95 Scary Truths About Education
Happy Halloween! (Oh, and don’t miss out on free stuff.) — Your #1 Newsletter for Accelerated Learning
“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.” -Arthur Conan Doyle
95 Ways “Education” is Hurting Children
The story begins on Halloween, 500 years ago, in a small town in Germany.
The man looked over the parchment in front of him and shuddered. If anyone found what he had written down, he could be killed.
And now, he was about to post the listicle he wrote for everyone to read. He was posting his death warrant.
In his world, one tyrannical institution controlled human behavior and thoughts… the Roman Catholic Church. A single utterance against that institution could end one’s career… and even one’s life.
The man was a professor and local priest named Martin Luther. He had painstakingly studied the Roman Catholic Church. Now, he stared at a list of ninety-five mistakes that the Church was committing. The contradictions had become unbearable, and he couldn’t stop himself from writing them. But would he go through with sharing them? If the Church leaders understood just a handful of his critiques, he could be burnt at the stake.
A fall breeze whipped through the monk’s room, and he said a prayer. Then, before he could stop himself, he rolled up the parchment and began walking into the town square.
It was early morning and the town was quiet. He reached the entry of the Church, and Martin Luther fixed his 95 Theses to the doors. His life was about to change forever.
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. –Martin Luther
It is now time for another reformation. The 95 points that follow are designed to identify the problems with one of the most powerful institutions in our modern world…. The public K-12 and Higher Education system.
I’m a fan of reformation, not revolutions. Revolutions are typically childish, whereas reformations can respect all the sacrifices that came before. Through reform, we respect the institutions or technologies that we’re seeking to improve. Reform means we don’t take the sacrifices our ancestors made to get us here for granted.
There are still many things about the entire Education system that are useful. There are many things about it that are worth preserving. But there are a growing number of things and contradictions that have become too much to bear. Those have to be addressed, and we must help the children, parents, and teachers suffering under a broken system.
Let’s take a look at one of the most true things about Education, the field of Anthropology. Anthropologists define a “religion” as a set of rituals and trainings around establishing a certain set of behaviors. Humans always gravitate towards some type of “religion” (even it’s a personal or tribal one) for stability in a chaotic world. Many times a person’s “religion” isn’t dictated by a Church, it’s just the collection of all their habits and thoughts that they consciously and unconsciously mimic and repeat.
Our public Education system trains children in various types of behaviors and thought patterns.
The Jesuits were a creepy bunch, and one of their sayings was, “give me a child for seven years and they’re mine for life.”
That is a disturbing recognition of the power that indoctrination and religious type rituals hold in our lives. Most people recognize that it’s terrifying and weird when the Jesuits would say something like that!
But then they see no problem when our public Education system indoctrinates children into a set of rituals that were designed to create factory workers and soldiers for war. What you’re trained or indoctrinated to do for the first 12 or 16 years of your life strongly influences all of your future behavior and available choices.
The end result of the behaviors taught inside Education are generally people who are often miserable, anxious, and trapped in bodies with minds they’ve never been taught to use, optimize, enjoy, or master… My heart goes out to them. This must not continue.
If we look at Education’s founding, we can confirm that crushing the imagination and human potential is its expressed purpose.
If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development. –Aristotle
Horace Mann started the United States education system after he was inspired by the Prussian and German model of Education. That model of Education was created by a German “philosopher” named Johann Gottlieb Fichte. To put it simply and bluntly, this guy was a pig. He hated Jews and women, and wanted to design an Education system to enslave women and the Jewish people living in Germany. He was disgusting, and yet he was the “inspiration” for the beginning of American Education.
The Church that Martin Luther rebelled against told us that we are trapped between the Devil and God.
The modern Church of Education and Science have shown us that we’re trapped between extinction and evolution.
In reality, we’re trapped with the power to control our imaginations, actions, and behaviors to create new realities. Humans posses the power for both horrible evils, and incredible virtues. It is up to us to first reform ourselves, and then imagine and collaborate with others for the highest good of all concerned.
Right now, there is no central goal or purpose for what we call “Education” or self-directed learning, and I’d like to propose a central purpose for Education.
The central purpose of education, learning, and collaboration should be to mediate voluntary evolution. In it’s current state, what we call education is leading humanity towards extinction.
The 95 points that follow are designed to spark a reformation, and you can help reform Education by joining the debate, sharing this story, and spreading this message.
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Tuesday Treats…
How Children Learn Bravery in an Age of Overprotection — Would you leave your 9-year old at a Bloomingdale’s and tell him to find his own way home? How about let your 13-year old go on a solo trip abroad? These parents did and here’s why.
They Dream of School, and None of the Dreams Are Good — Do you have recurring nightmares about school? You aren’t alone. In this study, Peter Gray reports 128 adults’ dreams about school. The results are interesting and make you wonder: Why do we have these dreams and will they ever go away?
Why Haven’t You Left School? —
School took me away from the learning I wanted to engage in and made me focus on things I didn’t want. I loved learning; I just hated school.
I funneled this restlessness and anxiety into a drive to get into college. “I can focus on what I want to learn at college,” I told myself. “Once I’m there, I can really get into the weeds of everything I need to know to go out and build what I want to do.”
I was mostly wrong.
Happy Halloween!
What’s your favorite scary story? Let us know in the comments, on social media, or by replying to this letter. If you are trick-or-treating tonight, stay safe out there!
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