Education, Preparation for Life
"Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another."
— G.K. Chesterton
Most people accept life on this planet as normal. They daily see news of — or directly witness or experience — endless war, violence, conflict, murder, mayhem, rape, torture, hunger, disease, pain, unemployment, corruption, scandal, exploitation, greed, lust, addiction, and suffering. And, somehow accept it. None of this is normal. None of this is acceptable. None of this is okay. Only those who live in denial, are governed by their ego, or are totally deluded, can wake up in the morning and say, "What a great day — I have more people to love, more money to make, more success, more pleasure. I'm doing better than others, especially the less fortunate. And, my religion tells me I'm going to heaven, too. Gee, isn't life great."
That is, in a world of suffering, little more than denial. You may be unaware of, ignore, or deny, whatever you prefer to not have in your own little world of illusions. But it is still there. Denial doesn't change anything. Society runs on denial, denial of responsibility, denial of the truth. Denial is epidemic in society. The less you think for yourself, the less aware you are, the better you fit into society.
In most cases, your education — and the more education you have the more this may apply — has merely programmed and indoctrinated you. As a result, you are less able to truly think for yourself, and less able to recognize the truth. After all, Truth comes from within, not outside you. Just try to talk with the experts in all areas of science, psychology, medicine, and so on about alien abductions or UFOs. You will see a spirit of denial which forms an impenetrable barrier to the Truth; even watching video tapes of UFO sightings, witnessed and filmed by many different people in different locations (which is a very real phenomenon that occurs) does not penetrate their minds. The willful desire to remain ignorant effectively closes the mind. They do not want to know anything they have not been programmed with in their education; it does not fit within their paradigm, so it simply does not exist. If this is not living in total denial, what is?
The worst part is, the less people know, the more they think they know. And those who know least become the experts, authorities, leaders, and teachers in society. There is an old saying, "Those who can, do; those who can't teach." But it is even worse than this; those who teach have the (unspoken) agenda to stifle the independent or creative thinking of those in their charge. In other words, they are for the most part there to prove that they are smart and superior, and to make you dumber, or, at best, perhaps, to make you think just like them. Of course there are some exceptions, but we are not talking about individual teachers; rather we are considering the overall effect of the educational system today, especially in view of the undeniable "dumbing down" of America.
Academics admit that students seem to be getting stupider all the time; they have ever lower scores on intelligence tests; and the most basic skills to prepare someone for life — such as reading — are somehow not being learned. We are not here to blame students or even teachers. Rather, we need to ask, how and why is the educational system failing us, failing to prepare our children for life? Teachers have declared that it is unfair to test them, to see if they are fit to teach; high school teachers have refused to be tested to see if they can pass high school subjects. And they can see no hypocrisy in their being unwilling to be tested when they test their students all the time. Why is that? Academics and testing organizations have also decided the solution to the problem of lower test scores (which indicate less learning has taken place) is simply to give students higher grades, so that half the students in a class can now get A's basically for showing up. In one school, a grade of 50 merits an A. Teachers have shifted the grading curve, so that there is the Illusion of students doing better, while the reality is that they are doing worse and worse. This is nothing less than gross fraud and deception perpetrated upon unsuspecting children and parents, in an attempt to cover up the failures of the educational system.
Such thinking is typical of those in charge of education and most "helping" organizations. In the US, children go through thirteen years of education before they (more often than not) graduate from high school. Yet, many of them cannot read functionally. What is most surprising is that there is no such thing as remedial reading classes anywhere in Europe, where children all read well by the second grade! In the US, teachers (and reading book publishers) insist on having children "learn to read" by guessing at what a combination of letters (a word) means. After much guessing, they are expected to memorize the word in combination with its meaning. This system simply does not work very well, as attested to by the number of children who cannot even read a bus schedule when they graduate from high school. The correct method for teaching reading is called "phonics," in which a child learns to pronounce each letter and then can "sound out" a word — say it and recognize it by hearing it. The handicap of not being able to read is carried throughout life by those who fail to read well in the educational system. They only guess at words for the rest of their lives, rather than being able to read. Why does the US educational system mandate teaching something so wrongly and ineffectively? Properly taught, children can read well by the second grade; so, why do teachers make reading, learning, and knowing anything for oneself so hard? Their arrogant attitude of "give us your child's mind, we know best" destroys the minds — and lives — of countless children who only "learn" that they are a failure and a problem. Is this the ideal of education? read more ...
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