Have our kids checked out?
Has "education" morphed into babysitting and mind control?
I read an interesting post by a college professor that talks about students that are not ready for post secondary education and are disinterested in college material. He complains that young people use AI to write essays or just “throw material” on the page. Most don’t read the textbooks or the books. One student was even gambling on his computer during class.
This professor places a good deal of blame on the students and technology. But one has to wonder if there is more to the story.
In South Dakota, about 20% of the K-12 students are absent (in some areas over 40%). With that high of an absentee rate its obvious that kids (and parents) don’t value what is being offered. And as a result, the kids will not be proficient in the material that is being taught.
The latest strategy is to provide grants that keep kids in this failing public K-12 model. After all, employers need the parents at work, so it is really helpful to have a taxpayer funded babysitting service. Some companies in South Dakota have done such a good job of depressing wages with legal and illegal foreign and refugees workers that it is nearly impossible for a family to make it on one income.
If that many kids are “opting out” (absent or disconnected when present), maybe we need to rethink what we are offering and how it is presented. Is it really necessary? What happens if kids don’t get a full K-12 education? Are there other options that would be more appropriate? Is it possible to return to a model where kids can leave school after 8th grade? Do our social programs make things so easy kids make inappropriate choices?
Then perhaps we need to say the quiet part out loud. Is part of the problem that we have so heavily restricted what young people do and say that school is no longer fun. Differences are interesting. For example, if someone has experienced a culture other than his/her own why is it inappropriate for him/her to make comments about the culture? Rather than scream “cultural appropriation”, reduce the student’s grade, or send him/her to the principal’s or Dean’s office why can’t everyone participate in the discussion? Also, why is it bad to discuss race and ethnicity? If something is out of the norm, like a child pretending to be a cat, why is it inappropriate for other students to ask questions or protect themselves? Why is it so bad to talk about why there is gender dysphoria. After all, a high percentage of gender dysphoria in an animal population isn’t normal unless there are significant chemical inputs (injections, environmental chemicals, ingested chemicals)?
What is wrong with embracing the challenges and talking about them from a wide range of perspectives?
And why is it so troubling to question whether what is now deemed education, isn’t really education at all but some type of mind control activity where kids are just programmed to think and act in a specific way? If school is just about control, it is no wonder so many kids have checked out. School isn’t challenging their minds and it isn’t engaging or interesting. It is as if we have reached a point where it is a crime to think.
It is also interesting that college enrollment at South Dakota universities was dropping. Rather than consider closing campuses, South Dakota universities dropped admissions requirements for in-state kids and opened in-state tuition to a wider region (at a cost to the South Dakota taxpayers?).
If there isn’t enough demand to support a real university education, perhaps the solution is to close part of the schools rather than change expectations and reduce the competency level of graduates. After all, the numbers suggest some people would have a higher lifetime income stream if they avoid college all together.
Kids and parents are speaking. Rather than blaming them, maybe it is time for a complete overhaul.
Thank you for the article SD Voice. John Taylor Gatto, former longtime teacher from NYC, (d. 2018) wrote volumes about why kids are checked out (his Ch. 13 titled The Empty Child in The Underground History of American Public Education should be required reading) but he eventually came to reject all of it and wrote many books and gave lectures all over the country on why compulsory education fits more statist & corporate interests, not those of parents or community. Here's some of his books for those interested: A Different Kind of Teacher, The Exhausted School, Dumbing Us Down, Weapons of Mass Instruction, and The Underground History of American Education.
It seems like another case of government spending that creates even more government spending. My question is simple. Why can't the seemingly bottomless money pit that is our current failing education system, be converted into a system that allows children to be home schooled?? Perhaps, instead of the taxation strangle hold on parents, which is a big reason why both parents need to work full time jobs, we could reduce taxation by wasting less tax dollars on a clearly failing system. If my home were on fire, but my only means of putting out that fire was a small trickle of water, and a tiny sewing thimble, at what point should I abandon the possibility of extinguishing the blazing inferno?? Using congressional logic, I should quickly order more thimbles, and hope that they arrive before the fire has completely consumed my home. Lol.