Purpose of Institionalized Education

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Ok, this will be upsetting if there are any NT educators.

The purpose of school is the procession of people similiar to that of an assembly line, to develop them into intelligent machines and disposable commodities similiar to that of the computer and the Internet.

Effectively, schools are nothing more to develop a skilled workforce. It is not for education for it's own sake, but education to suit the employer's will. Most autistic people can educate themselves for it's own sake, but many don't paid for the skills they learned outside of school and are marganlized for even being curious about learning outside of school.

Personally, the institutionalized school system is a part of the institutionalization and homogenization of society. So much for individualism when you have to conform to conventions of society. Individiuasm as espoused in the West is nothing more then a fiction. There are always certain ways of doing things and anyone who does things differently is ostracized.

I'm afraid your thesis is hardly startling or novel. You might like this essay published in 1969, "The Student and Society", from Jerry Farber's book _The Student as Nigger_.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6147908/Jerry ... -as-Nigger

/\ Thank you. That is scary that is written in 1967. I am sure the schooling has mellowed out a bit, but not to much to be differently.

Does school encourage creative and creative logic? No? Why is there such a lack of open ended assignments? Because they want you to follow what the Boss says. I am in college now, and I am glad our assignments are incredibly open-ended, but when I was in high school, everything was regimentated.

Regimination and bureaucratization, incoherent curriculum, malappropriation of enormous money and mediocre teachers are the greatest weaknesses of public education.

Sure. Learning for its own sake is considered a luxury around here, and a luxury of questionable value at that. Schools are focusing most of all on preparing students to hold the jobs they'll have as adults--not just primary and secondary, but colleges and universities, too. I hear a lot of complaints about "I'll never use this!" from people in high school or college. We're very focused on practical stuff. After all, they think, if you can't work, what is there to life? Multiple times I've asked questions in a class, only to be told, "Don't worry; you don't need to learn that for the test." It frustrates me. I may be completely unfocused and often unable to force myself to actually do the work, but when I manage to hyperfocus or get just the right amount of caffeine, I don't just study for the test. I study to understand the material.

I think actually that most people are born with attitudes towards learning much like that; learning for its own sake; only somewhere along the way, they get frustrated or preoccupied and start thinking of it as a chore... I wish I could go back to the time when I was a child and learning was so rewarding and stimulating that it almost always overcame the inertia that made other things so difficult. Now, it's like the other way around... I can take showers and do dishes, but school has become something that seems overwhelming and complex. I have to pretty much take advantage of any time I find myself alert and engaged enough to really learn. I don't think I'm capable of just memorizing things. Memory is my worst skill anyway. If I don't understand something, if I can't connect it, then I won't learn it.

This reminds me of university. All the focus was on passing tests, which took the joy from learning. The majority there felt the same way--especially being the type of science degree you don't take primarily for career prospects--and they would often discuss openly how they'd lost their passion for the subject and no longer felt their university studies had much meaning, and that it was a waste of time. They couldn't wait to get it over with.

See http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ It's a brilliant site.

School was set up to produce obedient workers/citizens and consumers.

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Public schools are nothing but centers for mass indoctrination.

Private schools can be as bad, but at least the parent can know and have input as to what the kid is being taught where you have no say in public schools.

No, you do have a say in public schools; you can run for the school board or vote for people who do, and if your kid has an IEP you get a say in that, too.

First off, half the crap they teach you isn't needed for your job. The second half they teach you is wrong when you get on the job. It's like the purpose of education is to prepare you for a job, but then when they built it, they added things to teach just to teach it, and everyone in your job knows what you learned that was real and what was BS, but nobody tries to improve it. Then on top of it, a degree anymore is useless without experience. When you apply for a job, they want a degree plus experience, and you can't get the experience without the degree, but you can't get the job without the experience, which means, not only do you have to spend a large portion of your life's earnings as college education is about the same price of a mortgage right now, and not only do you rot for 4 plus years beyond high school learning about this, but now, you also need to find a place who will let you work for free for a while to get that experience, and if you are lucky, you can receive college credit for your intern. The only people who succeed in this system are the puppets.

It's like this. Imagine a guy working for 25 years at something, and now his job requires a degree for hire, and he loses his job because the economy or something. So, to get the same type of job he had, he now needs a college degree or a stupid piece of paper that says he can do what he's been doing for the last 25 years. So he goes to school to get that stupid piece of paper. In school, he is laughing at all the crap they say in the textbook. He spends good money to spend the majority of his time teaching the teacher and correcting the textbook. Basically, in the end, the people who know what they are doing in a job get screwed over so that the people who haven't the faintest clue can find employment.

Now, as far as my kids go, I feel sorry for whatever school they end up going to. I took Into to Education class in college, and the textbook said one thing that was very true, a teacher's worst enemy or best friend is the parent. I will keep my children's teachers on a very tight leash when it comes to many things. Also, I plan to supplement the school at home. Like my nephew is learning about the law of supply and demand in school. He was able to spit out the definitions of supply and demand. His mom quizzed him on textbook definitions at the table like what is supply, what is demand, what is the difference between goods and services. Then I took it to another level and asked him to give me an example of an item within the last couple years that was high in demand. He said something silly. Obviously he didn't fully understand the definitions. After working with him on it, he finally came up with Wii as a high demand item. Then I was ready to explain to him the concept of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, but the grown ups with me didn't want me to take it that far, and I'm sure they have no idea what the law of diminishing marginal utility even is (for those who don't know as it's just one thing I remember from microeconomics, but basically, it just means that a person's level of satisfaction in a product after so long goes away, like the first slice of pizza is delicious but after four or five slices, it doesn't taste as good as that first slice, or the way I would describe it to my nephew who is a big video gamer, after a certain point, you get sick of playing the same old video games and want to buy a new one which is something he requests for that same reason on a regular basis with a disclaimer that it's no excuse to keep buying video games as much as trying to do other things besides play video games like occasionally reading a book or something).

Either way, with my children, my goal is to teach them things in a way that they understand it for their own sake as well as teach them real life things like first aid, how to shoot a weapon, how to cook and clean, etc., as well as prepare them for college and the work force which would include work experience, experience with money and budgeting and balancing checkbooks, and I want them taking college classes part time through high school to get some of that crap out of the way rather than making them take high school physics and calculus like I wasted my time doing. More than likely, if their high school doesn't offer much for college credit already, I will probably work on requesting through the local college that they provide credit for certain classes, even if that means I have to try to get the high school to change some lesson plans around to accomodate any requirements. If I can't do that, then I may ask the high school to allow my children to take a couple of their classes online through a college in place of some high school classes (i.e. study hall).

Anyway, I obviously don't agree with the system, but I will be manipulating it in the future to work my way. Yes, I'm a control freak. Obviously. But I will say UMUC online will admit students who don't have a high school diploma if the reason they don't have it yet is because they are still in high school.

I agree private schools can be as bad or worse than public schools, as I've attended both, but whether or not you have a say in what is being taught is another story.

The only way you can really get a say is if you're willing to get up and walk out, as many private schools won't listen to your grievances unless you threaten to do just that, and even then some won't listen.

Although getting up and walking out is an option, doing it isn't easy. Take if from a guy who between grades 1-8 went to 6 different schools.