Edukayshun

I know this is a weird title for a post, but it is a lame attempt at humor over a very serious topic--education in America.

This is a very broad topic for me. I'm not even sure how to tackle it except to break it down into chunks. (I suspect this would make a great book, but I don't know if I should be writing it.)

If there is a central thesis to my views on education it is this. Education is free. I don't mean free in the publicly funded sense. I mean free as in getting a library card and reading and learning whatever it is you please.

Technically, this education is not free. Someone has to pay for it. But never in history has knowledge been so cheap and so available. Thanks to libraries, bookstores, and the internet, you can learn just about anything you want. About the only thing that is prohibitive is learning how to operate expensive equipment or other hands on endeavors. For instance, I'd like to learn how to fly a plane, but that will take some cheddar which I don't currently have.

But when it comes to science, mathematics, history, economics, literature, or what have you, you can learn anything you want. I discovered this when one of my college professors remarked that a college education is free. All you need is a library card. I ran with this idea and supplemented my education with additional reading. I daresay I have learned more out of school than in it.

So, what is the value of a college education? Recognition. That's about it. You will get a piece of paper that says that you studied something and received a grade for it. I don't think I learned anything in school that I couldn't have learned on my own. I will go the next step and say that everything we learn is self-taught. The value of an instructor is merely as a guide and a safety net.

The dangerous idea about education is the monopolization of learning and the idea that learning ends when school is done. I am a big believer in continuing education and supplemental education. You should never stop learning new information and new skills. Yet, people seem to think that education can only happen in a classroom.

Homeschooling is an excellent example of what I am getting at. When the homeschooling movement began in earnest, it was thought of as a joke and the backward workings of religious fundamentalists. The joke ended when those homeschooled kids started winning spelling bees and going to Harvard. Nowadays, even nonreligious folks see the value of homeschooling.

The public schools are broken. Public school kids do worse on basic skills than kids from foreign countries. I used to believe that the way to fix public schools was more rigorous testing, uniforms, and year round schooling with a half day on Saturday. Now, I reject this paternalism. I think the public schools should be abolished. Let parents and kids decide what is best for their children's education. The homeschool movement shows what happens when parents wise up and pull their kids from public schools.

It is the nature of stupid Americans to think that if the government doesn't do it that it won't get done at all. But this is simply bullshit. That is why Americans continue to pour tax dollars into the sham of public education. Trust me on this, folks. America's kids would be better off without public schools. They aren't learning shit now, so why not save that money?

The reality is that the free market will provide because it already has. The learning is there for the taking. Between TV, DVDs, the library, and the internet, you can get all the learning you could ever want. There are already curriculums for homeschooling. The rich will probably elect to send their kids to private schools or have tutors for their kids. This will chap the asses of leftist egalitarians, but I hate to tell them this divide already exists. But it is not because of a lack of opportunity. It is a lack of initiative upon the part of the poor which explains why they are poor. Public schools haven't changed this and won't ever change this. The rich already pull their kids out of bad schools either by moving or buying private schooling.

Another thing that needs to end is government funding of higher education. Colleges and universities shouldn't get a dime of taxpayer funds. Consider Joe Blow who busts his ass to subsidize the education of Johnny, a rich kid who goes to State U., binge drinks, bangs co-ed beaver, and never goes to class. Meanwhile, we have a glut of college grads but a critical shortage of brick masons and welders.

The reason we have government education is primarily for the means of indoctrination. Everyone wants to push an agenda, and they use government schools to do it. This is why atheists and Christians fight back and forth over prayer, the ten commandments, sex ed, and evolution. In addition, the teaching of history is skewed in favor of the government propaganda. For instance, as a schoolkid I was a big admirer of Lincoln and FDR. I despise both of them now as proto-dictators. Why did I use to admire them? Textbooks and teachers. Hell, I even used to think Woodrow Wilson was a great guy, and the world needed the UN to run it.

The other aspect of public schools is the fact that shitty teachers can't be fired. They are owned by the teacher's unions who protect their turf with byzantine certification requirements and threats of lawsuits and strikes. I remember having two teachers in my public school days who drank on the job and didn't even bother teaching. Ironically, I still learned and probably learned it better because I taught myself. I would indulge my own curiosities by going to the library which is a practice I continue to the present day.

Another thing that has interested me recently is the Montessori schools and theory. It seems to reflect my own thinking that we teach ourselves. I'll probably read up more on this, but studies indicate that Montessori kids do better on standardized testing than their public school peers.

In conclusion, it is time to liberate education from the government monopoly. You can learn anything you want. No one is stopping you. Whether you receive recognition for that learning is another matter. Education and ideas about it need to change.

Posted in: