On school culture

[Prophet 451]

Written for something else but it applies to the VA tech thing too:

It starts with schools. What do schools teach? Facts, knowledge, reasoning skills? Partly but think about it more deeply? What are you taught by total obediance to the teacher, by having to get a permission slip even to take a piss? You're taught obediance to authority. What are you taught by the endless bullying of anyone bright, unusual, odd, the bullying that all teachers know goes on and very few really try and stop? You're taught conformity (I'll come back to that one), you're taught that to survive, you need to think as part of the herd. When the bell rings and you drop whatever you're doing, what are you taught there? You're taught that no work is worth getting invested in. For a few of us, school days were "the best days of our lives", for me though and plenty of others, school days were quite easily the worst days of my life (and I say that while suffering from clinical depression and often overwhelmed by suicidal impulses).

Schools in teh way we have them don't exist to turn out bright, well-adjusted, enquiring minds. They exist to turn out little worker ants, little consumers who operate in blind obediance to authority. Knowledge is frowned on if it isn't the right kind of knowledge, being different is frowned on, questions are frowned on if they aren't the right kind of questions. Is it any wonder kids become so apathetic? Is it any wonder homeschooling isn't just for scary religious people any more (although there's plenty of them homeschooling as well)?

Shortly after Columbine happened, Pinkerton's detective agency sponsored a program (still ongoing as far as I know) called "Wave USA" (colloquilly known as "geekwatch") which gave out cards promising discounts on certain (all very mainstream) stores and advised students to look out for "suspicious" signs in their fellows. What were those suspicious signs? Things like using the net a lot, being a loner, wearing certain types of clothing or listening to certain types of music. Again, conformity is hailed, nonconformity, freedom of thought is disgraced. The message was clear, Columbine didn't happen because two bullied kids went nuts and struck back with horrific consequences, Columbine happened because the geeks, the loners, the bright or sensetive kids weren't ostracised enough. I'm not defending what happened at Columbine. At least two students (and possibly several more, there's a lot of unanswered questions about Columbine) went nuts and killed a lot of people. That's never a good thing. It was an appaling over-reaction and a horrifying loss of life but on some level, "down deep in places you don't like to talk about at parties" (Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan Jessup again), I can understand why they did it. When your entire school life is a struggle to maintain your sanity and self-respect; when you're told to learn and then hated because you do it too well; when you're ostracised, abused, belittled and often assaulted just for being who you are; yeah, on some level I can understand why they did it. But the response to Columbine wasn't to try doing something about the bullying or the system thats almost designed to turn bright kids into forlorn self-harmers and drive them toward the edge of suicide. The response was to say "we've got to keep these geeks even more downtrodden".

I wanted to become a teacher at one point. I wanted to share my love of history with teenagers, teach them how we got from there to here and how much the past informs the present, maybe instill a similar love in a few of them. I wouldn't be allowed to teach of course. I'm openly bisexual, I'm openly a far-left liberal, I openly worship the devil. I'd never be allowed to teach, if you tolerated me, your children could be next. There's a lot of bad teachers in the system but there's some good ones too and the good ones are scared. They can see where things are going, the ones who share my love of history can see the old patterns re-emerging. They can see science being replaced with religion, the teaching of facts being compromised with politics, the endless drive toward monotonous, tedious mediocrity and most of them don't like it but what, they think, can they do? They get paid sod all anyway, they have to figure out how to keep the electrity turned on, how to provide for their kids. School boards think nothing of firing a teacher for the tiniest of reasons now and with that atmosphere, they can't afford to be fired, especially in America's current climate of rampant anti-intellectualism, so they just keep their heads down and do their job as best they can.

And while the system is so totally FUBARed, we ask ourselves why kids are dropping out, why they're so apathetic, why some of them are violent, why some of them take drugs and, in the USA, the public concludes that they weren't scared into being Christian enough.

But that's a topic for another time...

[MadHound]

1. Actually I don't think that this monograph on school culture applies to higher education at all

The vast majority of colleges and universities actually welcome diversity and difference. The vast majority actually want their students to think, both inside and outside the box. Most universities have histories of non-conformist behavior. The vast majority encourage intellectual development and don't tolerate bullying.

And I think that your criticisms are applying less and less to those in elementary and high schools. A new generation of teachers and administrators are coming in, ones that realize the value to diversity, intelligence and the need to provide a safe enviroment for all. Perhaps if you had pursued your teaching degree you would have found this out.

This doesn't mean that everything is hunky dory. But it does mean that things are improving, and perhaps you should take a second look.

[Prophet 451]

3. Um, I think this may be a US/UK thing

I'm British and attended college here. When I talk about the drive toward conformity in the context of colleges, I'm referring less to the administration and more to the fellow students. Here, college education is free if you're under 19 so most of the people I went to school with went on to college in some capacity. The result was that the place ended up being pretty much an extension of school. It was universities who prized diversity, non-conformity and intellectual brilliance (in the US, you kind of smoosh college and university together).

I'd like to hope things are changing in schools. I left school long ago as did my siblings so the most recent first or second-hand knowledge I have is about six years out of date. Given the virtual warzone I went to school in, I'd like to hope that someone has realised how toxic that enviroment was and taken steps to rectify it.

We actually approach teacher training differently here. You have to do a degree in your chosen subject first (history in my case with a specialism in classical history) and then do a two-year education certification on top of that. For a long time, that was at your own expense although that's changed now. I didn't pursue it because at the time I was looking around for a career, our education system was in freefall and things like my sexuality, faith, politics and even the way I look (long hair, bearded, scarred) really would have made a difference. That is, I appreciate, far less true today but it was true back then so I chose law instead (and ended up in IT, you know how life works out).

Thanks for taking the time to give a thoughtful reply. By the way, "monograph"? I would have called it a rant :)

[orpupilofnature57]

2. PROTO-TYPES

Anything or anyone not Franchised ,is looked at with disdain and contempt,ostracizing free thinkers is thousands of years old.Shrub can't complete a sentence without interjecting some Biased ,agenda oriented subjection. My point I think youth have seen idiots succeed ,not through hard work and imagination ,but being connected to lite-fascism at all levels.The world has infiltrated campuses through media ,instead of a world of art, Ideas and metaphysical appreciation of Knowledge, the spirit and idea of why their there has changed.