certain people didnt know these things who would be the engineers and the rocket scientists and all them.. if every1 was born knowing what they want to be when they grow up they could take "special" classes specifieng in that certain occupation..im wiht you guys school is a routine nazu facist organization and i hate it.. if any1 can come up with a system like mine or better tell me and we fucking strike.. boycott and come to school with "fuck this system use mine t shirts" or some other shirt.. LET ME KNOW!!! :)

Robot Rebellion
28th April 2003, 04:43
I agree with many of your points, but I think you're overstating the case. In any society, apart from a developed anarchist society of course, you need some sort of organized passing on of information.

We don't need hall monitors and principals in schools. We don't need hall monitors and principals in business suits or in the capital. Things kind of take care of themselves... If we need an institution to orderly pass on information, then we do not need that information. When you mean organized, you mean compulsory, which is at odds with the free-flow of information.

Also, in non-industrialized societies schooling cannot be taken care of by parents or individuals because they are busy working and are themselves unschooled and often illiterate.[/b]

Actually in true pre-industrial society work days are incredibly short. As observed by the founding Americans, the natives only spent less than 4 hours working, to which the rest of the day was their leisure. I wouldn't worry too much about being unschooled. GW has a masters degree and has an undergraduate degree at Yale for history!!! If you examine what's inside the school day, I think you'll realize you're not missing much, and your just wasting your time, at your expense, for others benefits, when 'education' is not supposed to be about that, but for your benefit. Kids are intelligent! Let them plot their own course. If I find I need to name famous historical artist in real life, I can research that, as is needed.

Also, standards are totally central to an organized economic and political structure. A truly Communist state would fall apart if there wasn't standardization of knowledge.

That’s because ‘communist state’ is an oxymoron that needs to be propped up with falsehoods. Truths don't need defending, only falsehoods do. That which is truth has no fear of illusions, for they are just that.

You wouldn't want to be treated by a doctor who picked up his knowledge here and there, because you don't know what his 'education' has covered and what it hasn't.

Our medical system is so messed up it's not even funny. Read 'The Holographic Universe' for a glimpse into the medial industry. It is a worse institution then schools, and it champions the motto of institutions (only existing to perpetuate their own existence) big time!!

In almost all societies, you have to have a degree of uniformity and you have to creat that through institutionalization, as much as it pains me to say it.
I am pretty much an anarchist-socialist, so I absolutely hate these institutions. I just think it would take a very fundamental change in the fabric of society to abolish them without disastrous effects.

Uniformity :confused: Would that be a good thing? Fundamental change in society? No more then the English choosing not to wear pork pie hats... Why do we need education?

Why not REFORM the institutions to teach more worthwhile skills? To encourage tolerance for individuality at the same time as uniform adherance socialist values.

--- G.

Why not return the acquisition of knowledge into a means to an end, as opposed to an end to itself? Why not let the victim choose for themselves how they want to pursue their lives? If a state needs to tell an individual what they need to know, then having people run the state is circular logic, to which your implied argument fails.

Teach tolerance??? You can't teach this. Tell somebody to be nice and it won't work. With reverse psychology, they will probably do the opposite. Live your life as the example without doing it for show, and that will work.

Teach them to be socialist? You don't need to teach that which is natural. Capitalism is an artificial board game and it that which needs to be indoctrinated, to perpetuate its own existence.

canikickit
28th April 2003, 04:51
Do we need to devote so much of our time to balancing equations? Proofs? It is pointless busy work, as calculators already provide this capacity, and means to come up with such without calculators can be sought out/created as needed.

Maths is a good way of developing logic. I know it helped my genius reach its present day towering heights. It's also a lot of fun.

Nevertheless, I agree with the sentiment of your post.

deathdust
28th April 2003, 05:52
I agree with your point, Robot Rebellion (although I only bothered to read the first two paragraphs)

arrrrrrrrrrrghh.... can't be bothered to write my opinions...........wwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Urban Rubble
1st May 2003, 21:32
Well, I agree that our school systems are fucked up, but taking school away all together is laughable. I think what we need to do is give the kids more choices for one. In elementary school, give them choices on what they want to study, have more diverse classes, make it more of a choice. Also, we should start shaping kinds to have a career more early. Teach kids basic working skills, you know, basic shop classes, a class on how to produce food. The earlier we start truly educating kids, about things that actually matter, the better off in life they'll be.

redstar2000
1st May 2003, 21:58
"taking school away altogether is laughable."

Certainly it seems that way now. In a reactionary period like the present, it is hard to even imagine how things will look and how people will think in a revolutionary period.

We think at the moment "we'll change this and this...but certainly not that."

It kind of misses the whole point of revolutionary periods...in which everything is critically examined with fresh eyes.

Do we need this or that hoary and revered institution, relationship, building at all? And if we decide to keep it, under what fresh constraints will we permit it to exist?

Personally, I think the institutionalization of education is one of those ideas that just hasn't worked out very well at all; it "dumbs down" and alienates more people than it educates.

We can do better than that.

:cool:

redstar2000
4th May 2003, 05:34
Funny coincidence, speaking of "dumbing down"...

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/1607224.php

:cool: