public schools

[redcannon]

well, this isn't a question, more of me *****ing, but i'd like some feedback as well.

In my opinion, the public school system (I know only of the US one, but I'm sure its the same everywhere else) is just a giant paradox. First of all, it was a socialist endeavor (paid by the state and so directly against the Laissez-Faire system) but the state uses it to perpetuate capitalism. so its just a confusing mess. the teachers say that socialism is bad, yet its because of socialism that they have jobs, and that they themselves can read and write.

so what do you all think of this? it gives me a headache, quite honestly

[RevSkeptic]

It just goes to show that any institution that is isolated from the greater Capitalist society end up being corrupted to serve the goals of that greater society.

If you have public schools in say Feudal society then even if it's free and paid for by the state the value it tries to instill into it's participants will be the values prized by the greater society such as chivalry and religious piety which were in plentiful amounts in medieval European society. So you can pretty much bet your life that if Feudalism and Kings were still around the students in "public" school would be taught jousting and values of knighthood and being humble to the church.

As for current society which values trading for the best value in return for the least cost given out and gaining an advantage over your opponent in any way you can short of violence, individualist competition for the most "correct" answers in the least amount of time is valued. Think of each individual student as a business entity like a store that is competing with every other store for the most profit (grades) for the least amount of errors (costs) in the shortest amount of time (efficiency) and you'll see the Capitalist or should I say merchant value system superimpose on the education of human beings. Education simply becomes knowledge drilled into your head that is optimized to cost and time of course for the paying customer which is business willing to rent you out.

[RevSkeptic]

Incidentally this taylorist assembly line method of drilling in knowledge into "students" was also practiced in so-called Socialist countries so the entire superstructure of a merchant society institution was still in place for a society that was supposedly liberated from such oppression. Makes you sort of wonder what these firebrand ideologues like Stalin or Mao was really implementing. Perhaps they simply want to run their country like their own personal corporation and call it Socialism.

Meh. <_<

[redcannon]

great point and explenation.

the thing that really gets to me is that children go to school so that they can get good jobs, when really it should be for education. I mean, getting a good job might be important, but people should attend school to learn, not trained.

[sanpal]

Public schools in capitalist society means undoubtedly that such society is characterized as socialism. Capitalism means only capitalist mode of reproduction but more or less degrees of social protection of people in capitalist society can signify that socialism is more or less developed.

Another thing - what kind of ideology is given to students in public schools. If it&#39;s a negative to socialism (socialism is bad) so this means that socialism in this country is definitely bourgeois.
Socialism can be very different - bourgeois, proletarian, priest, etc. For example, in the former USSR in public schools (there were no others) students were given Marxist-Leninist ideology.

[Reuben]

I believe it was engels that said that the the state is a committtee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgieosie. Now,you see, the bourgieosie needs an educated workforce and one which has internalised capitalistic norms, but it is not in the interests of any singlle capitalist to pay for schooling, and so we have public schooling provided by the state. This is no more indicative of socialism than the fact that the state pays to maintain public highways s that commerce may flow. This is not to say that schooling can be reduced simply to a commercial enterprise on the part of the ruling class. Even within a capitalist society the ruling class does not enjoy complete hegemony - and the actions of the ruling class are not alone a function of their ecoomic self-interest - and hence we other influences upon the education system. Yet it is unsuprising that schooling and education, in the final analysis, reflect the balance of power within society.

[Comrade Nadezhda]

Regardless if public education is a characteristic of socialism, public schools in capitalist society, though controlled by the state apparatus, - the state apparatus serves in bourgeois interest (i.e. the bourgeois ruling class in control of the state apparatus in capitalist society). In this case, "socialism" is simply a bourgeois-state managed institution, which is quite different from the socialism existent in a proletarian state (DotP) - where the bourgeois ruling class is not in control of the state apparatus and therefore its functions - i.e. public institutions such as education. So for someone to say "socialism is bad" is quite a contradiction, as "socialism" isn&#39;t necessarily defined by the existence of a proletarian state- there is also bourgeois socialism, which ultimately benefits the ruling class (bourgeoisie) even when it may be seen as a contradiction to capitalism- it still serves in the interest of the ruling class. That is where it gets fucked up. Socialism in that situation would be merely an instrument used by the ruling class.

Also, I should mention, that many bourgeois children (at least in wisconsin) don&#39;t attend public schools. They attend private schools and often speak of the better education they get. You don&#39;t see children of bourgeois families attending a school in the city, for example, they attend private schools- which aren&#39;t free. Children of working-class families never get into private schools, because private schools usually charge &#036;10,000 a year, if not more, which a working-class family most likely could not pay for 12-13 years of their child&#39;s life, and private schools won&#39;t cost tuition costs for working-class families, they charge them the same price.

It&#39;s not simply a matter of education being a public institution, but the fact that the bourgeois state uses it as a means of creating further class distinctions, which is clearly what has happened in most of wisconsin, and also where I grew up and spent most of my life- the city of milwaukee. What I witnessed my entire life was bourgeois families moving out of the city boundries, and they sent their children to private schools- separating themselves from the rest of society- the working-class society- and creating further class distinctions.